# The Centennial History of Oregon, 1811–1912/Volume 1/Chapter 13

CHAPTER XIII
1844—1912
FOUNDING OF PORTLAND—TOWNSITE PROPRIETORS—FIRST TEACHERS, PREACHERS, DOCTORS AND LAWYERS—FIRST STEAMBOATS AND THEIR BUILDERS.
After the native red man, according to all reliable evidence, the first white man to come upon the Portland townsite and say, ' ' This is my land, here will I build my hut, here will I make my home, ' ' was William Overton, a young man from the state of Tennessee, who landed there from an Indian canoe in 1843, and claimed the land for his own. He had not cleared a rod square of land; he had not even a cedar bark shed to protect him from the "Oregon mist," when one day on the return trip from Vancouver to Oregon City, he invited his fellow passenger, A. L. Lovejoy, to step ashore with him and see his land claim, which he did. The two men landed at the bank of the river as near as could be located afterwards, about where the foot of Washington street strikes the river, and scrambled up the bank as best they could, to find themselves in an unbroken forest—literally "the continuous woods, where rolls the Oregon." The only evidence of pre-occupation by any human being, was a camping place used by the Indians along the bank of the river ranging from where Alder street strikes the water, up to Salmon street. This was a convenient spot for the Indian canoes to tie up on their trips between Vancouver and Oregon City, and the brush had been cut away and burned up, leaving an open space of an acre or so.
On this occasion, Lovejoy and Overton made some examinations of the land back from the river, finding the soil good and the tract suitable for settlement and cultivation if the dense growth of timber was removed. Overton was penniless and unable to pay even the trifling fees exacted by the Provisional Government for filing claims for land, or getting it surveyed, and then and there proposed to Lovejoy if he would advance the money to pay these expenses, he should have a half interest in the land claim—a mile square of land. Mr. Lovejoy had not exercised his right to take land, and the proposition appealed to him. Overton had not thought of a townsite use for the laud and did not present that view of the subject. But the quick eye of Lovejoy took notice of the fact, that there was deep water in front of the land, and that ships had tied up at that shore, and so he accepted Overton's proposition at once, and became a half owner in the Overton land claim; and the Portland townsite proposition was born right then and there in the brain of Amos Lawrence Lovejoy; and making him in reality and fact the
"FOUNDER OF THE CITY OF PORTLAND"
Following up this bargain and joint tenancy in this piece of wild land, Lovejoy and Overton made preparations for surveying the tract, some clearing and ​the erection of a log cabin. But before these improvements could be even commenced, Overton's restless disposition led him to sell out his half interest in the land to Francis W. Pettygrove for the sum of fifty dollars to purchase an outfit to go back to "The States" or somewhere else, nobody ever knew where. Of Overton nothing is known of the slightest consequence to the location of the town. One account says that he made shingles on the place. If he did, it was probably only for the cabin that was necessary to hold the claim, but he never built any sort of a house protection, and sold out to Pettygrove before the cabin was built. Overton was a mere bird of passage; no one ever knew where he came from or where he went to.
By some writers, Overton is given the honor of being the "first owner of the Portland Land Claim," and "after completing his settlement" he sold out to Lovejoy and Pettygrove. But he never was the owner of the claim, and he never made or completed any settlement. He had done nothing to entitle him to the land; he merely said to a passer-by, "This is my claim." He filed no claim with the Provisional Government, he posted no notice, he built no cabin, and he did not even do what the pioneers of the Ohio valley did, in a hostile Indian country in taking lands—he blazed no line or boundary trees. The Ohio valley pioneers took what was called in their day "tomahawk" claims to land. That is, they picked out a tract of land that suited their fancy, two or three hundred acres, and then taking a light axe or Indian tomahawk, they established and marked a boundary line around the piece of land by blazing a line of forest trees all around that land. That was the custom of the country. There was no law for it. Those settlers were hundreds of miles beyond the jurisdiction of any state, or the surveillance of any government officer. But when the public surveys were extended west from Pennsylvania and Virginia, these "tomahawk claims" were found to cover large settlements. Their blazed trees were notice to everybody and were respected by all incoming settlers; and the United States government surveyors were instructed to adjust all these irregular boundary lines and give the actual settlers on the lands, or their bona fide assignees, accurate descriptions of these claims, which were in due course confirmed by government patents. The first settlers in Oregon, both British and American, were doing precisely the same thing to secure their home and farms; and it was one of the objects of forming the Provisional Government to provide for the recording of all these claims to the end that strife and litigation might be prevented. The Provisional Government had already before Overton set up a verbal claim to the land provided for this registry of claims. Overton had not complied with that law, but gave Lovejoy half of his inchoate right, whatever it might be, to go ahead and comply with the law, and which Lovejoy did. Lovejoy is then in truth and fact the founder of Portland, Oregon, for it was he who secured the title to the land for a town site, and originated the town site proposition.
In organizing and maintaining the Provisional Government, Mr. Lovejoy took a leading, useful and honorable part. He occupied first and last nearly every office in the government, and was elected supreme judge by the people, and was exercising the duties of that office when the United States finally extended its authority over the territory in 1849.
Francis W. Pettygrove who joined Mr. Lovejoy in developing the Portland townsite, was born in Calais, Maine, in 1812; received a common school education in his native town, and engaged in business on his own account at an early age. At the age of thirty years he accepted an offer to bring to Oregon, for an eastern mercantile house, a stock of general merchandise, suitable for this new country. Shipping the merchandise, and accompanying the venture with his family on the bark Victoria, he reached the Columbia river by the way of the Sandwich Islands, transferring his merchandise at Honolulu from the Victoria to the bark Fama. This vessel discharged cargo at Vancouver, and Pettygrove had to employ a little schooner owned by the Hudson's Bay Company to carry the goods from Vancouver to Oregon City. After selling out this stock of merchandise, Pettygrove engaged in the fur trade, erected a warehouse at Oregon City and was the first American to go into the grain trade, buying up the wheat from the French Prairie farmers.
