# History of Oregon (Bancroft)/Volume 2/Chapter 9

CHAPTER IX.
SURVEYS AND TOWN-MAKING.
1851–1853.
A movement was made north of the Columbia River in the spring of 1851, to divide Oregon, all that portion north and west of the Columbia to be erected into a new territory, with a separate government—a scheme which met with little opposition from the legislature of Oregon or from congress. Accordingly in March 1853 the separation was consummated. The reasons advanced were the alleged disadvantages to the Puget Sound region of unequal legislation, distance from the seat of government, and rivalry in commercial interests. North of the Columbia progress was slow from the beginning of American settlements in 1845 to 1850, when the Puget Sound region began to feel the effect of the California gold discoveries, with increased facilities for communication with the east. In answer to the oft-repeated prayers of the legislature of Oregon, that a survey might be made of the Pacific coast of the United States, a commission was appointed in ​November 1848, whose business it was to make an examination with reference to points of occupation for the security of trade and commerce, and for military and naval purposes.
The commissioners were Brevet Colonel J. L. Smith, Major Cornelius A. Ogden, Lieutenant Danville Leadbetter of the engineer corps of the United States army, and commanders Louis M. Goldsborough, G. J. Van Brunt, and Lieutenant Simon F. Blunt of the navy. They sailed from San Francisco in the government steam propeller Massachusetts, officered by Samuel Knox, lieutenant commanding, Isaac N. Briceland acting lieutenant, and James H. Moore acting master, arriving in Puget Sound about the same time the Ewing reached the Columbia River in the spring of 1850, and remaining in the sound until July. The commissioners reported in favor of light-houses at New Dungeness and Cape Flattery, or Tatooch Island, informing the government that traffic had much increased in Oregon, and on the sound, it being their opinion that no spot on the globe offered equal facilities for the lumber trade. Shoalwater Bay was examined by Lieutenant Leadbetter, who gave his name to the southern side of the entrance, which is called Leadbetter Point. The Massachusetts visited the Columbia, and recommended Cape Disappointment on which to place a light-house. After this superficial reconnoissance, which terminated in July, the commissioners returned to California.
The length of time elapsing from the sailing of the commission from New York to its arrival on the Northwest Coast, with the complaints of the Oregon delegate, caused the secretary of the treasury to request Professor A. D. Bache, superintendent of coast surveys, to hasten operations in that quarter as much as possible; a request which led the latter to despatch a third party, in the spring of 1850, under Professor George Davidson, which arrived in California in June, ​and proceeded immediately to carry out the intentions of the government. Being employed on the coast of southern California. Davidson did not reach Oregon till June 1851, when he completed the topographical surveys of Cape Disappointment, Point Adams, and Sand Island, at the entrance to the Columbia, and departed southward, having time only to examine Port Orford harbor before the winter storms. It was not until July 1852 that a protracted and careful survey was begun by Davidson's party, when he returned in the steamer Active, Captain James Alden of the navy, to examine the shores of the Strait of Fuca and adjacent coasts, a work in which he was engaged for several years, to his own credit and the advantage of the country. For many years Captain Lawson has directed his very valuable efforts to the region about Puget Sound.
​I have referred to the surveying expeditions in this place with the design, not only of bringing them into their proper sequence in point of time, but to make plain as I proceed correlative portions of my narrative.
Between 1846, the year following the first American settlements on Puget Sound, and 1848, population did not much increase, nor was there any commerce to speak of with the outside world until the autumn of the last-named year, when the settlers discarded their shingle-making and their insignificant trade at Fort Nisqually, to open with their ox-teams a wagon road to the mines on the American River. The new movement revolutionized affairs. Not only was the precious dust now to be found in gratifying bulk in many odd receptacles never intended for such use in the cabins of squatters, but money, real hard coin, became once more familiar to fingers that had nearly forgotten the touch of the precious metals. In January 1850, some returning miners reached the Sound in the first American vessel entering those waters for the purposes of trade, and owned by a company of four of them. This was the beginning of trade on Puget Sound, which had increased considerably in 1852–3, owing to the demand for lumber in San Francisco. The towns of Olympia, Steilacoom, Alki, Seattle, and Port Townsend already enjoyed some of the advantages of commerce, though yet in their infancy. A town had been started on Baker Bay, which, however, had but a brief existence, and settlements had been made on Shoalwater Bay and Gray Harbor, as well as on the principal rivers entering them, and at Cowlitz Landing. At the Cascades of the Columbia a town was surveyed in 1850, and ​trading establishments located at the upper and lower falls; and in fact, the map of that portion of Oregon north of the Columbia had marked upon it in the spring of 1852 nearly every important point which is seen there to-day.
