USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. II, 1848-1888 > Part 70
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84
Joseph Gaston, a descendant of the Huguenots of North Carolina, was born in Belmont county, Ohio. His father dying, Joseph worked on a farm until 16 years of age, when he set up in life for himself, having but a common- school education, and taking hold of any employment which offered until by study he had prepared himself to practice law in the supreme court of Ohio. His grand-uncle, William Gaston, was chief justice of the supreme court of North Carolina, and for many years member of congress from that state, as also founder of the town of Gaston, N. C. His cousin, William Gaston, of Boston, was elected governor of Massachusetts in 1874, being the only democratic governor of that state within 50 years. Joseph Gaston came to Jackson county, Oregon, in 1862, but on becoming involved in railroad projects, removed to Salem, and afterward to Portland. Although handling large sums of money and property, he was not benefited by it. When Holladay took the Oregon Central off his hands, he accepted a position as freight and passenger agent on that road, which he held until 1875, when he retired to his farm at Gaston, in Washington county, where he re- mained until 1878, when he built and put in operation the narrow-gauge railroad from Dayton to Sheridan, with a branch to Dallas. This enter- prise was managed solely by himself, with the support of the farmers of
704
RAILROADS.
that section. In 1880 the road was sold to a Scotch company of Dundee, represented by William Reid of Portland, who extended it twenty miles farther, and built another narrow-gauge from Ray landing, below the Yam- hill, to Brownsville, all of which may be properly said to have resulted from Gaston's enterprises. Then he went to live in Portland, where he did not rank among capitalists-in these days of sharp practice, not always a dishon- orable distinction.
No sooner did railroad enterprises begin to assume a tangible shape in Oregon, than several companies rushed into the field to secure land grants and other franchises, notably the Portland, Dalles, and Salt Lake company, the Winnemucca company, the Corvallis and Yaquina Bay company, and the Columbia River and Hillsboro company. Vancouver Register, Ang. 21, 1869; Or. Lowes, ISGS, 127-8, 140-1, 143; Id., 1870; 11. Ex. Doc., 1, pt iv. vol. vi., pt 1. p. xvii., 41st cong. 3d scss .; Zubriskie's Land Laws, supp. 1877, 6; Portland Board of Trade Rept, 1875, 6-7, 28: Id .. 1876, 4-6; Id., 1877, 14-15.
Owing to a conflict of railroad interests, and fluctuations in the money market, neither of these roads was begun, nor any outlet furnished Oregon toward the cast until Villard, in 1879, formed the idea of a syndicate of Amer- ican and European capitalists to facilitate the construction of the Northern Pacific, and combining its interests with those of the Oregon roads by a joint management, which he was successful in obtaining for himself. E. V. Smalley, in his Ilistory of the Northern Pacific Railroad, published in 1883, has given a minute narrative of the means used by Villard to accomplish his object. pp. 262-76. Under his vigorous measures railroad progress in Oregon and Wash- ington was marvellous. Not only the Northern l'acific was completed to Portland, and the Columbia River, opposite the Pacific division at Kalama, in 1883-4, but the Oregon system, under the names of the Oregon Railway and Navigation and Oregon and Transcontinental lines, was extended rapidly. The Oregon Railway and Navigation Company owned all the property of the former Oregon Steam Navigation and Oregon Steamship companies. It was incorporated June 13, 1879, Villard president, and Dolph vice-president. Its first board of directors consisted of Artemus H. Holmes, William H. Starbuck, James B. Fry, and Villard of New York, and George W. Wcidler, J. C. Ains- worth, S. G. Reed, Paul Schulze, H. W. Corbett, C. H. Lewis, and J. N. Dolph of Portland. The Oregon and Transcontinental company was formed June 1881, its object being to bring under one control the Northern Pacinie and Oregon Railway and Navigation companies, which was done by the wholesale purchase of Northern Pacific stock by Villard, the president of the other company. Its first board of directors, chosen September 15, 1881, con- sisted of Frederiek Billings, Ashbel H. Barncy, John W. Ellis, Rosewell G. Rolston, Robert Harris, Thomas F. Oakes, Artemus H. Holmes, and Henry Villard of New York, J. L. Stack pole, Elijah Sinith, and Benjamin P. Cheney of Boston, John C. Bullitt of Philadelphia, and Heury E. Johnston of Balti- more. Villard was elected president, Oakes vice-president, Anthony J. Thomas second vice-president, Samuel Wilkinson secretary, and Robert L. Belknap treasurer. Smalley's Hist. N. P. Railroad, 270-1.