But to return to the townsite, we find that after buying out Overton, Lovejoy and Pettygrove employed a man to build a log house on their claim and clear a patch of land. The house was built; a picture of which may be found on another page, near the foot of the present Washington street. The next year, 1845, the land was surveyed out, and a portion of it laid off into lots, blocks and streets. That portion of the land between Front street and the river was not platted into lots and blocks, it being supposed at the time that it would be needed for public landings, docks, and wharves, like the custom in many of the towns and cities on rivers in the eastern states. But if such was the idea and intention of the land claimants, they failed to make such intentions ​known or effective at the time, and their failure to do so gave rise to much trouble, contention and litigation thereafter.
But it must strike every reader that it was a most singular proceeding, counting very largely on the lax ideas held by those pioneers on the subjects of land titles, that these two men could take up a tract of land in the wilderness without a shadow of a title from either the United States or Great Britain — the governments claiming title to the land—and proceed to sell and make deeds to the purchasers for gold dust, beaver money or beaver skins, as came in handy, and everything going "merry as a marriage bell." No abstract of title can be found that covers or explains these anomalies in the dealings of the pioneer town lot settlers; but it is proper to add that in assuming control of the country, Congress approved of the land titles initiated by the Provisional Government.
However, the real estate dealers in Portland in 1845 were giving a better deal to their customers in some things than their successors are in 1912. Nowadays the first thing in the history of the city is a grand map and a grander name. In 1845 Portland was started, and lots sold before it had any name. This proving somewhat awkward and embarrassing, the matter came up for discussion and decision at a family dinner party of the Lovejoys and Pettygroves at Oregon City, Mr. Pettygrove hailing from Maine, wished to name the to-HTi for his favorite old home town of Portland, while General Lovejoy coming from Massachusetts, desired to honor Boston with the name. And not being able to settle the matter with any good reason, it was proposed to decide the difference by tossing a copper; and so, on the production of and old fashioned copper cent, an engraving of which is given on another page, the cent was tossed up three times and came down "tails up" twice for Portland, and once ' ' heads up ' ' for dear old Boston. And that is the way Portland got its appropriate name.
Pettygrove erected a building for a store and put in a very small stock from his remnants at Oregon City. The business of the town moved imperceptibly; in fact there was no business worth mentioning. When a ship would come in, all that had money, furs, or wheat, would buy of the ship, and trade in their produce, so that merchandise at the store was a mere pretense.
The first item of improvement that so attracted the attention of the country as to have Portland talked about, was the starting of a tannery by Daniel H. Lownsdale in 1847—the first in Portland. As a matter of fact, however, there were three small tanneries at or near Oregon City, and many of the farmers up in the valley had been tanning deer and calves skins in a limited way, as nearly all the pioneer people knew something of the art of tanning skins; but the Lownsdale tannery was started as a business enterprise to accommodate the public and make profit to its proprietor. Hides would be tanned for so much cash, or leather would be traded for hides; or leather would be sold for cash, furs or wheat. Here was a start in a productive manufacturing business, and Lownsdale's tannery was the talk of the whole country, and advertised Portland quite as much as it did the tannery. This tannery was not started on the townsite, but way back in the forest a mile from the river, on. the spot now occupied by the "Multnomah Field" of the Athletic Association. And with $5000 dollars worth of leather, not yet tanned, Lownsdale bought out Pettygrove's interest in the townsite. After running the tannery for two years, Lownsdale sold it to two newcomers—Ebson and Ballance— who in turn sold it to Amos N. King, who then took up the mile square of land adjoining Portland on the west, known as the King Donation Claim, and which has made fortunes for all his children by the sale of town lots. Amos N. King was not much of a town lot speculator. It was a long time before he could muster up courage enought to ask a big price for a little piece of ground. He stuck to his tannery, and made honest leather for more than twenty years before he platted an addition to the city.
A leading citizen of those early days of Portland was John Waymire, who built the first double log cabin, and made some efforts to accommodate strangers and traders who dropped oft" the passing bateaux to look at the new city, by furnishing meals and giving them a hospitable place to spread their blankets for the night. Waymire further enlarged his fortunes by going into the transportation business with a pair of oxen he had driven two thousand miles all the way from old IMissouri across the mountains and plains. As the new town was the nearest spot to Oregon City where the ships could safely tie up to the shore and discharge cargo, Waymire got business both ways. With his oxen he could haul the goods up to his big cabin for safety, and then vrith his oxen he could haul the stuff back to the river to load into small boats and lighters for transportation to Oregon City. In addition to the transfer business, and the hotel business, Waymire started a sauanill on Front street. The machinery outfit would not compare well with the big sawanills along the river in Portland at the present time, being only an old whip-saw brought all the way from Missouri, where it had been used in building up that state. The motive power being one man standing on top of the log pulling the saw up preparatoiy for the ​down stroke, and another man in the pit under the log who pulled the saw down and got the benefit of all the sawdust. Waymire was the only busy man in the new town, and prospered from the start. He knew well how to turn an honest penny in the face of severe financial troubles. With the money made in Portland, he went to Dallas, in Polk countj', in later years and started a store, thinking it safer to rely on the farmers for prosperity than take chances on such a strenuous city life. There he sold goods "on tick" (credit) as was the custom of the country, and not being a good bookkeeper, he wrote down on the inside board walls of his store with a piece of chalk the names of his customers, and under each name the goods they had bought on credit, with sums due. And while absent on a brief trip to Portland, his good wife, thinking to tidy up the store, got some lime and whitewashed the inside of the whole establishment. On his return and seeing what had been done, he threw up his hands in despair and declared he was a ruined man. The good woman consoled him with the suggestion that he could remember all the accounts and simply write them all over again on the wall. And so the next day being Sunday, and a good day, and everybody absent at church, he undertook the task. His wife dropped in after divine service and inquired how he was getting along. He replied, "Well, I've got the accounts all down on the wall agin; I don't know that I've got them agin just the same men, but I believe I've got them agin lot of fellows better able to pay." There were preachers and teachers and all sorts of men in Oregon then, as now.