Of the general condition of the country south of the Columbia at the period of the division, something may be here said, as I shall not again refer to it in a particular manner. The population, before the addition of the large immigration of 1852, was about twenty thousand, most of whom were scattered over the Willamette Valley upon farms. The rage for laying out towns, which was at its height from 1850 to 1853, had a tendency to retard the growth of any one of them. Oregon City, the oldest in the territory, had not much over one thousand inhabitants. Portland, by reason of its advantages for unloading shipping, had double that number. The other towns, Milwaukie, Salem, Corvallis, Albany, Eugene, Lafayette, Dayton, and Hillsboro, and the newer ones in the southern valleys, could none of them count a thousand. ​Some ambitious persons attempted to get a county organization for the country east of the Cascade Mountains in the winter of 1852–3, to which the ​legislature would have consented if they had agreed to have the new county attached to Clarke for judicial purposes; but this being objected to, and the population being scarce, the legislature declined to create the county, which was however established in January 1854, and called Wasco. In the matter of other county organizations south of the Columbia, the legislature was ready to grant all petitions if not to anticipate them. In 1852–3 it created Jackson, ​including the valley of Rogue River and the country west of it to the Pacific. At the session of 1853, it created Coos county from the western portion of Jackson, Tillamook from the western part of Yamhill, and Columbia from the northern end of Washington county. The county seat of Douglas was changed from Winchester to Roseburg by election, according to an act of the legislature.
The creation of new counties and the loss of those north of the Columbia called for another census, and the redistricting of the territory of Oregon, with the reapportionment of members of the legislative assembly, which consisted under the new arrangement of thirty members. The first judicial district was made to comprise Marion, Linn, Lane, Benton, and Polk, and was assigned to Judge Williams. The second district, consisting of Washington, Clackamas, Yamhill, and Columbia, to Judge Olney; while the third, comprising Umpqua, Douglas, Jackson, and Coos, was given to McFadden, who held it for one term only, when Deady was reinstated.
Notwithstanding the Indian disturbances in southern Oregon, its growth continued to be rapid. The shifting nature of the population may be inferred from fact that to Jackson county was apportioned four representatives, while Marion, Washington, and Clackamas were each allowed but three.
A scheme was put on foot to form a new territory out of the southern countries with a portion of northern California, the movement originating at Yreka, where it was advocated by the Mountain Herald. A meeting was held at Jacksonville January 7, 1854, which appointed a convention for the 25th. Memorials were drafted to congress and the Oregon and California legislatures. The proceedings of the convention were published in the leading journals of the coast, but the project received no encouragement from ​legislators, nor did Lane lend himself to the scheme farther than to present the memorial to congress. On the contrary, he wrote to the Jacksonville malecontents that he could not approve of their action, which would, as he could easily discern, delay the admission of Oregon as a state, a consummation wished for by his supporters, to whom he essayed to add the democrats of southern Oregon. Nothing further was thenceforward heard of the projected new territory.
Nothing was more indicative of the change taking place with the introduction of gold than the improvement in the means of transportation on the Willamette and Columbia rivers, which was now performed by steamboats.
​The navigation of the Willamette was much impeded by rocks and rapids. On the Clackamas rapids below Oregon City, thirty thousand dollars was expended in removing obstructions to steamers, and the channel was also cleared to Salem in 1852. The Tualatin River was made navigable for some distance by private enterprise. A canal was made to connect ​La Créole River with the Willamette. The Yamhill River was spanned at Lafayette with a strong double-track bridge placed on abutments of hewn timber, bolted and filled with earth, and raised fifty feet above low water. This was the first structure of the kind in the country. The Rockville Canal and Transportation Company was incorporated in February 1853, for the purpose of constructing a basin or breakwater with a canal at and around the falls of the Willamette, which work was completed by December 1854, greatly increasing the comfort of travel by avoiding the portage.
