USA > Oregon > Multnomah County > Portland > History of Portland, Oregon : with illustrations and biographical sketches of prominent citizens and pioneers > Part 43
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The middle arch on the corner of First and Alder streets is a specimen of pure Gothic architecture, and is also finished and decorated in an elaborate manner. It is surmounted by beautiful American flags.
The arch at the corner of First and Salmon streets is of the Roman order, and is ornamented in an elaborate manner with flags, battle-axes, bunting, etc. Banners have been suspended along the whole line, bearing upon them the names of gentlemen who are either officers or directors of the Northern Pacific Railroad, or guests of Mr. Villard.
The coming of the visitors was in the nature of a triumphal march, and Villard liad taken the greatest pains to secure the presence of distinguished men from all parts of the Union and fromn England and Germany. The journey from St. Paul to Portland is described as a continuous ovation. At every point of importance the citizens made demonstrations of welcome, speeches were made, and compliments of all kinds were exchanged. The honors of
Dalmau
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Caesar Augustus were lavished upon the man who had performed the work of finishing the road. As the train sped by through the Dakotas, cow-boys followed along racing with the train and exhibiting feats of horsemanship and daring. It was especially arranged for Indians to be present at stopping places along the way and they were inspected with great curiosity by the visitors. The scenery was passed at the best advantage, and the party was conveyed in four different trains, running severally about half an hour apart. The first section contained Mr. Villard, his private car, and the private car occupied by his most distinguished foreign guests. The second consisted of eight private cars, two of which belonged to Mr. Robert Harris, a director of the Northern Pacific Railroad Company; another was occupied by Geo. M. Pullman and party, and the car of ex-president Billings was attached in the rear. General Grant occupied a car with Secretary Evarts, General Cass, General Haupt, and various others. The third section was made up of ten cars, for American guests; and the fourth of ten Pullman cars was occupied by representatives of the newspaper press.
Full accounts of the progress of the trains were dispatched to our city, and at the prospect of men of such positive ability and standing as the guests mentioned coming to see the end of the work and to congratulate our State, all our citizens rose to the full require- ment of the occasion. It was one of those rare times in the history of a place when the entire population was drawn ont by one sympathetic impulse and most cheerfully did each do his best to show his appreciation of the hour. There has been min1ch discussion of Mr. Villard's abilities and general caliber. But in nothing did he show more perfect good taste and administrative facility than in the conduct of this excursion and celebration. The Northern Pacific had been for more than twenty years a subject profoundly interesting to the people of the Eastern States, upon grounds of economics, of politics and patriotismn. With the best of judgment Villard concluded that in no way could the consummation of the building of this road be better celebrated than by the presence here of representative men of the nation. To give still further emphasis to this idea he invited noted inen of England, and of his own native
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Germany. His own efforts were confined to securing the presence of these men and affording them the privileges of guests upon his trains, and making the completion of his work the occasion of the meeting and acquaintance of great men of the three great Tentonic nations.
The following general description of the day and procession is taken from the Oregonian of September 12, 1883:
" If Portland was filled with people Monday morning, she was overflowing yester- day. It was a veritable Fourth of July, on a grand scale, without any of the deafening noise or disagreeable features. From early in the morning until afternoon the country folk pressed into town through every entrance, and, as if to welcome them, merry bells and loud mouthed whistles sounded forth upon the morning air. Everything on wheels was brought into service, to transport the holiday seekers through the streets of the city. Business was almost entirely suspended and every- body thronged the streets along the line of march. From across the river came the whole population of East Portland. Street cars on all the lines were crowded; restaurants ran a double force of waiters to feed the hungry populace. Every one was moving after the usual American style of rushing. Any estimate of the number of people in the city would either be considered the wildest kind of a guess, or fall far short of the truth. Not to be enthusiastic, the display yesterday was the grandest sight that Portland ever witnessed; not one of the graudest, but the very greatest of them all. As for the weather, it was simply perfect. The light rain of the past few days had effectually subdued the summer dust, and the streets were in fine marching condition. The air was clear, bracing and mildly warm, while light fleecy clouds obscured the sun just enough to afford a gentle screen, for which every one was grateful.