Another man that dropped in on young Portland the next year after Waymire, was William H. Bennett (Bill Bennett) who, having quit the mountains and the fur trade, started in to make his fortune in making shingles out of the cedar timber on the townsite, which was a gift to him. Bennett got a start and prospered until he was ruined by his convivial habits. He pushed various small enterprises, finally starting a livery stable at the corner where the Mulkey block is now located. The business started by Bennett was owned successively by John S. White, Lew Goddard, Elijah Corbett, P. J. Mann (founder of the Old Folks' Home), Godard & Frazier and now by Frazier and McLean, at the corner of Fifth and Taylor streets. In 1846 came Job McNamee from Ohio, having come into the valley with the immigration of 1845. McNamee was a good citizen and brought a good family, wife and daughter, possibly among the first ladies of the place, and whose presence smothered down some of the rough places in the village. Miss McNamee became the wife of E. J. Northriip, one of the best citizens Portland ever had, and the founder of the great wholesale and retail hardware store now owned by the "Honeyman Hardware Company."' Not long after the advent of the McNamees, came Dr. Ralph Wilcox from New York, a pioneer of 1845. Dr. Wilcox was the first physician and the first school teacher of the city, and a most useful and public-spirited citizen, taking a leading part in organizing society and serving the public as clerk of the state legislature and as clerk of the United States district and circuit courts. His widow, Mrs. Julia Wilcox, now over ninety-two years of age, is still active and an interested spectator of the growth of a city of two hundred and fifty thousand people, which she came to in her early womanhood as a few log cabins in an unbroken forest.
L. B. Hastings and family came across the plains in 1847, and stopped a while in Portland. He is remembered as an active, pushing business man, and stayed with the fortunes of the town for four years. But imagining he could see a larger city at the entrance to Puget Sound, joined with Pettygrove in building a schooner, and loading it up with all their worldly belongings. Pettygrove sold out his interests in Portland, and the whole party sailed away in 1851, for Puget Sound, where they founded the city of Port Townsend, and where they spent the remainder of their lives and strength in building up a city to eclipse Portland. Port Townsend has about two thousand population today, and Portland has one hundred and twenty-five times as many.
And now Portland got its first politician and statesman in Colonel William King, landing on the river front in 1848. Colonel King was an unusual man. He would have been a man of mark in any communit,y. He was needed by the new city, and he made his presence felt from his very first day in town. Nobody seemed to know from what corner of the earth King came, and he took no pains to enlighten them. But he was a valuable addition to the city, as he was familiar with all sorts of scheming, and by that early day the new town had to look out for its interests at every session of the legislature; and King was always on hand to see that there was a square deal with possibly something over for Portland.
If King's advice had been followed there would have been no question as to the ownership by the city of Portland of its water front east of Front street in the original townsite.
King made enemies as well as friends. His positive disposition and his love of fair play did not always tally with predisposed politics. It is remembered that at the time Governor Curry had selected officials for the militia without respect to party affiliations, a petition was gotten up by some democrats to have the whigs (republicans) removed or their appointments cancelled. When it was presented to King to sign, he read it over carefully, then as if not understanding it, read it a second time, and then vehemently tore the document to pieces, and proceeded to denounce the authors in words more forcible than polite: "That such men would rather see women and childi-en slaughtered by the Indians than to have a good mau of the opposite party hold an honorable position in the militia."
As great nations have been dependent on the sea, not only for their prosperity, but also their very existence—England for example—so it was with Portland, in the years of 1845 to 1851. And now the story turns from the land builders of the town to the hardy sea rovers working to the same end. And in this good work the name of Captain John H. Couch stands at the top of the list.
The first appearance of Captain Couch in Oregon waters, was in 1840, when he came out here from Newburyport, Massachusetts,—in command of the ship Maryland to establish a salmon fishery on the Columbia. The ship belonged to the wealthy firm of the Cushings of Newburyport, who had been induced to ​some extent by letters from Jason Lee to make this venture. The fishery was not successful, for there were no fishermen but the Indians, and they were not reliable in serving the Americans. And so Couch sold the vessel at the Sandwich Islands and returned to Newburyport, leaving in Oregon, George W. Le Breton, an active and pushing j'oung man, who made his mark in helping organize the Provisional Government. Having learned from this voyage, the conditions and requirements of trade in Oregon, Couch returned in 1842 with a stock of goods in a new brig—The Chenamus—named for the Chinook Indian chief who had lived opposite Astoria; and leaving this stock at Oregon City with one Albert E. "Wilson, and who also came out in the Chenamus, and Le Breton, Couch engaged his vessel in the trade to the Sandwich Islands, the whole business being under the name and auspices of Cushing & Company, of Newburyport. Couch continued to manage this business until 1847, when he returned home to Newburyport by the way of China. In the following year he engaged with a company of New York merchants to bring a cargo of goods to Oregon on the bark Madonna, Captain George H. Flanders coming out with the Madonna as first officer, and took command of the Madonna on reaching Oregon, while Couch took charge of the cargo, which was stored and sold at the new town of Portland on the Willamette. The two captains went into business together, and remained in Portland for the rest of their lives. And thus were two of the best men located in Portland that ever lived in the state.