In 1851 the fruit trees set out in 1847 began to bear, so that a limited supply of fruit was furnished the home market; and two years later a shipment was made out of the territory by Meek and Luelling, of Milwaukie, who sold four bushels of apples in San Francisco for five hundred dollars. The following year they sent forty bushels to the same market, which brought twenty-five hundred dollars. In 1861 the shipment of apples from Oregon amounted to over seventy-five thousand bushels; but they no longer ​were worth their weight in gold. The productiveness of the country in every way was well established before 1853, as may be seen in the frequent allusions to extraordinary growth and yield. If the farmer was not comfortable and happy in the period between 1850 and 1860, it was because he had not in him the capacity for enjoying the bounty of unspoiled nature, and the good fortune of a ready market; and yet some there were who in the midst of affluence lived like the starveling peasantry of other countries, from simple indifference to the advantages of comfort in their surroundings.
The imports in 1852–3, according to the commerce and navigation reports, amounted to about $84,000, but were probably more than that. Direct trade with China was begun in 1851, the brig Amazon bringing a cargo of tea, coffee, sugar, syrup, and other articles from Whampoa to Portland, consigned to Norris and Company. The same year the schooner John Alleyne brought a cargo of Sandwich Islands products consigned to Allen McKinlay and Company of Oregon City, but nothing like a regular trade with foreign ports was established for several years later, and the exports generally went no farther than San Francisco. Farming machinery did not begin to be introduced till 1852, the first reaper brought to Oregon being a McCormick, which found general use throughout the territory. As might be expected, society improved in its outward manifestations, and the rising generation were permitted to enjoy ​privileges which their parents had only dreamed of when they set their faces toward the far Pacific—the privileges of education, travel, and intercourse with older countries, as well as ease and plenty in their Oregon homes. And yet this was only the beginning of the end at which the descendants of the pioneers were entitled by the endurance of their fathers to arrive.
* ↑ Coast Survey, 1850, 127.
* ↑ Davidson's party were all young men, anxious to distinguish themselves. They were A. M. Harrison, James S. Lawson, and John Rockwell. They sailed in the steamer Philadelphia, Capt. Robert Pearson, crossed the Isthmus, and took passage again on the Tennessee, Capt. Cole, for San Francisco. Lawson's Autobiography, MS., 5–18.
* ↑ The Active was the old steamer Gold Hunter rechristened. Lawson's Autobiography, MS., 49.
* ↑ For biography, and further information concerning Prof. Davidson and his labors, see Hist. Cal., this series.
* ↑ James S. Lawson was born in Philadelphia, Feb. 13, 1828, was educated in the schools of that city, and while in the Central high school was a classmate of George Davidson, Prof. Bache being principal. Bache had formerly been president of Girard College, and still had charge of the magnetic observatory in the college grounds. The night observers were selected from the pupils of the high school, and of these Lawson was one, continuing to serve till the closing of the observatory in 1845. In that year Lawson was appointed second assistant teacher in the Catherine-street grammar school of Philadelphia, which position he held for one year, when he was offered a position in the Friends' school at Wilmington, Delaware, under charge of Samuel Allsoff. In January 1848 Lawson commenced duty as a clerk to Prof. Bache, then superintendent of the U. S. coast survey, remaining in that capacity until detached and ordered to join Davidson for the surveys on the Pacific coast in 1850. From the time of his arrival on the Pacific coast to the present, Capt. Lawson has been almost continuously engaged in the labor of making government surveys as an assistant of Prof. Davidson. Lawson's Autobiography, MS., 2. His work for a number of years has been chiefly in that portion of the original Oregon territory north of the Columbia and west of the Cascade Mountains, and his residence has been at Olympia, where his high character and scientific attainments have secured him the esteem of all, and in which quiet and beautiful little capital repose may be found from occasional toil and exposure. Mr Harrison was, like Davidson and Lawson, a graduate of the Philadelphia Central school, and of the same class. This manuscript of Lawson's authorship is one of unusual value, containing, besides a history of the scientific work of the coast survey, many original scraps of history, biography, and anecdotes of persons met with in the early years of the service, both in Oregon and California. Published entire it would be read with interest. It is often a source of regret that the limits of my work, extended as it is, preclude the possibility of extracting all that is tempting in my manuscripts.
* ↑ See Hist. Wash., this series.
* ↑ Joel Palmer bought the claim of Andrew Smith, and founded the town of Dayton about 1850. Lafayette was the property of Joel Perkins, Corvallis of J. C. Avery, Albany of the Monteith brothers, Eugene of Eugene Skinner, Canyonville of Jesse Roberts, who sold it to Marks, Sideman & Co., who laid it out for a town.
