Oregon City, Oregon

“ Oregon City continued to maintain its supremacy until the gold discovery in California, which, giving rise to an active commerce with that country, imparted to Portland an impetus that soon enabled it to outstrip the city at the falls, which had not the required depth of water for floating an extensive merchant navy. Railroads will ultimately remove any disabilities of that kind, and with its splendid water-power, backed by a country productive in soil, timber, and mineral deposits, its future seems as well assured as that of any town in Oregon. ”

“ The water power at Oregon City, which ever since 1841 had been a source of discord, and had constituted at times an injurious monopoly, had finally come into the hands of a syndicate of Portland and Oregon City men, who designed to make the latter place what nature intended it to be--the great manufacturing centre of the state. ”

“ The people of Oregon found it indeed difficult to perceive any benefit that they had received from congress, or the presidential appointments. They were still without a proper government; they had no troops, no shipping, no light-houses, no pilot-boats, no appropriations—nothing, [21] if they excepted two post-routes to places where there were no settlers, and two post-offices—the distributing office being at the mouth of the Columbia, a hundred and twenty miles from Oregon City, with no other conveyance for the mails between the two places than Indian canoes. ”

“ On the east side of the Willamette, at the falls, the land is claimed by Dr. John McLaughlin, who laid out Oregon City in the year 1 842. The many advantages presented for the growth and prosperity of a manufacturing city is mani fest to the most casual observer. We are informed that where Oregon City now stands, it was, three years ago, a dense forest of fir and underbrush. The march of improvement has been with gigantic stride. ”

“ Just below Portland on the banks of the Willamette river and connected with Portland by an electric street railway stands the first capital of Oregon, Oregon City, the stronghold of the Hudson Bay Company, which aided England in so nearly wrenching that vast territory from the United States.
This quaint old town is rapidly taking on the marks of age. The warehouse of that mighty fur company stands at the wharf, weather beaten and silent. No busy throng of trappers, traders and Indians awaken its echoes with [158] barter and jest. No fur loaded canoe glides down the river. ”

“ Without reference to any person’s right or claim, he employs a surveyor to run out the plat; and as a bill was before the Senate of the United States to grant to every white male inhabitant a mile square, he has a mile run out to suit his views, and lays out a town plat at the falls, and calls it Oregon City. ”

“ Sailors' Diggings has lapsed back to nature. Pacific City, located near the mouth of the Columbia, once aspired to be the metropolis of the Oregon country. It is no more. Monticello, on the Cowlitz, is but a memory. Santiam City on the Santiam River, a few miles above its mouth, has passed from the memory of man. What of Cincinnati, which once aspired to be the state capital? It too, has passed. Zena and Bloomington, Jennyopolis and Marysville, Starr's Point and Calapooya, Umpqua City and the Dardanelles live only in the memory of the pioneers. ”

“ Another flouring-mill; a paper-mill, for the manufacture of coarse and printing paper; a lumber-mill, machine-shops, and other industries, show the business resources of the place, which, although the oldest town in Oregon, is yet only a small one.
Oregon City, like Portland, has a good number of churches—Methodist, Episcopal, Catholic, Baptist, and Congregational. A seminary, and graded public school, besides two or three private schools, furnish educational facilities. A Government Land Office is located here, where the lands for the northern portion of the State are entered. ”

“ And that is the way Portland got its appropriate name.
The town started slowly, and its rate of growth for the first three years was scarcely noticeable. Oregon City was the head center of all the Americans; the seat of government, the saw and the grist mill; and Vancouver did not invite and encourage settlers at that point. Men came and looked, and then passed on up the valley, or out into Tualatin plains, and took land for farms. ”

“ It is the only county that has had or could have a "Centennial" celebration of its founding and exis- tence as an American community; and it is the only place where British guns were trained to fire on American interests in Oregon. Its chief city, Astoria, is the outpost and sentinel holding the keys to the gate, to protect the name, fame and vast interests of Oregon and the great Columbia river valley. ”

“ As a man I am glad to claim him as the first home builder in Oregon. With as much right to locate his home on the banks of the Willamette where and when he did and call it a city, as I had to choose mine on the to me always beautiful hills five miles south of Salem; where I believed, when I located, there would be a village some day. His personal right to home in Oregon up to June 15, 1846, was equal to mine or any American and he resigned his place in the H. B. Co. and moved his family to Oregon City before the treaty of joint occupancy was abrogated. ”

“ Salem is a comfortably built town, with an air of stability and propriety about it. The streets are wide, the lots large, and the dwellings neat, with well-kept gardens attached. Shade-trees—locust and maple—line the broad avenues; and the public square is of liberal proportions, promising "lungs" to the city, should it grow large enough to need this breathing-space in its midst. Although the capital of Oregon, it has as yet no State buildings upon its spacious square. During Territorial days, there was in Oregon the usual struggle between rival towns to secure the capital. ”

“ 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. [7] Oregon City, the oldest in the territory, had not much over one thousand inhabitants. ”

“ It is not hard to understand the fact of so many townsite locations having been made in the vicinity of Portland. Everybody in the country in those pio- neer days, could see as well as we can now, that there would be somewhere above the Columbia river bar a town started, which would grow into a great city, and make fortune or fortunes for the lucky proprietors. Every man had his individual ideas of the proposition. The city would either be at Astoria, where Astor located, or it would be up near the mouth of the Willamette river. ”