As the hour for the parade grew nigh, the crowd packed mnost densely along Fourth street, up to the corner of Court House square. Here was the grand stand for the distinguished guests of Mr. Villard, before whom the entire procession was to march and counter-march in review. At this point the eyes of the people were fairly divided between the great men and the parade gotten up in their honor. Ropes stretched across the street kept back the crowd from the main entrance of the Court House, where the carriages stopped with their load of guests. Ranged along the side walks across the street from the grand stand were three rows of benches, and upon them were seated families of the members of the City Council, of the city officials, and many old pioneers, who would otherwise have had no chance to view the great scene which their earlier labors had done so much to bring about. Of the whole procession, their husbands and fathers formed the most noticeable part.
"Those against whose familiar names not yet The fatal asterisk of death is set,"
upon the records of the Oregon Pioneer Society-a handful of men, fine, sturdy and full of vigor, but now for the most part grey and bent with age-fitly led the van of the parade, as years before they had led the van of civilization, of which the Northern
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Pacific Railroad is the outgrowth. Honored veterans of frontier life, all of them, and representatives of the near past, but without which the present would be impossible. Among those whose faces were familiar to thousands as they led the greatest parade ever witnessed on the northwest coast, were Nestnith and Crawford, Gray and Pettygrove and Parrish, and many others whose names may be less known, but not less prized among them all. Tears came to many eyes as these men, with beard and liair whitened by the frost of time filed slowly by, and the thoughts of many reverted to lowly mounds which swell above the honored dust of Lane, Meek, Payne, Fletcher, Scott, Newsome, Geer and Kinney, a host not less honored thim the remaining handful who still answer to the pioneer roll-call, and vastly more numerous.
Renewing these thoughts, although in a far lighter vain, was the picturesque outfit that closed the whole procession. These were the train of emigrant wagons dilapitated and worn, the mud-splaslied oxen and a dozen bare-footed and dirty faced children to each pater familias. That the picture was true to life none knew better than the old pioneers in the van, and when the two divisions passed each other ou the counter inarch, the shout of recognition which went up from each was loud and long. That a band of painted savages -genuine Indians of the Warm Spring tribe - should follow the train of emigrants, seemed correct and proper, and when the blood- curdling yells rang out as it did occasionally, the realization was complete.
As the pioneers passed the grand stand the second time, they halted in a group before Mr. Villard and gave a rousing hurrah ! C. H. Dodd, who was on the stand, rose to his feet and called for three cheers for the pioneers of Oregon. This was reponded to heartily by hundreds of people, including the invited guests."
The procession occupied an hour and a half in passing the grand stand.
Somewhat more particularly, the procession was made up into five divisions with the special division of pioneers in the lead. There were about one hundred of these, under the lead of Capt. Medorain Crawford, of Dayton, who came to Oregon in 1842, but is one of the strongest, most hearty, and least worn in appearance of any of the others of the pioneers. Very interesting in this group were F. W. Pettygrove, one of the founders of Portland, from Port Townsend; and W. H. Gray, who came in 1836, and wrote the first comprehen- sive history of the Northwest. To the visitors, both from the East, and from Europe, these men were of the greatest interest, and by the later Oregonians they were looked upon with many feelings of emotion.
The first division was made up entirely of officers and soldiers of the United States army from Fort Vancouver. They drew marked attention for their neatness of appearance and precision of march.
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The second division was led by Mr. Geo. H. Durham, of our city, a gentleman of military training, and consisted of emblematic cars of the interests of the city, led, however, by a band of Oregon militia from Dallas, together with children of the Indian training school, then at Forest Grove. A notable feature of this division was the lumber and timber display-fir, cedar and spruce timber of large dimensions. A section of a fir log, eighty inches in diameter, and the stump of a forest giant which a woodman was chopping upon as if in process of felling a tree, being among the number. This proved universally attractive.