* ↑ A town called Milwaukie was surveyed on the claim of Lot Whitcomb. It contained 500 inhabitants in the autumn of 1850, more than it had thirty years later. Or. Spectator, Nov. 28, 1850. Deady, in Overland Monthly, i. 37. Oswego, on the west bank of the Willamette, later famous for its iron-works, was laid out about the same time, but never had the population of Milwaukie, of which it was the rival. Dallas, in Polk county, was founded in 1852. St Helen, on the Columbia, was competing for the advantage of being the seaport of Oregon, and the Pacific Mail Steamship Company had decreed that so it should be, when the remonstrances, if not the sinister acts, of Portland men effected the ruin of ambitious hopes. St Helen was on the land claim of H. M. Knighton, an immigrant of 1845, and had an excellent situation. Weed's Queen Charlotte Isl. Exp., MS., 7. 'Milton and St Helen, one and a half miles apart, on the Columbia, had each 20 or 25 houses…. Gray, a Dane, was the chief founder of St Helen.' Saint- Amant, Voyages en Cal. et Or., 368–9, 378. It was surveyed and marked out in lots and blocks by P. W. Crawford, assisted by W. H. Tappan, and afterward mapped by Joseph Trutch, later of Victoria, B. C. A road was laid out to the Tualatin plains, and a railroad projected; the steamship company erected a wharf with other improvements. But meetings were held in Portland to prevent the stopping of the steamers below that town, and successive fires destroyed the company's improvements at St Helen, compelling their vessels to go to the former place. Milton, another candidate for favor, was situated on Scappoose Bay, an arm of the Willamette, just above St Helen. It was founded by sea captains Nathan Crosby and Thomas H. Smith, who purchased the Hunsaker mills on Milton Creek, where they made lumber to load the bark Louisiana, which they owned. They also opened a store there, and assisted in building the road to the Tualatin plains. Several sea-going men invested in lots, and business for a time was brisk. But all their brilliant hopes were destined to destruction, for there came a summer flood which swept the town away. Captains Drew, Menzies, Pope, and Williams were interested in Milton. Crawford's Nar., MS., 223. Among the settlers in the vicinity of St Helen and Milton was Capt. F. A. Lemont, of Bath, Maine, who as a sailor accompanied Capt. Dominis when he entered the Columbia in 1829–30. He was afterward on Wyeth's vessel, the May Dacre, which was in the river in 1834. Returning to Oregon after having been master of several vessels, he settled at St Helen in 1850, where he still resides. Of the early residents Lemont has furnished me the following list from memory: Benjamin Durell, Witherell, W. H. Tappan, Joseph Trutch, John Trutch, L. C. Gray, Aaron Broyles, James G. Hunter, Dr Adlum, Hiram Field, Seth Pope, John Dodge, George Thing, William English, William Hazard, Benjamin Teal, B. Conley, William Meeker, Charles H. Reed, Joseph Caples, Joseph Cunningham, A. E. Clark, Robert Germain, G. W. Veasie, C. Carpenter, J. Carpenter, Lockwood, Little, Tripp, Berry, Dunn, Burrows, Fiske, Layton, Kearns, Holly, Maybee, Archilles, Cortland, and Atwood, with others. Knighton, the owner of St Helen, is pronounced by Crawford a 'presumptuous man,' because while knowing nothing about navigation, as Crawford affirms, he undertook to pilot the Silvie de Grasse to Astoria, running her upon the rock where she was spitted. He subsequently sailed a vessel to China, and finally engaged as a captain on the Willamette. Knighton died at The Dalles about 1864. His wife was Elizabeth Martin of Yamhill county. He left several children in Washington. Westport, on the Columbia, thirty miles above Astoria, was settled by John West in 1851; and Rainier, opposite the Cowlitz, by Charles E. Fox in the same year. It served for several years as a distributing point for mail and passengers to and from Puget Sound. Frank Warren, A. Harper and brother, and William C. Moody were among the residents at Rainier. Crawford's Nar., MS., 260. At or near The Dalles there had been a solitary settler ever since the close of the Cayuse war; and also a settler named Tomlinson, and two Frenchmen on farms in Tygh Valley, fifty miles or more south of The Dalles. These pioneers of eastern Oregon, after the missionaries, made money as well as a good living, by trading in cattle and horses with emigrants and Indians, which they sold to the miners in California. After the establishment of a military post at The