Seven years after Holladay was forced out of Oregon, the Oregon Central was completed to Eugene, the Oregon and California to the southern boundary of Douglas county, the Dayton and Sheridan narrow-gauge road constructed to Airley, twenty miles south of Sheridan, and another narrow-gauge on the east side of the Willamette making connection with this one, and running south to Coburg in Lane county, giving four parallel lines through the heart of the valley. A wide-gauge road was construeted from Portland, by the way of the Columbia, to The Dalles, and eastward to Umatilla, Pendleton, and Baker City, on its way to Snake River to meet the Oregon short line on the route of the Portland, Dalles, and Salt Lake road of 1808-9. North-eastward from Umatilla a line of road extended to Wallula, Walla Walla, Dayton, Grange City in Washington, and Lewiston in Idaho; while the Northern Pa- cific sent out a branch eastward to gather in the crops of the Palouse region at Colfax, Farmington, and Moscow; and by the completion of the Oregon
705
CHAPMAN, PENGRA, AND MONTGOMERY.
short line and the Oregon and California branch of the Central Pacific, there were three transcontinental routes opened from the Atlantic to the Columbia River. In ISS5 a railroad was in process of construction from the Willamette to Yaquina Bay, destined to be extended east to connect with an overland road, and another projected. The projectors of the Winnemucca and Salt Lake roads deserve mention. Both had been surveyor-generals of Oregon. W. W. Chapman. who was appointed in territorial times, and was thoroughly ac- quainted with the topography of the country, selected the route via the Coluni- bia and Snake rivers to Salt Lake, both as one that would be free from snow and that would develop eastern Oregon and Washington and the mining re- gions of Idaho. He made extensive surveys, attended several sessions of con- gress, and sent an agent to London at his own expense, making himself poor in the effort to secure his aims. The state legislature granted the proceeds of its swamp-lands in aid of his enterprise, and the city council of Portland granted to his company the franchise of building a bridge across the Willam- ette at Portland. But he failed, because the power of the Central Pacific rail- road of California was exerted to oppose the construction of any road con- necting Oregon with the east which would not be tributary to it.
Chapman dicd in 1884, after living to see another company constructing a road over the line of his survey. He had been the first surveyor-general of lowa, its first delegate in congress, and one of its first presidential electors. On coming to Oregon he became one of the owners in Portland town site, and with his partner, Stephen Coffin, built the Gold I/unter, the first ocean steamer owned in Oregon, which, through the bad faith of her officers, ruined her own- ers. Gaston's Railroad Development in Or., 73-S. B. J. Pengra, appointed by President Lincoln, was, as I have already said, the founder of the Winne- mucca scheme. While in office he explored this route, and secured from con- gress the grant to aid in the construction of a military wagon-road to Owyhee, of which the history has been given. His railroad survey passed over a con- siderable portion of the route of the military road, the opening of which pro- moted the settlement of the country. But for the opposition of Holladay to his land-grant bill, it would have passed as desired, and the Central Pacific would have constructed this branch; but owing to this opposition it failed. Pengra resided at Springfield, where he had some lumber-mills.
A man who has had much to do with Oregon railroads is James Boyce Montgomery, who was born in Perry co., Penn., in 1832, and sent to school in Pittsburgh. He learned printing in Philadelphia, in the office of the Bul- letin newspaper, and took an editorial position on the Register, published at Sandusky, Ohio, owned by Henry D. Cooke, afterwards first governor of the District of Columbia. From Sandusky he returned to Pittsburgh in 1853, and purchased an interest in the Daily Morning Post. About 1857 he was acting as the Harrisburg correspondent of the Philadelphia Press for a year or more. Following this, he took a contract to build a bridge over the Sus- quehanna River for the Philadelphia and Erie railroad, 6 miles above Wil- liamsport, Penn., his first railroad contract. Subsequently he took several contracts on eastern roads, building portions of the Leli and Susquehanna, the Susquehanna Valley, and other railroads, aud was an original owner in the Baltimore and l'otomac railroad with Joseph D. Potts, besides having a con- tract to build 150 miles of the Kansas Pacific, and also a portion of the Oil Creek and Alleghany railroad in Penn. In 1870 Montgomery came to the Pacific coast, residing for one year on Puget Sound, since which time he has resided in Portland, where he has a pleasant home. His wife is a daughter of Gov. Phelps of Mo. The first railroad contract taken in the north-west was the first 25-mile division of the Northern Pacific, beginning at Kalama, on the Columbia River, and extending towards Tacoma. Since that he has completed the road fron Kalama to Tacoma, and from Kalama south to Port- land. Montgomery started the subscription on which the first actual money was raised to build the Northern Pacific, in Dec. 1869. Jay Cooke had agreed to furnish $5,600,005 to float the honds of the company by April 1, 1870, and Montgomery, at his request, undertook to raise a part of it, in which he was
HIST. OR., VOL. II. 45
06
COUNTIES OF OREGON.