“ It has a population of four thousand, good public buildings, and the best hotel in Oregon out of Portland,—the Hotel Pendleton,—besides several others of less proportions. There are two flouring-mills, foundry and machine-shops, sash- and door- factory and planing-mill, city water-works, telephone connection with every part of East Oregon, three banks, seven churches, good common school, a Protestant and a Catholic academy, and numerous substantial and costly business houses, not the least imposing of which is the office of the East Oregonian newspaper. ”

“ Oregon City has never lost this characteristic of a floating population looking for a place to settle.
Among the emigrants of 1843 who settled in Oregon City were Gen. M. M. McCarver, the founder of Burlington, Iowa, who, in trying to locate the future great city of Oregon missed Portland by about ten miles; James A. Athey and family settled on the west side somewhere beyond Wanaxka's village, where with a turning lathe he manufactured the first furniture made in Oregon ”

“ They have, bee-like, been hived up in Oregon City during the winter, and are now swarming, to the entire satisfaction of the first occupants of the hive, it not being wide and large enough for such an unexpected increase. The last immigration, numbering about a thousand, are generally pleased with the country, and are setting about their spring work with becoming spirit and fortitude.
The Indians of this lower country, whose national honor and dignity are laid in the dust, are looking upon the rapid growth and increased strength of the whites with sorrowful countenances and sad hearts. ”

“ For a long time he has resided in New York. At the age of 83 he finds Ore- gon City coveting its reputation as the place of his birth, and the pride is mutual. He has talked about Oregon more than he has written about it, and in this way has heartily acquiesced in its claim of ownership. At least the state can cherish the confirmation that it has a lush soil for genius—from it have risen three men who have given to American literature three of its great poems: "Columbus", "Beautiful Willamette" and "The Man With the Hoe". ”

“ After 1840 the place grew as a political and trade center. According to Mrs. Mary Waller Hall, daughter of the Reverend Alvin F. Waller, who was one of the missionary party which came to Oregon on the Lausanne and settled at Oregon City in June, 1840, the first apple tree in that place grew in the lot where the Methodist church was first built, from seed that her mother threw outdoors after she had been preparing dried apples for cooking. Oregon City post office was established March 29, 1847, with David Hill first postmaster. ”

“ At the present time this is confined to the Walamet valley and extends from Vancouver on the Columbia to the extreme upper settlement here are included within this district Oregon City, Salem, Ylamhill, and the Calapooya circuits.
Oregon City has a population of nearly 1000 persons there are 185 houses, with two churches, one Methodist one Cath- olic, two flouring mills, and two saw mills ”

“ McLoughlin to the Oregon Pioneers, in 1887, on behalf of the city of Portland, Judge Deady said: "He stands out to-day in bold relief as the first man in the history of this country—the pioneer of pioneers."
With the passing of Vancouver, Oregon City [554] became the metropolis. And when Oregon was erected into a Territory of the United States, in 1848, Portland was as yet only "a place twelve miles from Oregon City." ”

“ Within twenty-four months after Lee and his little band prepared the above memorial to congress, which Lee himself carried east in 1838, and delivered in person at Washington city, Daniel Webster, then secretary of state, wrote to Edward Everett, the American minister to London, as follows: "The ownership of Oregon is likely to follow the greater settlement, and the larger amount of population." ”

“ The youngest of eight children, after receiving a public school and academy education, he began life in the dry goods business in New York city, proceeding thence in 1851 to Portland, where he was extremely successful in his ventures, being now the oldest merchant in Portland, and perhaps in Oregon. ”

“ He came to Oregon in 1851, and engaged in the mercantile business, later becoming a banker. He accummulated a large fortune, and has ever been one of Oregon's foremost men. His benefactions have been many and liberal, one tenth of his income being devoted to charity. He has assisted both in the city of Portland, where he resides, and throughout the whole north-west, in building churches and schools. He endowed a chair of practical theology in San Francisco in 1886 with $50,000. ”

“ Founding a City—Hall Kelley's Plat—Precedent Efforts—Naming the Town—Rival Towns with Map—Deep Sea Navigation Controls Location—Tomahawk Claims—Townsite Titles—William Johnson Was Here First—First Houses—First Ships and Owners—Preachers, Teachers, Doctors, and Lawyers.
With the establishment of the provisional government, the few scattered American settlers took heart and began to think that it was really safe to plant some permanent stakes with a view of remaining in Oregon as a permanent home. ”

“ There will be many days on the road when such a respite will be very welcome, especially to the feminine members of the party. Excepting Portland, there is no large city in the territory covered by our tour; indeed, in California, north of San Francisco and Sacramento, there is no town larger than Eureka, with perhaps fifteen thousand people, while Eugene and Salem in Oregon and Reno in Nevada have approximately the same population. ”

“ East Portland shared in the prosperity of the greater city, and having a larger extent of level land for town-site purposes, offered better facilities for building cheap homes for the working classes. The Portland Reduction works was located there, and opened in the spring of 1887, for smelting ores from the mines of Oregon and Idaho. Street cars were introduced here in 1888, connecting with West Portland by means of a track laid on a bridge over the Willamette at Morrison street, and with Albina by another bridge across the ravine which separates them. ”

“ Oregon City had hitherto been the only centre of commercial or political importance, but in 1850 two off-shoots appeared in the newspaper line—one at Milwaukie and the other at Portland, called respectively the Star and the Oregonian. The Star, edited by J. O. Waterman, Esq., afterwards removed to Portland, and became the Times; but the Oregonian has always been a fixture in Portland. Its first editor was Thos. J. Dryer, afterwards consul to the Sandwich Islands. Following close upon those came the Statesman, established first at Oregon City by A. Bush, Esq., and removing to Salem in 1853. ”