Dalles, it required a government license, issued by the sup. of Indian affairs, to trade anywhere above the Cascades, and a special permission from the commander of the post to trade at this point. John C. Bell of Salem was the first trader at The Dalles, as he was sutler for the army at The Dalles in 1850. When the rifle regiment were ordered away, Bell sold to William Gibson, who then became sutler. In 1851 A. McKinlay & Co., of Oregon City, obtained permission to establish a trading post at The Dalles, and building a cabin they placed it in charge of Perrin Whitman. In 1852, they erected a frame building west of the present Umatilla House, which they used as a store, but sold the following year to Simms and Humason. W. C. Laughlin took a land claim this year and built a house upon it. A Mr Bigelow brought a small stock of goods to The Dalles, chiefly groceries and liquors, and built a store the following year; and William Gibson moved his store from the garrison grounds to the town outside. It was subsequently purchased by Victor Trevitt, who kept a saloon called the Mount Hood. In the autumn of 1852, companies K and I of the 4th inf. reg., under Capt. Alvord, relieved the little squad of artillery men who had garrisoned the post since the departure of the rifle regiment. It was the post which formed the nucleus of trade and business at The Dalles, and which made it necessary to improve the means of transportation, that the government supplies might be more easily and rapidly conveyed. The immigration of 1852 were not blind to the advantages of the location, and a number of claims were taken on the small streams in the neighborhood of The Dalles. Rumors of gold discoveries in the Cascade Mountains north of the Columbia River were current about this time. H. P. Isaacs of Walla Walla, who is the author of an intelligent account of the development of eastern Oregon and Washington, entitled The Upper Columbia Basin, MS., relates that a Klikitat found and gave to a Frenchman a piece of gold quartz, which being exhibited at Oregon City induced him to go with the Indian in the spring of 1853 to look for it. But the Klikitat either could not or would not find the place, and Isaacs went to trade with the immigrants at Fort Boisé, putting a ferry across Snake River in the summer of that year, but returning to The Dalles, where he remained until 1863, when he removed to the Walla Walla Valley and put up a grist mill, and assisted in various ways to improve that section. Isaacs married a daughter of James Fulton of The Dalles, of whom I have already made mention. A store was kept in The Dalles by L. J. Henderson and Shang, in a canvas house. They built a log house the next year. Tompkins opened a hotel in a building put up by McKinlay & Co. Forman built a blacksmith shop, and Lieut. Forsyth erected a two-story frame house, which was occupied the next year as a hotel by Gates, Cushing and Low soon put up another log store, and James McAuliff a third. Dalles Mountaineer, May 28, 1869.
* ↑ Or. Jour. Council, 1852–3, 90; Gen. Laws Or., 544. The establishment of Wasco county was opposed by Major Rains of the 4th infantry stationed at Fort Dalles in the winter of 1853–4. He said that Wasco county was the largest ever known, though it had but about thirty-five white inhabitants, and these claimed a right to locate where they chose, in accordance with the act of Sept. 27, 1850. Or. Jour. Council, 1853–4, app. 49–50; U. S. Sen. Doc. 16, vol. vi. 16–17, 33d cong. 2d sess. Rains reported to Washington, which frustrated for a time the efforts of Lane to get a bill through congress regulating bounty warrants in Oregon, it being feared that some of them might be located in Wasco county. Or. Statesman, March 20, 1855; Cong. Globe, 33d cong. 2d sess., 490. Wm C. Laughlin, Warren Keith, and John Tompkins were appointed commissioners, J. A. Simms sheriff, and Justin Chenoweth, judge.
* ↑ Or. Statesman, Feb. 14, 1854.
* ↑ U. S. H. Jour., 609, 33d cong. 1st sess.
* ↑ The Oregon men known to have been connected with this movement were Samuel Culver, T. McFadden Patton, L. F. Mosher. D. M. Kenny, S. Ettlinger, Jesse Richardson, W. W. Fowler, C. Sims, Anthony Little, S. C. Graves, W. Burt, George Dart, A. McIntire, G. L. Snelling, C. S. Drew, John E. Ross, Richard Dugan, Martin Angell, and J. A. Lupton. Those from the south side of the Siskiyou Mountains were E. Steele, H. G. Ferris, C. N. Thornbury, E. J. Curtis, E. Moore, O. Wheelock, and J. Darrough. Or. Statesman, Feb. 7 and 28, 1854.