successful, J. G. Morehead, H. J. Morehead, William Phillips, William M. Lyon, Henry Loyd, Joseph Dilworth, James Watts, and others subscribing $800,000. This money was expended in constructing the first division of the road. Montgomery at the same time took a contract to build a drawbridge across the Willamette at Harrisburg, the first drawbridge in Oregon, 800 feet long, with a span of 240 feet. Subsequently he went to Scotland to or- ganize the Oregon Narrow-Gauge Company, Limited, which obtained control of the Dayton, Sheridan, and Corvallis narrow-gauge road built by Gaston, in which he was interested, as well as some Scotch capitalists. It was Vil- lard's idea to get a lease of this and the narrow-guage road on the east side of the valley, to prevent the Central or Union Pacific railroads from control- ling them, as it was thought they would endeavor to. They were accordingly leased to the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company, but to the detriment of the roads, which are not kept in repair. At oue time the directors of the O. R. & N. Co. refused to pay rent, and the matter was in the courts. Montgomery erected a saw-mill at Skamockawa, on the north side of the Co- lumbia, which will cut 15,000,000 feet of lumber annually. He is also in the shipping business, and ships a large quantity of wheat yearly. This, with a history of the N. P. R. R., I have obtained from Montgomery's Statement, MS., 1-30.
COUNTIES OF OREGON.
The condition of connties and towns which I shall briefly give in this place will fitly supplement what I have already said. They are arranged in alphabetical order. I have taken the tenth census as a basis, in order to put all the counties on the same footing.
Baker county, named after E. D. Baker, who fell at the battle of Edwards' ferry in October 1861, was organized September 22, 1862, with Auburn as the county seat. An enabling act was passed and approved in 1866, to change the county seat to Baker City by a vote of the county, which was done. In 1872 a part of Grant county was added to Baker. The county contains 15,912 square miles, about 50,000 acres of which is improved among 453 farmers, the principal productions being barley, oats, wheat, potatoes, and fruit. The whole value of farm products for 1879, with buildings and fences, was $799,468. The value of live-stock was $1, 122,765, a difference which shows stock-raising rather than grain-growing to be the business of the farmers. About 50,000 pounds of wool was produced. The total value of real estate and personal property for this year was set down at a little over $931,000. The population for the same period was 4,616, a considerable por- tion of whom were engaged in mining in the mountain districts. Comp. X. Census, x1. 48, 723, 806-7. Baker City, the county seat, was first laid out under the United States town-site law by R. A. Pierce in 1868. It is prettily located in the Powder River Valley, and is sustained by a flourishing agricultural and mining region on either hand. It has railroad communica- tion with the Columbia. It was incorporated in 1874, and has a population of 1,258, Pacific North-west, 41; Mckinney's Pac. Dir., 255; Or. Laws, 1874, 145-55. The famous Virtue mine is near Baker City. The owner, who does a banking business in the town, had a celebrated cabinet of minerals, in which might be seen the ores of gold, silver, copper, lead, cinnabar, iron, tin, cohalt, tellurium, and coal, found in eastern Oregon, besides which were curios in minerals from every part of the world. Auburn, the former county seat, was organized by the mining population June 17, 1862, and incorporated on the following 25th of September, to preserve order. Ebey's Journal, MS., viii. 81-2, 84, 87, 94; Or. Jour. House, 1862, 113, 128. The other towns and post- offices of Baker county are Wingville, Sparta, Powderville, Pocahontas, Express Ranch, El Dorado, Clarksville, Mormon Basin, Amelia City, Rye Valley, Humboldt Basin, Stone, Dell, Weatherby, Conner Creek, Glenn, Malheur, Jordan Valley, and North Powder.
Benton county, named after Thomas H. Benton of Missouri, was created and organized December 23, 1847, including at that time all the country on
707
BENTON AND CLACKAMAS.
the west side of the Willamette River, south of Polk county and north of the northern boundary line of California. On the 15th of January, 1851, the present southern boundary was fixed. It contains 1,870 square miles, extend- ing to the Pacific ocean, and including the harbor of Yaquina Bay. Popula- tion in 1879, 6,403. The amount of land under improvement in this year was 138,654 acres, valued at $3,188,251. The value of farm products was $716,096; of live-stock, $423,632; of orchard products, $16,404. Assessed valuation of real and personal property in the county, $1,726,387. Grain- raising is the chief feature of Benton county farming, but dairying, sheep- raising, and fruit-culture are successfully carried on. Coal was discovered in 1869, but has not been worked.