The third division was made up entirely of the Oregon militia led by Brigadier General Win. Kapus. There were some eight companies, led by the Second United States Infantry band, and they proved to be in excellent drill, and made a striking appearance.
The fourth division consisted of emblematic cars of Oregon products and industries. One very pretty piece was a large boat, representative of commerce, decorated with red, white and blue streamers, with sail set, manned with youthful sailors, while at the helm sat Miss Marquam, a handsome illustration of the fleet-winged goddess. Cars of flour, coal, saddlery work, lime, stone, cooper work, and spice mills followed this. This division was led by Dr. S. J. Barker.
The fifth division, marshaled by Captain N. J. Morris, one of the Grand Army, and of Mexican War veterans; a troup of cowboys, the fire brigades, and a large number of emblematic cars with furniture, ice, a company of stevedores, specimens of iron work from engines and boilers; and much other interesting work. In this the German citizens made a most interesting and characteristic display; and of all the trains, this was the most extensive.
At the end were the immigrant wagons led by a woman riding on a pony in the same manner that she had crossed the plains two-score years before; and these were followed by the Indians-all most true to life.
The whole procession was under the command of General Morrow.
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This was all, so to say, the greeting and welcome of the city, and was kindly and generously received by Villard and the guests. As the president of the road and the real hero of the occasion, the former bore himself with remarkably good taste and modesty, seein- ing, although much gratified by the results of his labors, somewhat oppressed by the credit given him, and as if but little desirous of so m111ch appreciation. Nevertheless, in all points he was responsive and gracious to these attentions.
In the evening the scene was transferred to the old Mechanic's Pavilion on Third street, the largest building then in the city, which was very gandily, but tastefully, decorated, having also a large display of wealth and art. A crowded house here formally welcomed Mr. Villard and his guests; Hon. H. W. Corbett, presiding. An address of welcome was delivered by Hon. M. C. George, of our city, an Oregonian by education, and for two terms congressman from our State. His address was well and strongly written, comprehensive and perspicnons. It dwelt at considerable length upon the greatness of the work accomplished, the energy required to finish it, the pre- eminent advantages of the route, its value to the country, and its utility as a hand-maid of civilization. He accorded it a place along- side of the great works of the age, the St. Gothard tunnel, the Biscay canal, the opening of the Mississippi at its month and the Nicaragua ship railway or the Panama canal.
Mr. Villard responded somewhat briefly, in a conversational style, noting the friendship extended to him in the Northwest, and recall- ing that it was at Portland, in 1874, that lie got the inspiration to do what was here completed. He commented pleasantly upon what Portland could do in the way of a celebration of the event in com- parison with that of St. Paul, and wished to disclaim too much of credit to himself personally, but to let it go to others also.
Upon concluding, he introduced Hon. Chas. Russell, of the Queen's Bench, and member of the British Parliament, who spoke for the British visitors. Being an Irishman, he was a fluent talker; nevertheless, followed in a line of ideas that seem to us something like platitudes-probably from his desire to follow speaking in a vein such as he supposed was in accordance with American feelings.
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He noticed the fact of our great continent, nature on a vast scale, and a hopeful and sturdy people following in a line of development originally sketched by nature. He referred with much feeling and power to the familiar fact of the amazing growth of the country, and the churches and schools, which indicated that the people were mindful of the higher things. He closed with good wishes to our people and to the nation of which this railroad was the latest effort.
Hon. Horace Davis, Queen's Counsellor, and member of Parlia- ment, followed in much the same strain, speaking of having trav- eled six thousand miles from home to find here a civilization much like that he had left, of Anglo Saxons; and a city whose name recalled the English Island on the coast of Dorchester. The remarkable hospitality of the people of the West was in full keeping with the other delightful things experienced. The things he had seen here furnished thought for serious reflection, supplying all of the elements out of which the history of a people was to be made.