* ↑ The first steamboat built to run upon these waters was called the Columbia. She was an oddly shaped and clumsy craft, being a double-ender, like a ferry-boat. Her machinery was purchased in California by James Frost, one of the followers of the rifle regiment, who brought it to Astoria, where his boat was built. Frost was sutler to the regiment in which his brother was quartermaster. He returned to Missouri, and in the civil war held a command in the rebellious militia of that state. His home was afterward in St Louis. Deady, in McCracken's Portland, MS., 7. It was a slow boat, taking 26 hours from Astoria to Oregon City, to which point she made her first voyage July 4, 1850. S. F. Pac. News, May 11, July 24, and Aug. 1, 1850; S. F. Herald, July 24, 1850; Portland Standard, July 8, 1879. The second venture in steam navigation was the Lot Whitcomb of Oregon, named after her owner, built at Milwaukie, and launched with much ceremony on Christmas, 1850. She began running in March following. The name was selected by a committee nominated in a public meeting held for the purpose, W. K. Kilborn in the chair, and A. Bush secretary. The committee, A. L. Lovejoy, Hector Campbell, W. W. Buck, Capt. Kilborn, and Governor Gaines, decided to give her the name of her owner, who was presented with a handsome suit of colors by Kilborn, Lovejoy, and N. Ford for the meeting. Or. Spectator, Dec. 12, 1850, and June 27, 1851. She was built by a regular ship-builder, named Hanscombe, her machinery being purchased in San Francisco. Deady's Hist. Or., MS., 21; McCracken's Portland, MS., 11; Brigg's Port Townsend, MS., 22; Sacramento Transcript, June 29, 1850; Overland Monthly, i. 37. In the summer of 1853 the Whitcomb was sold to a California company for $50,000, just $42,000 more than she cost. The Lot Whitcomb was greatly superior to the first steamer. Both obtained large prices for carrying passengers and freight, and for towing sailing vessels on the Columbia. McCracken says he paid two ounces of gold-dust for a passage on the Columbia from Astoria to Portland which lasted two days, sleeping on the upper deck, the steamer having a great many on board. Portland, MS., 4. When the Whitcomb began running the fare was reduced to $15. John McCracken came to Oregon from California, where he had been in mercantile pursuits at Stockton, in November 1849. He began business in Oregon City in 1850, selling liquors, and was interested in the Island mill. He subsequently removed to Portland, where he became a large owner in shipping, steamboats, and merchandising. His wife was a daughter of Dr Barclay of Oregon City, formerly of the H. B. Co. From the summer of 1851, steamboats multiplied, though the fashion of them was not very commodious, nor were they elegant in their appointment, but they served the purpose, for which they were introduced, of expediting travel. The third river steamboat was the Black Hawk, a small iron propeller brought out from New York, and run between Portland and Oregon City, the Lot Whitcomb being too deep to get over the Clackamas rapids. The Willamette, a steam schooner belonging to Howland and Aspinwall, arrived in March 1853, by sailing vessel, being put together on the upper Willamette, finished in the autumn, and run for a season, after which she was brought over the falls, and used to carry the mail from Astoria to Portland; but the arrival of the steamship Columbia, which went to Portland with the mails, rendered her services unnecessary, and she was sold to a company composed of Murray, Hoyt, Breck, and others, who took her to California, where she ran as an opposition boat on the Sacramento, and was finally sold to the California Steam Navigation Company. The Willamette was a side-wheel steamer and finished in fine style, but not adapted to the navigation of the Willamette River. Athey's Workshops, MS., 5; Or. Spectator, Sept. 30, 1851. The Hoosier, built to run on the upper river, was finished in May 1851, and the Yamhill in August. In the autumn of the same year a small iron steamer, called the Bully Washington, was placed on the lower river. This boat was subsequently taken to the Umpqua, where she ran until a better one, the Hinsdale, owned by Hinsdale and Lane, was built. The Multnomah was also built this year, followed by the Gazelle, in 1852, handsomely finished, for the upper river trade. She ran a few months and blew up, killing two persons and injuring others. The Castle and the Oregon were also running at this time. On the Upper Columbia, between the Cascades and The Dalles, the steamer James P. Flint was put on in the autumn of 1851. She was owned by D. F. Bradford and others. She struck a rock and sunk while bringing down the immigration of 1852, but was raised and repaired. She was commanded by Van Berger, mate J. W. Watkins. Dalles Mountaineer, May 28, 1869. The Belle and the Eagle, two small iron steamers, were running on the Columbia about this time. The Belle was built at Oregon City for Wells and Williams. The Eagle was brought to Oregon by John Irving, who died in Victoria in 1874. The Fashion ran to the Cascades to connect with the Flint. Further facts concerning the history of steamboating will be brought out in another part of this work, this brief abstract being intended only to show the progress made from 1850 to 1853.
