USA > Oregon > Multnomah County > Portland > History of Portland, Oregon : with illustrations and biographical sketches of prominent citizens and pioneers > Part 23
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The character of her business at present is determined by that of the surrounding sections. While they raise wheat she must handle
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
and sell wheat; their wool, fruit, ores, lumber, fish, coal, iron, cattle and other domestic productions all figure in her lists as passing through her for market.
This work being chiefly historical need not here be burdened witlı further details of commerce. It is confidently believed, however, that the exports of 1889 will reach a greater value than for any preceding year. These will, of course, be of the same character so far as quality or kind is concerned, as of years before. They will be drawn from the entire circle of valleys and mountains from the California and Montana borders.
It will not be necessary to insert here a disquisition upon the commercial needs of Portland, nevertheless the reader will naturally think of the steps that must be taken to make Portland complete as an emporium. First of all, it remains to perfect that confidence between Portland and the agricultural communities which will induce them to rely upon her merchants. Portland must reach such friendly terms with the farmers and graziers that her business men may never with any semblance of propriety be called "Shylocks." Our merchants must seek rather the enlargement of their sales than a large per cent. 11pon each one, knowing that a profit of even one per cent. on a hundred dollars, or orders worth a hundred dollars, is better than that of three per cent. on but twenty dollars; and the small merchants and dealers of the country must be encouraged to feel that they are inade to share with Portland the advantages which result from her superior natural position.
For another thing the people of Portland must learn to regard the whole Northwest as in a measure their "farm." That is, they must feel the same interest in improving and developing the fields, forests and mines of all this region that the energetic fariner feels in making his own acres productive. Every effort must be put forth to bring wild lands in cultivation, to increase the area of orchards and the number of flocks and herds, and, if possible, to render substantial assistance to settlers who find the difficulties of pioneer life too great to be overcome. In some sections capitalists have greatly increased the productions of the soil, and enhanced values by selling land for an interest in the crop for a term of years until the purchase price
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COMMERCE.
was liquidated. It is possible that extensive orchards and the cultivation of wild lands might be profitably encouraged in the same way.
For the most part the business men of Portland will find it to their greatest advantage to encourage those kinds of industry and occupation as lead to the settlement of the country and to the introduction of families. It is to be noticed that great as has been the volume of money turned over by the salmon canning business of the country, but comparatively little real advantage lias accrued to the State. The business itself has been grossly overdone, the supply of fish well nigh exhausted, and for a large part at least, but an idle, transitory and turbulent element of laborers attracted hitler. I11 like manner the immense lumbering business of Puget Sound and the lower Columbia has brought 110 benefit proportionate to the amount of capital employed and the money inade. Exhausted forests and too frequently dissatisfied aud demoralized communities have followed in the path of the ax and saw. A lesson also may be gathered from the great plains of Texas and Dakota, where the cattle and wheat business are cultivated by a class of capitalists who are themselves in New York or in London, and delegate to agents the management of their immense herds and fields. A band of cow-boys, or a camp of plow-men and harvesters, for a few months in the year are the only inhabitants of plains and meadows that might well support thousands of families. By such management the utmost extravagance of methods is engendered. Pastures are eaten out, soils exhausted, and the country left in a condition inviting the English or Irisli system of landlordisin. Portland wants nothing of this. She should consider that it is a State filled with families, with a multitude of rural towns, and with productive manufactories, that makes demand for the immense imports which she is to store and to distribute, and which provides the immense exports to be exchanged for the imports. For this reason she will principally encourage such industries as fruit raising, dairying, sheep and stock raising by small farmers on small farmns; the raising of poultry and the labor of small manufac- tories, and of persons in rural communities.
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
It remains also to open up the water ways, to complete the natural entrance at the mouth of the Columbia river, and to unlock the gates of the Columbia to the whole interior.
By such liberal policy, by breadth of plan and outlook, by exercise of a spirit of fraternity and accommodation, Portland will maintain her ascendancy. The conditions out of which monopolies and oppressive combinations arise will be prevented. Although expecting to run a hard race with San Francisco and even some Eastern city as Chicago, and with some local rivals for control of the business in certain portions of her field, she need have no fear of the result.
Locally, there is room here for great lumber yards, cattle yards, fruit canning establishments, cold storage houses and depots of supply for the merchant marine, for the fishing stations of Alaska, and for the mines of the upper Columbia. These will come in time.