Senator Dr. Albert Greoning, of Bremen, continued in a quiet, pleasing style, speaking on the part of the Germans. He expressed himself as struck with admiration of the greatness and fertility of the country, and the energy, activity and sagacity of the inhabitants (a sentiment which the "inhabitants" heartily applauded.) He spoke with pride of Mr. Villard as a native of Germany, and expressed the belief that this was but the beginning of a new expansion for Portland, and closed with the words that "The development of the United States will always be observed without envy, but with the deepest interests and warmest sympathy."
The Americans, being somewhat more free to express them- selves, and to score criticismns, or suggest ideas of improvement, as it is very instructive to observe by their remarks, mostly framed their expressions in a setting of humor, but, nevertheless, struck out constantly advanced ideas and bright scintillations of thought. Hon. John A. Kasson, of Kansas, saw in the procession an epitome of American history, and closed with the fervent hope, in the name of God, that American civilization on the Pacific shores would not be
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forced back, but rolling across the Pacific, bring the ancient mill- ions of Asia into harmony with the civilization of our age, and with the religion to which we adhere.
Senator Conger, of Michigan, spoke with much fraternal spirit of the pioneers of the Pacific, passing into the unknown of the Rocky Mountains, and then being lost to all their old friends as if by the separation of death; and the long waiting for the closing of the cliasin between the west and the east, that they might once more see each other. He also spoke of the intense interest of the east in the religious welfare and improvement of the west, and that it be a land of homes. He said that after looking he had no fears for Oregon. He closed fervently with the words, "God bless you, God speed you," and expressions of the pride that he felt in the acomplishment of the great work.
Carl Schurz spoke with much wit of the German part of the affair, expressing his pride in Villard, and how his respect for the other speakers had risen, becoming to him as men of marked discrimination in discovering the eminent qualities of the German-Americans. He referred with pleasure to seeing the Indian boys and girls there, and emphasised the thought that even in the west it was recognized as better to educate than to slaughter the red men. He also cast out a few bright ideas as to the value of our forests, and the unwisdom of their wanton distruction-as here was the great store-house of timber of which the rest of the continent stood so much in need.
William M. Evarts, known quite largely over the country as a writer of exceedingly long and complex sentences, surprised the audience by his gleeful spirit, referring American progress to Plymouth Rock, not even excepting the German Villard, who did nothing great until he had married his New England wife. He also read a lecture-for the benefit of the foreign visitors probably-from the texts in the Bible with reference to beating plowshares into swords, and swords back into plowshares, as the proper, and indeed the American way of preserving liberty and the national interests; calling attention to these hardy, independent ranks of men as fit either for defense against violence, or for manning the cars of industry.
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Indeed, from the earnestness with which the Americans dwelt upon the moral aspect of the case, one iniglit have taken them to be a party of clergymen. Their words were, however, sound and weighty, and strongly illustrative of the bent of the American mind toward ideal right and good.
Other railroads soon came. The Union Pacific, through the Oregon Short line and connection with the Oregon Railway, reached Portland in 1885, and the Southern Pacific came in 1888. The advent of either would have been hailed as the event of first importance had it been first in point of time.
This history of Portland is the product of research and labor extended in all directions that promised results; it is probably as complete as any that is likely to be prepared, and yet not so complete by any means as it would be, were it practicable to gather, to sift and to compare all facts of interest that are yet retained in the memory of living persons or set down in documents remaining in private hands. Unfortunately, the mass of these materials is beyond the reach of those who undertake to prepare a work like this, and writers or editor must be content with such records and recollections as can be gathered by diligence, though knowing that more has been missed than obtained.