* ↑ Or. Statesman, Sept. 23, 1851.
* ↑ Id., Feb. 26, 1853. Deady gives some account of this important work in his Hist. Or., MS., 28. A man named Page from California, representing capital in that state, procured the passage of the act of incorporation. The project was to build a basin on the west side of the river above the falls, with mills, and hoisting works to lift goods above the falls, and deposit them in the basin, instead of wagoning them a mile or more as had been done. They constructed the basin, and erected mills at its lower edge. The hoisting works were made with ropes, wheels, and cages, in which passsengers and goods were lifted up. Page was killed by the explosion of the Gazelle, owned by the company, after which the enterprise went to pieces through suits brought against the company by employés, and the property fell into the hands of Kelley, one of the lawyers, and Robert Pentland. In the winter of 1860–1, the mills and all were destroyed by fire, when works of a similar nature were commenced on the east side of the river, where they remained until the completion of the canal and locks on the west side, of a recent date.
* ↑ On McCarver's farm, one mile east of Oregon City, was an orchard of 15 acres containing 200 apple-trees, and large members of pears, plums, apricots, cherries, nectarines, and small fruits. It yielded this year 15 bushels of currants, and a full crop of the above-named fruits. Or. Statesman, July 29, 1851. In 1852, R. C. Geer advertised his nursery as containing 42 varieties of apples, 15 of pears, 5 of peaches, and 6 of cherries. Thomas Cox raised a Rhode Island greening 12½ inches in circumference, a good size for a young tree. Id., Dec. 18, 1852.
* ↑ Id., Sept. 22, 1862; Oregonian, July 15, 1862; Overland Monthly, i. 39.
* ↑ One bunch of 257 stalks of wheat from Geer's farm, Marion county, averaged 60 grains to the head. On Hubbard's farm in Yamhill, one head of timothy measured 14 inches. Oats on McVicker's farm in Clackamas stood over 8 feet in height. In the Cowlitz Valley one hill of potatoes weighed 53 pounds and another 40. Two turnips would fill a half-bushel measure. Tolmie, at Nisqually, raised an onion that weighed a pound and ten ounces. Columbian, Nov. 18, 1851. The troops at Steilacoom raised on 12 acres of ground 5,000 bushels of potatoes, some of which weighed two pounds each. Or. Spectator, Nov. 18, 1851.
* ↑ De Bow's Encycl., xiv. 603–4; Fisher and Colby's Am. Statistics, 429–30.
* ↑ Or. Statesman, July 24, 1852.
* ↑ The 7th U. S. census taken in 1850 shows the following nativities for Oregon: Missouri, 2,206; Illinois, 1,023; Kentucky, over 700; Indiana, over 700; Ohio, over 600; New York, over 600; Virginia, over 400; Tennessee, over 400; Iowa, over 400; Pennsylvania, over 300; North Carolina, over 200; Massachusetts, 187; Maine, 129; Vermont, 111; Connecticut, 72; Maryland, 73; Arkansas, 61; New Jersey, 69; and in all the other states less than 50 each, the smallest number being from Florida. The total foreign population was 1,159, 300 of whom were natives of British America, 207 English, about 200 Irish, over 100 Scotch, and 150 German. The others were scattering, the greatest number from any other foreign country being 45 from France; unknown, 143; in all 13,043. Abstract of the 7th Census, 16; Moseley's Or., 1850–75, 93; De Bow's Encycl., xiv. 591–600. These are those who are more strictly classed as pioneers; those who came after them, from 1850 to 1853, though assisting so much, as I have shown, in the development of the territory, were only pioneers in certain things, and not pioneers in the larger sense.