Portland got the benefit of all this shipping by Captain Couch. He early saw and fully appreciated the advantages of the location for the foundation of a seaport and commercial city, and took advantage of his opportunities to locate a land claim at what has long been the north end of the city. And considering what Captain Couch did directly for the town, by making it the home port of his ships for several years, and also what he did indirectly by influencing other vessels to tie up at Portland, he probably exerted more influence to give Portland a start than all other persons combined.
Next after Couch, in giving Portland a start, came Captain Nathaniel Crosby, who founded the towTi of Milton, near the mouth of the Willamette slough. Crosby brought the bark Toulon into the river in 1845, and unloaded his vessel on the river bank at the foot of Washington street, and from there transported his goods up to Oregon City by smaller craft. Captain Crosby made numerous trips, and finally anchored in Portland and in 1847 erected the first palatial residence in the new city—the old story and a half house with the dormer windows which stood for so many years on the east side of Fourth street, between Yamhill and Taylor, having been removed to that site from its original location at the southwest corner of First and Washington streets. To accommodate the increasing traffic of his shipping, Crosby erected a small storehouse on the city front, probably on the open strip east of Front street, but most of his merchandise was sent up to Oregon City, which continued to be the commercial center of the whole country.
THE COIN THAT WAS TOSSED TO DECIDE THE NAME OF THE TOWN
Captain Gelston, mentioned above, made a second voyage to the Pacific coast, arriving in San Francisco baj', just after the great gold fever excitement got well started, and taking advantage of the gold panic news sent to the states, Gelston had laid in a heavy stock of picks, gold pans and shovels, and when he got safe within the "Golden Gate" his fortune was made, from the sales of his hardware at prices twenty-fold of what it had cost him.
With these ships came in some good men who located, drove down their stakes, and staid with the town until all got rich and repaid the town by great service as good and useful citizens. Of these may be mentioned Richard Hoyt, who canie as first officer on the Whiton; and Daniel Lunt, one of the mates of the Chenamus. Lunt took up a land claim south of Terwilliger's, and subsequently sold it to Thomas Stevens. The suburb of Fulton is now- built on the Lunt claim.
But according to the recollection of Colonel Nesmith, the first land claim within the present limits of the city was the claim just south of Lovejoy and Pettygrove. This was taken up in 1842 by William Johnson, an English sailor, who was living on his claim before Overton was claiming the land he sold to Lovejoy and Pettygrove. Johnson's name figured considerably in the history of the celebrated or notorious "Wrestling Joe" Thomas' lawsuit about the Caruthers estate, that estate being almost wholly the land originally claimed by Johnson and abandoned or sold by him to Finiee Caruthers. Mrs. Charlotte Moffett Cartwright remembers well the cabin of Johnson and his half-blood Indian wife, which was located near the ti-ail which led from the Terwilliger home to the "town." Johnson removed from the site of Portland to the vicinity of Champoeg.
Johnson had an interesting history, showing what a lot of odd and celebrated characters drifted into this then out-of-the-way corner of the world. He was originally an English sailor, subject of Great Britain, but foreswore his allegiance to the British king, and took service with the United States on the old frigate Constitution, and was in the celebrated naval battle between that ship and the British "man-of-war" Guerriere, in which bloody battle he made one of boarding party charging the bulwarks of the Guerriere and received an ugly scalp wound from a British cutlass. He delighted to tell of this terrible sea fight, speaking of the "Old Ironsides" as one might speak of their dearest friend. And being the only Oregoniau known to have taken part in a naval battle in defense of the American flag, he is entitled to have his name reverently preserved in this history. When the war of 1812 broke out between the United States and Great Britain, it was supposed that as this country had no navy, the English would sweep the American merchantmen from the seas. This they tried to do; and the few small frigates of the Americans could offer but little opposition. The American ship made famous by the battle here commemorated, had but then recently returned from European waters, where she barely escaped capture by the speed of her sailing. And when she fell in with the British ​cruiser Guerriere, off the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the 19th day of August, 1812, a trial of mettle and nerve was the result. The British captain had been anxious to encounter a "Yankee man-of-war," having no doubt of an easy victory, and the "Yankee" Captain Hull of the Constitution was ready to accommodate him. It was none of the modern steel-clad battle ships firing at each other from a range of eight or ten miles, but they were wooden ships and they sailed right into each other, firing their little cannon as rapidly as they could be loaded, until with grappling irons one ship laid hold of the other and her brave men leaped over all obstructions to end the fight at arm's length in a life and death struggle on the decks of the boarded ship. This was the real battle in which "William Johnson, who had his little log cabin on the present site of Portland seventy years ago, immortalized himself in. He was defending his adopted country against the injustice of the land that gave him birth, and he shed his blood that the Stars and Stripes should not be hauled doAvn in defeat. He was the first settler on the site of Portland, Oregon. He was a member of the first committee appointed to organize the provisional government, and he was one of the fifty -two who stood up at Champoeg sixty-nine years ago to be counted from the Stars and Stripes. And it is .justly due to his memory that his name and his great services be here duly recorded, that they may be honored for all time.
The original proprietors and their land claims will be better understood by reference to the drawing here given. William Johnson, the first settler within the present limits of old Portland, had taken the land south of the Overton tract, claimed by Lovejoy and Pettygrove, for the reason that the river valley south of the line of Caruthers street was open grass land, and furnished pasturage for cattle and horses. Etienne Lucier, one of the two Canadian French Catholics that stood up to be counted for American institutions at Champoeg, was the first settler within the boundaries of East Portland, and the first man to open a farm in Oregon, which he did on East Portland townsite in that year, 1829; but he made no claim on the land, and before Portland was claimed for a townsite, he removed to the open prairie lands called "French Prairie" (because so many Frenchmen settled there) in Marion county, and made his home there as a result of the offer of seed wheat to them by Dr. John McLoughlin, the head of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver. The wheat thus raised was sold to Dr. McLoughlin at Champoeg, and he, in turn, sold it to the Russian authorities at Sitka, and thus paid for trapping privileges in Alaska.