Corvallis, called Marysville for five or six years by its founder, J. C. Avery, is Benton's county seat, and was incorporated January 28, 1857. It is bcan- tifully situated in the heart of the valley, as its name indicates, and has a population of about 1,200. It is the seat of the state agricultural college, and bas connection with the Columbia, and the Pacific ocean at Yaquina Bay, and also with the southern part of the state by railroad. It is more favorably located in all respects than any other inland town. Philomath, a collegiate town, is distant about eleven miles from Corvallis, on the Yaquina road. It was incorporated in October 1882. Monroe, named after a president, on the Oregon Central railroad, Alseya on the head-waters of Alseya River, Newport on Yaquina Bay near the ocean, Elk City at the head of the bay, Oyster- ville on the south side of the hay, Toledo, Yaquina, Pioneer, Summit, New- ton, Tidewater, Waldoport, and Wells are all small settlements, those that are situated on Yaquina Bay having, it is believed, some prospects in the future.
Clackamas county, named from the tribe of Indians inhabiting the shores of a small tributary to the Willamette coming in below the falls, was one of the four districts into which Oregon was divided by the first legislative committee of the provisional government, in July 1843, and comprehendcd 'all the territory not included in the other three districts,' the other three taking in all south of the Columbia except that portion of Clackamas lying north of the ' Anchiyoke River.' Pudding River is the stream here meant. Its boun- daries were more particularly described in an act approved December 19. 1845, and still further altered by acts dated January 30, 1856, October 17, 1860, and October 17, 1862, when its present limits were established. Or. Archives, 26; Or. Gen. Laws, 537-8. It contains 1,434 square miles, about 71,000 acres of which is under improvement. The surface being hilly, and much of it covered with heavy forest, this county is less advanced in agricultural wealth than might be expected of the older settled districts; yet the soil when cleared is excellent, and only time is required to bring it up to its proper rank. The value of its farms and buildings is considerably over three mil- lions, of live-stock a little over four hundred thousand, and of farm products something over six hundred thousand dollars. In manufactures it has been perhaps the third county in the state, but should, on account of its facilities, exceed its rivals in the future. It is difficult to say whether it is the second or third, Multnomah county being first, and Marion probably second. But the difference in the amount of capital expended and results produced leave it almost a tie between the latter county and Clackamas. Marion has $608,330 invested in manufactures, pays out for labor $147,945 annually, uses $1,095,920 in materials, and produces $1,424,979; while Clacka- mas has invested $787,475, pays out for labor $156,927, uses $816,625 in materials, and produces $1,251,691. Marion has a little the most capital in- vested, and produces a little the most, but uses $278,295 more capital in materials, while paying only $8,982 less for labor. Comp. X. Census, ii. 1007-8. The principal factories are of woollen goods. Assessed valuation considerably over six millions. Population, 9,260. Oregon City, founded by John Mc- Loughlin in 1842, is the county seat, whose history for a number of years was an important part of the territorial history, being the first, and for several years the only, town in the Willamette Valley. It was incorporated Septem-
708
COUNTIES OF OREGON.
ber 25, 1849. Its principal feature was its enormous water-power, estimated at a million horse-power. It had early a woollen-mill, a grist-mill, a lumber- IL.ill, a paper-mill, a fruit-preserving factory, and other minor manufactures. The population of Oregon City is, according to the tenth census, 1,263, al- though it is given ten years earlier at 1,382. It is on the line of the Oregon and California railroad, and has river communication with Salem and Portland. A few miles north of the county seat is Milwaukee, founded by Lot Whitcomb as a rival to Oregon City, in March 1850. It is the seat of one of the finest flouring mills in the state, and is celebrated for its nurseries, which have fur- nished trees to fruit-growers all over the Pacific coast. Its population is insig- mificant. A inile or two south of Oregon City is Canemah, founded by F. A. Hedges about 1845, it being the lowest landing above the falls, and where all river craft unloaded for the portage previous to the construction of the basin and breakwater, by which boats were enabled to reach a landing at the town. It afterward became a suburb of Oregon City, boats passing through locks on the west side of the river without unloading. About half-way between the falls and Portland was established Oswego, another small town, but important as the location of the smelting-works, erected in 1867 at a cost of $100,000, to test the practicability of making pig-iron from the ore found in that vicinity, which experiment was entirely successful. Other towns and post-offices in Clackamas county are Clackamas, Butte Creek, Damascus, L'agle Creek, Glad Tidings, Highland, Molalla, Needy, New Era, Sandy, Springwater, Union Mills, Viola, Wilsonville, Zion.