CHAPTER VIII.
RIVER NAVIGATION.
Oregon Pioneer Ship builders and River Navigators-Col. Nesmith's Account of Early Navigation on the Columbia and Willamette-Judge Strong's Review of the Growth and Development of Oregon Steamship Companies-Names and Character of Early Steamships and the Men who ran them-List of the Steamers Built by the Peo- ples' Transportation, Oregon Steamship Navigation and Oregon Railway and Naviga- tion Companies-Independent Vessels and Their Owners,
IN approaching this subject one finds that, as in all other lines, Portland has gradually become the center of all the navigation companies of Oregon. To indicate the sources of her present facili- ties it will therefore be proper to mention the efforts made in other places in our State which ultimated upon Portland. This can be done in no manner so satisfactorily as by inserting here two extracts; one of them being from a speech of Senator J. W. Nesmith, and the other from Hon. Win. Strong, before the Oregon Pioneer Association.
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RIVER NAVIGATION.
The former is a racy narrative of the very earliest efforts at naviga- tion; and the latter shows the origin of our steamboat companies. Both the mnen named were personally cognizant of the facts in the case. Says Nesmith:
It is my purpose to speak briefly of the inception of onr external and internal commerce, as inaugurated by the efforts of the early pioneers.
Forty years ago the few American citizens in Oregon were isolated from the ont- side world. Some adventurons and enterprising persons conceived the idea of a vessel of a capacity to cross the Columbia river bar and navigate the ocean. Those persons were mostly old Rocky Mountain beaver trappers, and sailors who had drifted like waifs to the Willamette Valley. Their names were Josepli Gale, John Canan, Ralph Kilbourn, Pleasant Armstrong, Henry Woods, George Davis and Jacob Green. Felix Hathaway was employed as master ship carpenter, and Thomas Hubbard and J. L. Parrish did the blacksmith work. In the latter part of 1840, there was laid the keel of the schooner Star of Oregon, upon the east side of Swan Island, near the junction of the Willamette and Columbia rivers. The representatives of the Hudson's Bay Co. either dreading commercial competition, or doubtful about their pay, at first refused to furnish any supplies. But through the earnest representation of Commodore Wilkes-then here in command of the American exploring squadron, who offered to become responsible for the payment-Dr. M'Loughlin furnished all such necessary articles as were in store at Vancouver. (According to another account current among old pioneers, the boat builders feigned to be persuaded by M'Loughlin to give up their plan, and go to raising wheat for him. He supplied them with ropes, nails, bag- ging, etc., etc., such as was necessary for agriculture, and was greatly astonished when in passing the island he saw his farmers industriously building the craft which he had attempted to inhibit, expressing his vexation in the words, "Curse these Americans; they always do get ahead of us.") On the 19th day of May, 1841, the schooner was launched. She had only been planked up to the water ways, and in that condition was worked up to the falls of the Willamette. Owing to the destitution of means and the scarcity of provisions, the enterprising ship builders were compelled to suspend work upon their vessel until May, 1842. On the 25th of August the ves- sel was completed, and the crew went on board at the falls. They consisted of the following named persons: Joseph Gale, captain; John Canan, Pleasant Armstrong, Ralph Kilbourn, Jacob Green and one Indian boy ten years old. There was but one passenger, a Mr. Piffenhauser. Capt. Wilkes furnished them with an anchor, hawser, nautical instruments, a flag and a clearance. On the 12tli of September, 1842, she crossed the bar of the Columbia, coming very near being wrecked in the breakers, and took latitude and departure from Cape Disappointment just as the sun touched the western horizon.
That night there arose a terrific storm, which lasted thirty-six hours, during which Captain Gale, who was the only experienced seaman on board, never left the lielni. The little Star behaved beantifully in the storm, and after a voyage of five days anchored in the foreign port of Yerba Buena, as San Francisco was then called.