Lovejoy and Pettygrove were the next settlers filing claims on the Overton tract. And before any others came in they laid out sixteen blocks into lots, blocks and streets, making the block at the southwest corner of Front and Washington streets "block No. 1." James Terwilliger claimed the land south of the. Johnson tract. Daniel Lunt claimed the land south of the Terwilliger tract. Daniel H. Lownsdale claimed the land west of Lovejoy and Pettygrove, and Captain Couch claimed the land north of Lovejoy and Pettygrove. Then Johnson sold out to Finice Caruthers; Lunt sold to Thomas Stephens; Lownsdale sold to Amos N. King; Lovejoy sold out his interests to Benjamin Stark, and Pettygrove sold out to Lownsdale in 1848 for $5,000 worth of leather, and Lownsdale agreed to a segregation of the lands so that Stark got the sole title to the triangular tract bounded by the river on the east. Stark street on the south and the Couch claim (line of Ankeng street) on the north.
At the same time that Whitcomb and Kellogg were waging their active opposition to Portland, the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, which had at first made Astoria the end of their trip, suddenly abandoned Astoria, and came up and purchased a large interest at St. Helens, and erected a wharf and warehouse there, and made St. Helens the Oregon terminus of their San Francisco steamship voyage. Whitcomb and Kellogg at once united in this arrangement, and as it was a shorter run for their steamboat, it could be and was used effect​effectively to cut off trade from Portland by running the boat to Vancouver and Oregon City, as well as to all points on the Columbia river.
Up to this period, Captain John H. Couch had been the most efficient support that Portland had received in concentrating trade, especially the oceangoing sailing vessels. Couch's influence was never fully comprehended in this contest. He had made the acquaintance of hundreds of sea captains and was favorably known wherever these captains sailed their ships; and the fact that he had always discharged his own ship here influenced all his acquaintances on the seas to also "sail for Portland, Oregon."
But now the townsite proprietors—Coffin, Chapman and Lownsdale—must bestir themselves. They were compelled to meet the opposition of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company and destroy it one way or another, or be ruined. And by this time (1850) although growing slowly, Portland had gathered in quite a village population of active, earnest men, who not only had their own property interests at stake, but had a genuine friendship for the townsite proprietors. And it was decided that a long pull, and a strong pull, and a pull all together, was the thing to do and get in a steamship in the interest of Portland. This sentiment being conveyed down to San Francisco, the side-wheel steamer Gold Hunter took in a cargo for Portland, Oregon, and came up to see how the town looked. This was the first ocean-going steamship that ever tied up at Portland. It was in fact a gold hunter, and was for sale. Immediately every friend of Portland got busy. Hope and enthusiasm took the place of anxiety and fear in the face of the towns-people, and courage once more filled up the shrinking purse. The price and terms for the ship were ascertained. Sixty thousand dollars would purchase a controlling interest in the ship, and run her between Portland, Oregon, and San Francisco. Twenty-one thousand dollars of this was raised and paid in an hour, of which sum Coffin, Chapman and Lownsdale put up eighteen thousand six hundred dollars.
And while this transaction revived the hopes and confidence of many, and strengthened the courage of all, it did not end the contest. The Pacific Mail Steamship Company, with ample capital, set to work to undermine the bulwarks put up by the Portlanders, and bought out some of the interests of Portland stockholders in the Gold Hunter, again giving San Francisco the whip-hand. And after a few trips to Portland the Gold Hunter was treacherously sent down to South America, mortgaged and sold for a trifle of her value to get rid of all the Portland stockholders. It was a bitter lesson to Portland, and withal most dishonorable on the part of pretended friends and open enemies. But it had proved one thing, and that was that Portland would fight for the rights of the town, and that the town was a force that was not to be despised for weakness or want of courage. In the meantime, Portland had been making allies on the land side. A fairly passable wagon road had been opened out to Tualatin Plains and on up the valley to Yamhill and Polk counties, by which the farmers of all that region could haul their product to Portland.
Of the three men who made good the project of Amos Lawrence 'Love joy in the establishment of a city at this location, Daniel H. Lownsdale comes first in order for notice. Mr. Lownsdale was born in Mason county, Kentucky, in 1803. At the age of twenty-three he married Ruth, youngest daughter of Paul Overfield, Esq., and moved to Gibson county, Indiana. In 1830 his wife died leaving three children, two daughters and a son. That son was J. P. 0. Lownsdale, who for many years was an active and influential citizen of Portland, passing away in July, 1910, at the age of eighty years. After losing his wife, Mr. Lownsdale moved to the state of Georgia and engaged in mercantile pursuits. And there, losing his health, he took a trip to Europe and traveled through many countries. Returning to the United States in 1844, he found the southwest agitated over the "Oregon Question," and immediately made up his mind to come out to this unsettled region and grow up with the country. Joining an emigrant train in the spring of 1845, he crossed the plains with the usual luck and labor of other emigrants, and reached the Portland townsite late in 1845; and soon after, as has been stated, claimed the King donation claim, west of the city, and started the first commercial tannery north of California and w^est of the Rocky mountains. He died in IMay, 1862, and is buried in Lone Fir cemetery on the east side of the river.
