Willamette River

“ The Willamette river is navigable to Harrisburg, 152 m. above Portland, but boats seldom go farther up the river than Corvallis, 119 m. above Portland, and the depth at low water to Corvallis is only 3 ft. On the coast, Coos Bay, a tidal estuary, is the principal harbour between the mouth of the Columbia and San Francisco; it admits vessels drawing 14 to 16 ft. of water, and both the north and south forks of the Coos river are navigable for vessels of light draft (the depth at low water is only 1.5 ft.) ”

“ It is not more than half a mile from the mouth of Pole Alley, farther to the south, where Pudding river embogues into the Willamette; it is twenty-five yards in width at the mouth. The valley up this river to the Cascade mountains, where it rises, is alternately fine prairie and timber lands, with occasional fern openings. Some of the prairies are claimed by the recent emigrants. It is finely clothed in grass, and up the river some distance there are valuable mill sites; the water is clear, and well stocked with fish. ”

“ Both these words are evidently primitive Indian terms (S. B. Smith) and thus show that the grizzlies were a well recognized species in the Willamette Valley during the period of Indian occupation.
Labonte Jr. has recollections of earliest French Prairie which are very valuable, and give a new, or at least a clearer understanding of settlement here, than ever seems to have been published, and shows Chemaway on the Willamette River about twelve miles above Champoeg to have been the first nucleus of settlement. ”

“ We have also a fine view of the Willamette River, which, in this place, makes a sudden bend, continuing its course amidst dense forests, which promise an almost inexhaustible supply of materials for the construction of our mission house. In no part of this region have I met with a more luxuriant growth of pine, fir, elm, {82} oak, buttonball, and yew trees. The intervening country is beautifully diversified with shadowy groves and smiling plains, whose rich soil yields abundant harvests, sufficient for the maintenance of a [167] large establishment. ”

“ There is no better land anywhere on the Pacific coast than in this beautiful valley of the Willamette river. Beautiful flowers and shrubs of all sorts in fine contrast to the green lawn surround the house, which is painted white, as Ruskin says all houses should be when set among green trees. ”

“ The face of the country is everywhere covered with bunch grass, [227] and animals feed out through the winter, as in the middle region.
The rivers Umpqua, Rose and Clamet, which empty into the Pacific, south of the Columbia, are said to water extensive fertile countries; but as yet very little is known of these regions. Ships come up the Willamette river within a few miles of Oregon city. Concerning the road for wagons commenced south of Mount Hood, and which is to be completed this summer, to be in readiness for the next emigration, you are better acquainted than myself. ”

“ Geologists tell us that this Willamette region was once a counterpart of Puget Sound, only with less depth of water, and that, as the result of centuries of change, the old-time Willamette Sound has become the Willamette Valley. It has now become the most thickly settled farming region of the Columbia Basin, and, as its fitting metropolis, Portland sits at the gateway of the Willamette and Columbia, the “Rose City,” handsomest of all Western cities, to welcome the commerce of the world. ”

“ When the tidings reached Oregon it was as though a prairie fire were running over the country. Men went fairly mad. Throngs, hardly stopping to take their ploughs from the furrow, mounted their horses, galloped off up the Willamette, through the lonely valleys of the Umpqua and the Rogue River, over the Siskiyou, and down the Sacramento, where a fortune could be had for the digging.
All the stress and strain of American life and [Pg 251] history reached the utmost intensity in the fever strife for gold on the Sacramento. The Willamette and Columbia were almost equally stirred. ”

“ It ran its boats on the Columbia as well as the Willamette until 1863, when a compromise was made with the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, then in existence, to confine its trade to the Willamette River above Portland. In 1865 this company expended $100,000 in building a dam and basin above the falls, which enabled them to do away with a portage, by simply transferring passengers and freight from one boat to another through a warehouse at the lower end of the basin. ”

“ From Franchere we glean more facts than from either of the others. The first record regarding the Willamette states that on May 2, 1811, a party consisting of Alexander McKay [4] and Robert Stuart, [5] partners, and Ovide de Montigny [6] and Gabriel Franchere, clerks, together with a Clatsop chief, Coalpo, set out for a trip up the Columbia. On May 6, 1811, they passed for the first time the mouth of the Willamette. Coalpo informed them that about a day's journey up this river there was a considerable fall, beyond which the country abounded in deer, elk, bear, beaver and otter. ”

“ They are well watered by many small streams that constitute the two forks of Quality river, which unite near the southeast part of the plains, and runs an easterly course, through narrow bottoms, well supplied with timber for more than twenty miles, where it discharges its waters into the Willamette, two miles above Oregon city. The principal part of the water that flows in Quality river descends from the Coast Range. This stream, like most others in that region, has several falls and rapids, that furnish very desirable sites for the propelling of machinery ”

“ Now this river is the modern Willamette, which enters the Columbia from the south, about five miles below Fort Vancouver, about eighty-five miles from the sea, according to Mr. Dunn, and in the valley of this river, in a very fertile district, about fifty miles from its entrance into the Columbia, is the Willamette Settlement, where the majority of the colonists from the United States are located, though according to Commander Wilkes’ account, (vol. iv., chap. x., p. 349, 8vo. ed.,) many of the farms belong to Canadians who have been in the service of the Hudson’s Bay Company. ”

“ With the river the only highway, all travel, freight and immigration, must halt at the foot of the falls, and portage over almost insurmountable obstacles to the head beyond. This created the old immigrant road on Canemah hill that wound directly up over a basaltic bluff overlooking the cataract below. This was the immigrants' entrance to the Upper Willamette, and in due time back came loads of grain down the rocky stairway, to mill and to market, slow-going ox-teams in long trains, fifty, sixty and seventy wagons a day, creaking up and down where today it seems impossible for wheels to go. ”