The Star was 48 feet eight inches on the keel, 53 feet eiglit inches over all, with ten feet and nine inches in the widest part, and drew in good ballast trim four feet
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
and six inches of water. Her frame was of swamp white oak, her knees of seasoned red fir roots; her beam and castings of red fir. She was clinker built, and of the Baltimore clipper model. She was planked with clear cedar, dressed to 1 14 inches, which was spiked to every rib with a wrought iron spike half an inch square, and clinched on the inside. The deck was double; and she was what is known as a fore and aft schooner, having no top sails, but simply fore and main sails, jib and flying jib. She was painted black, with a small white ribbon running from stem to stern, and was one of the handsomest little crafts that ever sat upon the water. Capt. Gale and the crew, who were the owners of the Star, sold her at the bay of San Francisco in the fall of 1842 to a French captain named Josa Lamonton, who had recently wrecked his vessel. The price was 350 cows.
Shortly after Captain Gale arrived in San Francisco, the captains of several vessels then in the harbor came on board his schooner, and when passing around the stern read Star of Oregon, he heard them swear that there was no such port in the world.
Gale and his crew remained in California all winter, and in the spring of 1843 started to Oregon with a party of forty-two men, who brought with them an aggregate of 1250 head of cattle, 600 head of mares, colts, horses and mules, and 3000 sheep. They were seventy-five days in reaching the Willamette Valley. On their arrival with their herds the monopoly in stock cattle came to an end in Oregon.
Captain Joseph Gale, the master spirit of the enterprise, was horn, I believe, in the District of Columbia, and in his younger days followed the sea, where he obtained a good knowledge of navigation and seamanship. Captain Wilkes, before he would give him his papers, examined him satisfactorily upon these subjects. Abandoning the sea he found his way to the Rocky Mountains, and was for several years a trapper. I knew him well and lived with him in the winter of 1843-4, and often listened to his thrilling adventures of the sea and land. He then had the American flag that Wilkes gave him, and made a sort of canopy of it, under which he slept. No saint was ever more devoted to his shrine than was Gale to that dear old flag.
In the summer of 1844, Aaron Cook, a bluff old Englishman, strongly imbued with American sentiments, conceived the idea of building a schooner to supercede the Indian canoes then doing the carrying trade on the Columbia and Willamette rivers. Cook employed Edwin W. and M. B. Otie and myself as the carpenters to construct the craft. We built her in a cove or recess of the rocks just in front of Frank Ermotinger's honse, near the upper end of Oregon City.
None of us had any knowledge of ship-building, but by dint of perseverance we constructed a schooner of about thirty-five tons burthen. She was called the Cali- pooiah. Jack Warner did the caulking, paying and rigging. Warner was a young Scotchman with a good education, which he never turned to any practical account. He ran away from school in the "Land o' Cakes" and took to the sea, where he picked up a good deal of knowledge pertaining to the sailors' craft. I recollect one day when Jack, with a kettle of hot pitch and a long-handled swab, was pitching the hull of the Calipooiah, he was accosted by an "uncouth Missourian," who had evidently never seen anything of the kind before, with an inquiry as to his occu- pation. Jack responded in broad Scotch: "I am a landscape painter by profession, and am doing a wee bit of adornment for Capt. Cook's schooner."
PH.D. Green
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RIVER NAVIGATION.
In the month of August, 1844, we had launched and finished the Calipooiah and went on a pleasure excursion to the mouth of the Columbia. The crew and passen- gers consisted of Captain Aaron Cook, Jack Warner, Jack Campbell, Rev. A. F. Waller and family, W. H. Gray and wife, A. E. Wilson, Robert Shortess, W. W. Raymond, E. W. Otie, M. B. Otie and J. W. Nesmith. There might have been others on board; if so, their names have escaped me. The after portion had a small cahin, which was given up for the accommodation of the ladies and children. Forward was a box filled with earth, upon which a fire was made for cooking purposes. We had our own blankets and slept upon the deck. The weather was delightful, and we listlessly drifted down the Willamette and Columbia rivers, sometimes aided by the wind. Portland was then a solitude like any other part of the forest-clad bank. There were then no revenue officers here under pretense of "protecting" American in ustries, and no custom house boat boarded us.
In four days we reached Astoria, or Fort George, as the single old shanty on the place, in charge of an old Scotchiman, was called. The river was full of fish, and the shores abounded in game. We had our rifles along, and subsisted upon wild delicacies. There were then numerous large Indian villages along the margin of the river, and the canoes of the natives were rarely out of sight. The Indians often came on board to dispose of salmon ; their price was a bullet and a charge of powder for a fish.