The retrospect of the history of Portland shows steady growth, consciousness of destiny, development of character and assimula- tion thereto of the forces gathered and gathering here. It shows a society knit together by long intercourse and by community of interest, developing characteristics that give Portland an individu- ality recognizable by all who come in contact with her, establishing the homogeneity of her people, and advancing them to the condi- tions of well regulated and orderly municipal life. Portland has the experience and conservatisin of the past blended with the activity of the present and the inspiration of the future. From her past she has a basis of solid strength; from her present, the hope and pur- pose of enterprising spirit. The two united give the prophecy of her history.
Tyler Woodward
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This prophecy is founded in conditions that make it impressive and give assurance of certain fulfillment. So much has been done and gained that the future is no longer problematical. Destiny is so far advanced that prophecy cannot miss its mark. Portland, 110 mean city already, is destined to be a great one. Who can guess with how curious an interest this account of beginnings of the city of Portland; this record of the city of Portland of to-day, will be read in the great city of Portland, forty or one hundred years from to-day! Individual life is short and in the main unimportant, but the collective life of men is long and important, and its develop- ment through secular periods, largely under the stimulating variety of city life, makes the soul of history, whose record gives dignity to the career of the human race.
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CHAPTER XVIII.'
MEN OF PORTLAND.
S a fitting and even necessary part of the present History of A Portland, biographical sketches of a number of the men promi- ment in the founding and building of the city and in the conduct of business and affairs at Portland, are given in the succeeding pages:
CHAPMAN, COL. W. W. Among men now living there are none around whom C clusters so much of the history of Portland as the one whose name heads this memoir. He is the strongest link between the infant days and the stalwart manhood of our city. But the results of his labors in behalf of Portland, great and far-reaching as they have been in good, by no means complete the record of his long and useful life. Years before American civilization had gained a foot-hold in this portion of the Pacific Northwest, he had borne a leading part in laying the foundations of the State of Iowa, projecting and formulating measures which have since become established to the western limits of the continent. As one of the earlier pioneers of Oregon he found a new arena for his powers, and here for nearly a half a century he has exerted an influence upon political and business forces eminently beneficial, while his whole public career has been singularly free from personal or selfishi motives. A hard fighter in everything, a man of direct methods and perfect integrity, he has maintained his opinions fearlessly, honestly and sincerely. No one can read the story of his public endeavors without feeling his heart warm toward this venerable man of over four score years, who upon many occasions in days gone by, when others were timorons or doubtful, dared to stand alone, and with admirable courage, and at times with seeming obstinacy, to do valiant service for the city and State of his adoption.
Preceding pages of this volume treat so largely of Col. Chapman's part in the progress of important events in Portland's earlier history that much necessary to a distinct sketch of his career will be omitted here. For a more complete biography of this prominent Oregon pioneer, and one of the founders of Portland, it is necessary to refer the reader to the history of Portland, as told throughout this work. We now produce the plain story of his life, not with any purpose of landing a man who cares little for praise, and is in little need of it, but with the simple aim of doing justice to one whose varied efforts have done so much for this portion of the Pacific Northwest.
William Williams Chapman was born at Clarksburg, Va., August 11, 1808. At the age of fourteen his father died, and he was thenceforward thrown chiefly upon his own resources, although assisted to some extent by a kind brother and faithful mother. After obtaining what information and mental discipline was to be gotten at the public school, he secured a position in the office of the Clerk of the Court, of which the eminent jurist, Henry St. George Tucker, was Chancellor. In these endeavors at self-improvement he was much encouraged, and indeed assisted by a kind lady, Mrs. Sehon, mother of the eminent Methodist minister of that name. He
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also was given free access to the libraries of the noted members of the bar in that city. Receiving in due time, from Judge Lewis Summers, Daniel Smith and Chancellor Tucker, liis license to practice, he at once took up his residence at Middlebourne, Tyler County, Va. The spring following (1832), he was married to Margaret F., daughter of Col. Arthur Ingraham, a farmer of note, and also a prominent public man who served twenty years in the Legislature of the Old Dominion, and afterwards removed to Illinois, but made his last home in Iowa, where lie died.
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