Of General Stephen Coffin much can be said in his praise as a public-spirited man, and a most energetic and successful builder of the city of Portland. General Coffin was born at Bangor, Maine, in 1807, moved west to the state of Ohio early in life, and crossed the plains and reached Oregon City in October, 1847. Here he went to work with the industry and energy that characterized his whole life, and at the end of two years he had accumulated enough to enable him to purchase a half interest in the Portland townsite claim, as has already been stated. When the tug of war came up with the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, Coffin was in the forefront of the battle. His whole being rebelled at anything like injustice. It was said of him that when the immigrants reached Oregon, of which party he was a member, some of those already here attempted to extort unreasonable prices for food and accommodations, and Coffin rebelled. To assuage his wrath, he was told that his treatment was the usual custom, and when he got settled in the country he could recoup his losses by' fleecing other immigrants in like manner. This only made matters worse, and the newcomer so bitterly denounced such conduct as to make enemies that never forgave him. But he was not the man to shape his conduct to placate enemies or please w-rongdoers. Fearless and courageous, he pushed his way over all opposition, serving the public faithfully in every act of liis life, and often at the sacrifice of per​personal interest. He was liberal to the public and his friends to a fault. He is the only man that ever gave grounds for the public schools of the city; he gave the first bell to a church in the city, which still sends out its call from the old Taylor-street church every Sunday morning, inviting in the faithful. He organized the company to build the wagon road to Washington county; he organized the People's Transportation Company to reduce freight charges on the Willamette and Columbia rivers; he helped start the Oregon Central Railroad, and man}' other enterprises. (For further notice see biographical sketches.)
The third man to join the Portland Townsite Company was William W. Chapman. Esq., who for distinguished services in the Oregon Indian wars was commissioned a colonel of the volunteers and ever afterwards retained that title. Colonel Chapman was born in old Virginia, early in 1800. His father was a brick mason and contractor, and built the first brick building in Washington City. By dint of great personal efforts and private study, he picked up an education, studied law and attained a good position in the practice of the law in Virginia. But thinking the new western states offered the best opportunities for advancement, removed to Iowa while that region was yet a part of Michigan. There he was appointed United States district attorney, and when Iowa was set off as a separate territory. Chapman was elected the first delegate to Congress from Iowa, in 1836. He made a fine impression in Congress in his efforts to reclaim to Iowa a strip of territory, in dispute with Missouri, and in which he was entirely successful, giving him great credit in the new state. He was a member of the convention to form a constitution for Iowa, and was the father of the measure to transfer the gifts of public lands to the states for internal improvements from such purpose to the endowment of public schools, and which after that became the settled policy of the United States. And while in congress he was to a great extent the author of the legislation to provide the right to preempt public lands, which then led to the Homestead Act, which has made millions of people happy and independent. Colonel Chapman came to Oregon in 1847, settling first at Corvallis and later at Salem. He was often at Oregon City on legal business, and there made the acciuaintance of Coffin and 'Lownsdale, and got into the Portland Townsite Company. He held many positions of honor and trust, discharging every duty with scrupulous integrity, an honor to the city and the state, and passed away with the universal respect of all citizens.
The battle to make Portland the land terminus of all ocean commerce was the first and greatest question to be settled. That settled in favor of Portland, the people would come fast enough. But before it was settled the settlers and little businesses were slowly coming in.
The ferry across the river was started as early as 1845, consistnig of one canoe.
The first blacksmith shop was opened by Terwilliger at the corner of First and Morrison streets in 1846.
Henderson Luelling brought in the first grafted fruit trees in 1847. In this same year Captain Crosby built the first frame house in the town, bringing the materials for it from the eastern states in his ship around Cape Horn. Talk about carrying "coals to Newcastle," but don't forget Crosby's house, carried twenty thousand miles in a ship to build alongside the finest timber in the world.
​In 1851 the first Congregational church was erected at the corner of Second and Jefferson streets, the Rev. Horace Lyman, first pastor, clearing the ground of trees himself.
In 1849 Colonel Win. King built a sawmill to run by water power, but it burned down before it could be made to do anything.
In 1850, W. P. Abrams and Cyrus A. Reed erected a steam saw mill near the foot of Jefferson street. The main building was forty feet wide and eighty feet long; the timbers being hewed out of the giant firs growing alongside the mill site, and being sixteen inches square were so heavy that all the men in town were unable to put the timbers in place or "raise" the building, and General Coffin had to go up to Oregon City to get men to help. But even with this assistance, they could not handle the timbers, and Reed was forced to rig a derrick, and with block and tackle, and all the men to pull on the ropes, they hoisted the timbers to place and erected the first saw' mill at Portland, Oregon, a mill that would cut about ten thousand feet a day. Quite a change since 1850 to the town of sixty years later, that cuts and ships more lumber than any other city in the world.
In those days everybody worked and labored hard in building houses. In describing the work of J. H. Wilbur (Father Wilbur), of the first Methodist church, a contemporary said of him: "Stalwart and strong, the great forest that stood where Taylor street church now stands (southeast corner Third and Taylor streets), fell before his axe. The walls of the old church rose by his saw and hammer, and grew white and beautiful under his paint brush; tired bodies rested and listened to his powerful preaching on Sunday, poverty was fed at his table, and sickness cured by his medicines."
And now we reach the first business excitement at the new town. On the first of August, 1848, a little schooner from San Francisco pulled into the wharf at the little town of Portland, Oregon, and after unloading a lot of Mexican produce and goods, began to load up not only with Oregon produce but with all the shovels, picks and pans that could be secured at the two stores in town. And after making a clean-up of all these necessary tools to mine placer gold, the captain made known the discovery of gold in California by J. W. Marshall. Marshall had come to Oregon as an immigrant, across the plains in 1844. And not getting anything to do here at Portland, went down to California in 1846 and was employed by General Sutter at his mill near where the city of Sacramento now stands. Marshall was followed in 1847 by Charles Bennett and Stephen Staats, and they were there at the mill when Marshall found the first gold. And thus, we see, that it was an Oregonian going from Portland and Oregon City to California that made the discovery that gave to the world four hundred million dollars in gold, and which revolutionized the currents and conditions of trade, commerce and living expense in every civilized land.