The grand old river existed then in its natural state, as Lewis and Clark found it forty years before. I believe that there was' but one American settler's cabin on the banks of the Columbia from its source to the ocean. That was on the south side of the river, and belonged to Henry Hunt and Ben Wood, who were building a saw-mill at that point.
On an Island near Cathlamet some of us went ashore to visit a large Indian village, where the natives lived in large and comparatively comfortable houses. They showed us some articles which they said were presented to them by Lewis and Clarke, among which were a faded cotton handkerchief and a small mirror, about two inches square, in a small tin case. The corners of the case were worn off and the sides worn through by much handling. The Indians seemed to regard the articles with great venera- tion, and would not dispose of them to us for any price we were able to offer.
The only vessel we saw in the river was Her Majesty's sloop-of-war Modeste, of eighteen guns, under command of Capt. Thomas Bailie. We passed her in a long nich in the river, as she lay at anchor. We had a spanking breeze, and, with all our sail set and the American flag flying at our mast-head, we proudly rau close under her broadside. A long line of officers and sailors looked down over the hammocks and from the quarter-deck at our unpainted and primitive craft in apparently as much astonishment as if we were the Flying Dutchman or some other phantom ship from the moon to plant the Stars and Stripes upon the neutral waters of the Columbia."
The steamer Eliza Anderson, launched November 27, 1858, was entirely built at Portland, of Oregon fir timber, and at this date, July, 1889, is running on Puget Sound with most of her original timher as apparently sound as the day it was put in lier.
1
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
Judge Strong, at one time attorney of the old O. S. N. Company, succinctly begins his narrative at the annual meeting of the Pioneer Association in 1878 by stating what he found upon reaching the Columbia:
Astoria at that time was a small place, or rather two places, the upper and lower town, between which there was great rivalry. They were about a inile apart, with no road connecting them except by water and along the beach. The upper town was known to the people of lower Astoria as " Adairville." The lower town was designated by its rival as "Old Fort George," or "McClure's Astoria." A road between the two places would have weakened the differences of both, isolation being the protection of either. In the upper town was the custom house, in the lower two companies of the First U. S. Engineers, under command of Major J. S. Hathaway. There were not, excepting the military and those attached to them, and the custour house officials, to the best of my recollection, to exceed twenty-five men in both towns.
At the time of our arrival in the country there was considerable counmerce carried on, principally in sailing vessels, between the Columbia river and San Francisco. The exports were chiefly lumher ; the imports generally merchandise.
The Pacific Mail steamer Caroline had made a trip in the month of May or June, 1850, bringing up furniture for the Grand Hotel at Pacific City, and as passengers, Dr. Elijah White, Judge Alonzo Skinner, J. D. Holman and others, who were the founders and proprietors of the city. Some of the proprietors still live, but the city has been long since buried and the place where it stood has returned to the primeval forest from which it was taken. The Mail Company's steamers Oregon and Panama had cach made one trip to the river that summer, but regular mail service by steamer from San Francisco was not established until the arrival of the steamer Columbia in the winter or spring of 1850-51. The usual length of time of receiving letters from the States was from six weeks to two months. It took, however, three months to send and get an answer from an interior State, and postage on a single letter was forty cents. After the arrival of the Columbia, they came with great regularity once a month, and a year or two afterwards semi-monthly.
In 1852 the railroad across the Isthmus was completed, thus greatly improving that route. A route had been established across Nicaragua, which for a time was quite popular, but was finally abandoned on account of internal disturbances in the country, in part, and in part on account of competition and increased facilities upon the Isthmus route. The date when the Nicaragua route commenced to be used and was discontinued I am not able at this time to give. The price of passage by the Isthmus route, before their oppositton, was from $200 to $250, which included only a limited amount of baggage. Freights were extraordinarily high, amounting to a prohibition upon all excepting merchandise.
In 1857 the Overland Stage Company was organized and commenced carrying the letter mail between St. Joe, Missouri, and Placerville, California, under a contract with the Postmaster General, under an act of Congress, approved March 3d, 1857. The act authorized a semi-monthly, weekly, or semi-weekly service, at a cost per annum not exceeding $300,000 for semi-monthly, $+50,000 for weekly, and $600,000
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RIVER NAVIGATION.
for semi-weekly service-the mail to be carried in good four-horse coaches or spring wagons, suitable for passeugers, through in twenty-five days. The original contract was for six years, but was extended, and the line run until the railroad was completed in 1869. After the route was opened, twenty-two days was the schedule time. The stages run full both ways, fare $250. The starting and arrival of the stages were great events at both ends of the line. A pony express from San Francisco to St. Joe was started in 1859, and run about a year and a half. It made the trip in ten days.