Clatsop county, named after the tribe which inhabited the sandy plains west of Young Bay, at the mouth of the Columbia, was established June 22, 1844, on the petition of Josiah L. Parrish. The present boundaries were fixed January 15, 1855, giving the county 862 square miles, most of which is heavily timbered land. The value of farms, buildings, and live-stock is a little over $307,000; but the assessed valuation of real and personal property is a trifle over $1,136,000, and the gross value nearly double that amount.
The principal industries of the county are lumbering, fishing, and dairying. The population is about 5.500, except in the fishing season, when it is tempo- rarily at least two thousand more. Resources Or. and Wash., 1882, 213; Comp. X. Census, 367. Astoria, the county seat, was founded in 1811 by the Pacific Fur Company, and named after John Jacob Astor, the head of that company. It passed through various changes before being incorporated by the Oregon legislature January 18, 1856. Its situation, just within the estuary of the Columbia, has been held to be sufficient reason for regarding this as the natural and proper place for the chief commercial town of Oregon. But the applica- tion of steam to sea-going vessels has so modified the conditions upon which commerce had formerly sought to establish centres of trade that the custom- liouse only, for many years, compelled vessels to call at Astoria. It has now, however, a population of about 3,000, and is an important shipping point, the numerous fisheries furnishing and requiring a large amount of freight, and in the season of low water in the Willamette, compelling deep-water vessels to load in the Columbia, receiving and handling the immense grain and other ex- ports from the Willamette Valley and eastern Oregon. Its harbor is sheltered by the point of the ridge on the east side of Young Bay from the storm-winds of winter, which come from the south-west. There is but little level land for building purposes, but the hills have been graded down into terraces, one street rising above another parallel to the river, affording fine views of the Columbia and its entrance, which is a dozen miles to the west, a little north. Connected by rail with the Willamette Valley aud eastern Oregon, the locks at the cascades of the Columbia at the same time giving uninterrupted naviga- tion from The Dalles to the mouth of the river, Astoria is destined to assume yet greater commercial importance. There are no other towns of consequence in this county. C'latsop, incorporated in 1870, Skippanon, Clifton, Jewell, Knappa, Olney, Mishawaka, Seaside House, Fort Stevens, and Westport are either fishing and lumbering establishments, or small agricultural settlements. Westport is the most thriving of these settlements, half agricultural and half commercial.
709
COLUMBIA AND COOS.
Columbia county, lying east of Clatsop in the great bend of the lower Columbia, was cut off from Washington county January 23, 1854. It con- tains 575 square miles, aud has a water line of over fifty miles in extent. It has between fourteen and fifteen thousand acres of land under improvement, valued, with the buildings, at $406,000, with live-stock worth over $77,000, and farm products worth 873,000, consisting of the cereals, hay, potatoes, butter, and cheese. It has several lumbering establishments and a few smaller manufactories. The natural resources of the county are timber, coal, build- ing-stone, iron, fish, and grass. The assessed valuation upon real and personal property in 1879 was 8305,283. The population was little over 2,000, but rapidly increasing. St Helen, situated at the junction of the lower Willamette with the Columbia, is the county seat. It was founded in 1848 by H. MI. Knighton, the place being first known as Plymouth Rock, but having its name changed ou being surveyed for a town site. It is finely situated for a shin- ping business, and has a good trade with the surrounding country, although the population is not above four hundred. There are coal and iron mines in the immediate vicinity. Columbia City, founded in 1867 by Jacob and Joseph Caples, two miles below St Helen, is a rival town of about half the population of the latter. It has a good site, and its interests are identical with those of St Helen. The Pacific branch of the Northern Pacific railway passes across both town-plats, coming near the river at Columbia City. Rainier, twenty miles below Columbia City, was laid off in a town by Charles E. Fox about 1852. Previous to 1865, hy which time a steamboat line to Monticello on the Cowlitz was established, Rainier was the way-station between Olympia and Portland, and enjoyed considerable trade. Later it became a lumber- ing and fishing establishment. The other settlements in Columbia county are Clatskanie, Marshland, Pittsburg, Quinn, Riverside, Scappoose, Ver- nonia, Neer City, Bryantville, and Vesper.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.