The rush to the gold discoveries nearly depopulated the town. And while it carried off many good workers, there were compensations for their absence. Lumber, wheat, potatoes and everything fit to eat, ran up to enormous prices and the Oregon farmers were soon digging as much gold out of their land as the miners were getting in California. The gold discoveries helped in another way. Very soon gold dust and states money was rolling back into Oregon for the produce sent down and surplus dust sent back to families and friends; so that wheat was no longer the circulating legal tender medium, but gold dust, and finally ​"Beaver Money" made from dust at the Oregon City mint, became the circulating medium and greatly stimulated trade in all its branches.
Thomas Carter and wife came in from Georgia and located the land claim south of the King claim, and which covered what is now known as Portland Heights. Carter built the first old-style southern states' mansion house out in the region for a long time demeaned by the name of "Goose Hollow," but subsequently changed into "Paradise Valley"—the region bounded by Jefferson street on the north, Chapman street on the west, Lownsdale street on the east, and Market street on the south. Carter lived on the claim for many years, but finally sold out to his two sons, Charles M. Carter and Thomas Jefferson Carter, both forceful and public-spirited men.
"Goose Hollow" was for a long time a sort of "no man's land," being too far out to be salable for city lots, and not worth grubbing out to put in potatoes. In consequence of which a miscellaneous lot of people got in there who did not really go in the "upper ten" class in 1862. And while the good husbands were busy digging stumps or catering to the thirst of the sturdy yeomen on Front street, their good wives were adding to family comforts by raising geese and plucking their feathers as far out as the Carter mansion. In consequence of this goose industry it soon got to be that every woman in the little valley had a flock of geese. And in consequence of the numbers of them they all mixed up together, and every good woman in the whole neighborhood claimed all the geese. And from pulling feathers they got to pulling other things, and some twenty, more or less, goose owners were cited to appear before Police Judge J. F. McCoy to receive justice at the august forum of Portland's first police court. McCoy had a worse job of it than the judge who decided the case between the two women who claimed the same baby, two thousand years ago. But he was equal to the occasion and his decision was, that Marshal J. H. Lappeus and his two deputies should repair to the seat of war and round up every flock of geese that he could find, count them and then divide them equally among the contending owners; and that thereafter the first woman who complained about the geese should be "incerated in the city bastile." For that trip, Lappeus named it "Goose Hollow," and the name stuck.
​Counting in the original townsite proprietors, Coffin, Chapman and Lownsdale, we can add to their efforts those of Captain J. C. Ainsworth, Jacob Kamm, Henry W. Corbett, Henry Failing, C. H. Lewis, Captain John H. Couch, Captain George H. Flanders, William G. Ladd, Simeon G. Reed and R. R. Thompson, to whose brains and energy Portland is indebted for its present masterful position in the commerce and general prosperity of the country.
Captain Ainsworth had settled first at Oregon City, and with his brotherin-law, Dierdorff, had been carrying on a general store and trading establishment at that point. But seeing the natural advantages of Portland, and early getting into the steamboat business, so shaped his affairs as to transfer all his interests to this point, and as the transportation on the Columbia river developed, became the executive head of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company—the first large transportation company of the North Pacific coast. Ainsworth's last work on behalf of the city was in extending transportation to Eastern Oregon, building hte portage railway at the Cascades and The Dalles, and in exploring the Columbia to its headwaters and into Kootenai lake, where vast mineral wealth has followed the discoveries made by Ainsworth 's exploring parties. And while Ainsworth added vastly to the fortune of himself. Reed and Thompson, by the sale of the property of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company to the Northern Pacific Railway Company, that transaction enabled Heni-y Villard to get such control of the railroads leading to the great Columbia basin, as to hold the transcontinental business to Portland long enough to demonstrate its superior and exclusive advantages as the gateway to the Pacific; and thus eventually, as has now been established, control the heavy transportation between the coast of Oregon and Washington and the Atlantic states.
Of this group of men, Jacob Kamm is entitled to be ranked the first in steamboat development. Before Lot Whitcomb could build the first steamboat, he was compelled to bring Mr. Kamm from California to superintend the construction. In this pioneer work, Mr. Kamm, with his own hands, put all the machinery together even down to riveting the boiler sheets. From this beginning, Jacob Kamm went on with work on other steamers, and had supervision as master mechanic, chief engineer and part owner of the steamboats Jennie Clark, Carrie Ladd, Mountain Buck. Senorita, the Mary, Hassalo, Rival, Surprise and Elk. Mr. Kamm was the first and only man to put steamboat transportation on the upper Snake river. He was the sole owner of the ocean steamer, George S. Wright, which he ran from Portland to Victoria, Sitka and Alaska, being the only capitalist Portland had that would make a fight to hold that trade to Portland. In latter years he organized the Vancouver Transportation Company, and put on the steamers Lurline and Undine. His work in building up the city is incalculable. Mr. Kamm .was born in Switzerland, in 1823, and is yet a citizen of Portland, with all his faculties unimpaired at the age of 89. He learned the steamboat business from engineer's assistant up to owner of ocean steamships; commencing at the engine room on a Mississippi steamboat—another splendid example of what a poor boy can do with patient work and honest endeavor.
Henry W. Corbett, born in Westborough, Mass., in 1827, commenced at the foot of the ladder of fortune and fame in a wholesale dry goods store in New York City, where he spent seven years in hard work. At the end of that time ​his employers had so much confidence in him that they sold him a stock of goods on credit which he brought around Cape Horn in a ship that landed at this town on March 4, 1851. There were four hundred people here then, with five little stores in town. Corbett rented an unfinished building at the southwest corner of Front and Oak streets, paying a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month rent for it. He worked hard, being proprietor, clerk, salesman, and bookkeeper all in one, and at the end of fourteen months, had sold out his whole stock, cleared twenty thousand dollars, and started back to New York to get another cargo of merchandise.