The first river steamboat in Oregon was the Columbia, built by General Adair, Captain Dan Frost and others, at Upper Astoria in 1850. She was a side-wheel boat, ninety feet in length, of about seventy-five tons burthen, capable of accommodating uot to exceed twenty passengers, though I have known of her carrying ou one trip over one hundred. Though small, hier cost exceeded $25,000. Mechauics engaged in her construction were paid at the rate of sixteen dollars per day, and other laborers five to eight dollars, gold. She made her first trip in June, 1850, under the command of Capt. Fros; McDermott, engineer. It generally took about twenty-four hours to make the trip. She tied up nights and in foggy weather. Fare was twenty-five dollars each way. She was an independent little craft, and not remarkably accon- modating, utterly ignoring Lower Astoria. All freight and passengers must come on board at the upper town. She ran for a year or two, when her machinery was taken out and put into the Fashion. Her hull afterwards floated out to sea.
The Lot Whitcomb, also a side-wheeler, was the next. She was built at Milwaukie, then one of the most lively and promising towns in Oregon, by Lot Whitcomb, Col. Jennings, S. S. White and others and launched on Christmas Day, 1850. That was a great day in Oregon. Hundreds from all parts of the Territory came to witness the launch. The festivities were kept up for three days and nights. There was music instrumental-at least, I heard several fiddles- and vocal, dancing and feasting. The whole city was full of good cheer; every house was open and all was free of charge- 110 one would receive pay. Sleeping accommodations were rather scarce, but there was plenty to keep one awake.
The Lot Whitcomb had a fine model, a powerful engine, and was staunch and fast. Her keel was 12x14 inches, 160 feet long, a solid stick of Oregon fir. Her burden was 600 tons, had a 17-inch cylinder, 7-feet stroke and cost about $80,000. She proved a safe and comfortable boat. Fare upon lier was reduced to $15 between Portland and Astoria. She ran upon Oregon waters until the latter part of 1853, when she was taken to San Francisco and ran for some years on the Sacramento. Captain John C. Ainsworth took command. This was his first steamboating in Oregon. Jacob Kanım was her engineer. Captain Ainsworth was from Iowa, where he had been engaged in steamboating on the Mississippi between St. Louis and Galena about five years. He was a young man about twenty-eight years of age when he commenced in Oregon, and had nothing to begin with but the ordinary capital of an Oregou pioneer-a sound head, a brave heart, willing hands, energy and fidelity to trust. I have known him through his whole career in Oregon. The fortune and position he has acquired are not the result of accident or chance, but have been secured by industry, integrity, ability, hard labor and prudence. Such fortune and such position come to all who work as hard, as long and well as Captain Ainsworth.
Jacob Kamm, the engineer, was the right man in the right place ou such a boat, under such a captain. He proved himself skillful and prudent; no accident ever
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HISTORY OF PORTLAND.
occurred through his want of skill and care during the long period in which he ran as engineer on Oregon steamboats. The fortune he has acquired has been built up by hard lahor, increased and preserved by skill and prudence.
The Pacific Mail Steamship Company, a New York corporation which had the mail contract between Panama and Oregon, brought out a large iron steamer called the Willamette. She was built for the company at Wilmington, Delaware, aud brought around Cape Horn under sail as a three masted schooner, arriving in the fall of 1851. She was soon fitted up and commenced running. under Captain Durbrow, between Portland and Astoria in connection with the company's sea steamer. She was an elegant boat in all her appointments, had fine accommodation for passengers, and great freight capacity. In fact, she was altogether too large for the trade, and in August, 1852, her owners took her to California and ran her on the Sacramento. One good thing she did, she put fare down to $10. Fare on this route went down slowly; first $26, then $15, then $10. then $8, and then $3; it is now $2. It is only within a few years that the passenger trade on the lower Columbia has heen of any considerable value, or would support a single weekly steamboat. It has now become of more importance.
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