“ Up to twelve leagues from its mouth the course of the Willamette is perfectly navigable for ships of two hundred tons. You encounter at this distance a vertical fall of forty feet, formed of layers of basalt which take up the whole river, the width of which is about four hundred meters. Ships can come to anchor under the fall ”

“ With the passing of Lewis and Clark, the name of the river changed from Multnomah to Willamette, for the next authorities, Gabriel Franchere, [1] Alexander Ross [2] and Ross Cox, [3] call it the Willamette.
In his "Narrative," published at Montreal in 1820, Franchere gives us the best and earliest record of the activities of the Pacific Fur Company on the Willamette. Ross Cox follows with his "Adventures on the Columbia River" in 1831, while Alexander Ross' "Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River" was not published until 1849. ”

“ From this stream, and between the Coast Range and Willamette, and to the south, to the Shahalam valley, which commences {91} at the low pass of Quality Plains, is a tract of about twenty by thirty miles in extent, of rolling fertile lands, alternately fern openings and timber groves.
From the Coast Range to the Willamette there is a belt of five or six miles in width, which near the river is covered thinly with yellow pines; but nearer the mountain it is better timbered, and well watered from mountain rivulets; mostly a rich and loose soil, composed chiefly of yellow sand, loam and clay. ”

“ I am fully of the opinion that two-thirds of the country between the Willamette valley and the coast, and extending from the Columbia river to the forty-second parallel, which includes the Coast range of mountains, can be successfully cultivated. This region abounds in valuable cedar, hemlock and fir timber, is well watered, possesses a fertile soil, and being on the coast, it will always have the advantage of a good market; for the statements that soundings cannot be had along the coast, between Puget Sound and the Bay of San Francisco, are altogether erroneous. ”

“ The Hudson's Bay Company has no establishment on the Willamette except a little wooden house, kept by one man, and situated at the fall of this river which rises to the southeast in the Sierra Nevada, and empties into the Columbia six miles below and opposite Fort Van Couver. ”

“ The warm oceanic current from Japan, flowing south along the coast, is the cause of the mild climate of western Oregon, and of the heavy and incessant rains with which it is visited. These rains, continued through the centuries, have chiselled away the mountains, and, with other geological agencies, produced the three principal valleys into which this portion of the State may be considered as divided, — the Willamette, Umpqua, and Rogue river valleys. The Willamette valley has an area of about 8000 square miles, and contains more than half the population and wealth of the entire State. ”

“ At the Dalles the immigrants had still the most difficult and dangerous portion of their journey before them, there being neither a road over the rugged mountains that separated them from the Willamette Valley, nor boats in which to embark on the river. It was too late to attempt opening a wagon-road into the Willamette Valley, a distance of sixty miles of extremely rough country, and there were few facilities for constructing a sufficient number of boats to convey the families and goods to their destination. ”

“ With the exception of the falls not a ripple to be seen ; a finer stream than the Wil- lamette is not to be found ; soil good ; wood of all kinds in abundance; roots, elk, deer, salmon and sturgeon abundant; man could reside here and with but little industry enjoy every I Mr. Ogden himself with small party proceeds west across Blue Mountain Range and Central Oregon and the Cascade Range to Willamette River by some route. He evidently had never before seen the Willamette as far south as that. His men and furs proceed direct to Ft. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Willamette mission, built, i. 64-5, 78-80; work at, 81-9, 154-63, 178- 9, 190; arrival of missionaries, 154, 161; hospital, 162; importance, 163; farming plan, 163; failure, 182; converts at, 178-9; quarrels at, 196-8; deaths, 201; sold, 221-2; Blanchet s endeavors, 318-19.
Willamette river, land grants, i. 375; ferry, 440, 443; navigation of, ii. 256; bridged, 746-7.
Willamette university, origin, i. 222.
Willamette valley, configuration, i. 1-2; settlers, 15-17, 66, 73-7, 251, 252, 465; missionaries in, 63-7; cattle introduced, 139-50.
Willamette Valley, Farnham s ob servations, 231 ”

“ We have a right to be proud of the Willamette Valley with its varied resources, productiveness, beauty and climatic con- ditions. It would be hard to duplicate it anywhere on earth, yet it is almost in a state of nature. When we consider the productiveness of this valley, one's mind can hardly grasp its possibilities. To secure the proper results will require hard work intelligently applied. Its development will be largely aided by the fact that it has a navigable river flowing substan- tially throughout its entire length. ”

“ The emigrants descend on the north side, recross the river about 15 miles below the rapids, from whence they strike across a thickly wooded country to the Clackamas River, which they descend to the valley of the Willamette. ”

“ With regard to this very river, the Willamette, three acts of congress have been passed in relation to the construction of bridges thereon, to-wit, one approved February 2, 1870, which gave consent to the corporation of the city of Portland to erect a bridge from Portland to the east bank of the river, not obstructing, impairing, or injuriously modifying its navigation, and first submitting the plans to the secretary of war ”

“ The supply of provisions was very short, and now their numbers had been augmented by 12 William Wallace, clerk, Canadian, sailed on the Tonquin Sept 6, 1810, arrived at Columbia River March 22, 1811 . Left for Willamette with Halsey November 23, 1812 . Explored the Willamette for approxi- mately 500 miles, according to Ross Cox. Built the first house on the Willamette on this trip, which was situated not over 25 miles above Newberg, Ore., on the Willamette. Returned to Astoria May 25, 1813. Early in Sept., 1813, off with McKenzie for the interior. Left Fort George April 4, 1814. ”