He remained in New York one year, but continued to ship goods to Portland for sale. He then determined to make Portland his home, and returned in 1853, with a larger stock of general merchandise, and in 1860 converted his store into an exclusive hardware business, and in 1871 consolidated with Henry Failing, forming the firm of Corbett, Failing & Co., making it the largest hardware establishment on the Pacific coast. Mr. Corbett 's activities in business life have been more extensive and varied than that of any other citizen of Portland, which, with his service in the United States Senate, has made him one of the most useful, if not the most conspicuous, citizen of the state of Oregon.
Cicero H. Lewis is the typical merchant in all comparison, among men who have followed the business of merchandising in the city of Portland. He is the only man among the many distinguished business men that Portland has developed that has been "the merchant" from first to last. Messrs. Corbett, Failing, Ladd, Ainsworth, and others might be named who commenced as merchants, switched off into some other pursuit, before ending their career. Mr. Lewis commenced his career as a merchant in 1851, and remained steadfast in the harness until death called him January 5, 1897. He founded and built up the great wholesale grocery house of Allen & Lewis, until now its patrons cover the whole country from Ashland, Oregon, up to the furthest limits of Alaska. Many a distressed country retail man he has helped along for years until farms and business grew up to help him out. Like Henry Failing, C. H. Lewis never pressed a customer, and his word was as good as government bonds throughout the whole northwest. Aside from this business nearly all the educational and charitable institutions—especially the Good Samaritan Hospital and the Protestant Episcopal Church—owe much to his wise guidance and financial support, or that of his family.
"he was a just man and loved mercy"
With long personal acquaintance, the author of this history can testify that no man ever deserved the above tribute more than Henry Failing.
Captains Couch and Flanders have been already referred to, but not as they deserve to be. Captain John H. Couch most assuredly drove down the first stake to fasten the city at this point, when he tied up his ship at the foot of Washington street, before there was a house here, and said, "To this point can I bring any ship that can get into the mouth of the great Columbia river." Like most men developed on the high seas, when he knew anything, he was sure and confident of his knowledge. When others were trembling and temporizing for fear Portland would fail like the dozen other places, Captain Couch lost no sleep over their fears. He knew just as well that the city had to be built here as the experienced locomotive engineer can tell how many loaded cars his engine can pull from Portland to Dalles City. That confidence was worth millions to Portland because it converted all other sea captains to the idea that Portland was the seaport of the Columbia river. In this view Captain George H. Flanders fully occurred. These two men practically made the Pacific ocean contribute to the success and prosperity of the city. This was their great contribution to the building of Portland, although their help in other ways would fill a book. When railroad development was proposed these two men—John H. Couch and George H. Flanders—placed their names at the top of the roll of Portland men who aided in starting railroad construction by donating ten city blocks in the north end of the city for depot and terminal grounds. The Union depot stands on land which they gave to the old Oregon Central Railroad Company when the author of this book was its president and manager forty-two years ago. But in every other way, and especially in contributing to the religious and charitable institutions of the city, they and their families have taken a leading part in making not only a rich and prosperous city, but also a moral, peaceful, healthful and clean place to raise families in.
As the life and growth of the city goes on, and for generations upon generations hereafter, the name of Simeon G. Reed is likely to be more in the minds of men and women in this city than the names of all the other men above combined. Like R. R. Thompson, for the greater part of his career in Portland, Mr. Reed shone by the reflected light of J. C. Ainsworth. Reed was a closer friend of Ainsworth than any other man, although Ainsworth, Reed and Thompson, were always spoken of as "The Triumvirate." Mr. Reed was always a very charitable man, kind-hearted and gentle, with lucky fortune dogging his ​ steps throughout life. He put a price on some mining stock in Nevada once, and then went off hunting sage hens in Umatilla county. A great body of rich ore was uncovered in the mine, and before the San Francisco "mining sharps" could locate Reed with telegrams, that stock advanced a hundred thousand dollars in value, and Reed got back to the old town of Umatilla in time to cancel his oft'er before it could to taken up by the pursuers. S. G. Reed never lost any sleep or worried about matters he could not prevent. He was always ready to help any man that deserved his help if they did not ask too much. He finally came to regard his great fortune as a trust in his hands for the benefit of his fellow-men. And having no children, and but few relatives when he passed away, he requested his life-long help-meet, Mrs. Amanda Reed, to devote their wealth to the benefit of the people of the city of Portland. In pursuance of that wish, Mrs. Reed, in her last will and testament, provided that after paying some legacies to relatives, the Reed millions should be devoted to founding a great institution for the teaching of practical and scientific knowledge to the youth of this city. And that great bequest is now being administered to carry out the wishes of the large-hearted donors.
Of other notable men who have made their impress on the city and aided largely in establishing the useful institutions of the pioneer town, Judge P. A. Marquam is entitled to a high position. While he never made a million dollars, he did make enough, and made it honestly, to attract the wolves of finance and banking to rend him to pieces and rob him of what he had. The "Marquam case," wherein the supreme court of Oregon held that a trust deed was not a trust but a mortgage, will go down to future courts and judges as an anomaly in jurisprudence that is a disgrace to any state. But Judge Marquam 's claim to honorable recognition in the history of Oregon does not depend on either property or business. While in California, he served with distinction in the wars to subdue the Indians and protect the gold miners. He was elected county judge twice before coming to Oregon. On reaching Portland he engaged in law practice and soon secured a large business. Soon after he was elected county judge and re-elected, serving in all eight years. Under his administration nearly all the roads in the country were located and opened to travel.