USA > Oregon > Oregon, pictorial and biographical > Part 5
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
Previous to this (going backward a while and again taking up my own career) I had left my uncle's service and was living in Tallahas- see, Florida, having left while William B. was still with the firm of Williams, Rankin & Penniman. I was still in the service of my uncle in Trumansburg when a circumstance occurred which changed my whole career. A gentleman, a merchant of Tallahassee, Florida, came
73
74
D. C. Leonard
there on his annual visit to his relatives, with whom I was acquainted, and in a casual conversation, he asked me if I would like to go to Flor- ida, as he was authorized by a firm to engage a young man from the north. He stated the salary they would pay, etc., and I said at once I would go if I could prevail on my uncle to let me off my obligation to him the last year, which he did, after I pleaded most strenuously, and I left with him for Florida, remaining in New York a few days while he was purchasing a stock of merchandise. I spent there about two years in the service of Betton & McGinnis, a prominent firm of merchants and exporters of cotton. I enjoyed my two years spent in Florida. I resided with a family of a member of the firm, and after remaining in their service for two years I returned to the north, taking a small schooner plying between St. Marks, the port of Tallahassee and New Orleans, thence by steamer up the Mississippi and Ohio rivers to Cincinnati, thence to Pittsburg, thence by stages over the Baltimore & Ohio turnpike to Cumberland and by rail to New York. Then after a short visit to my home in Owego, I went to New York to take a posi- tion in a dry-goods house which William B. had secured for me and which I filled for nearly one year, when they discontinued business. This was about as the excitement over the discovery of gold in Cali- fornia began, and the rush was commenced and I caught the fever, and would have left, but was dissuaded by entreaties from home, and my brother William persuaded me to take a position in a large wholesale grocery house in Broad street-Wood & Sheldon, with whom I re- mained until November, 1849, when they closed their business. This "let me out" and the "California fever" came over me again in full force and late in November of that year (1849) I left New York on board the steamer Crescent City for Chagres (no Panama railroad then), thence up the Chagres river to the head of canoe naviga- tion. Five passengers with myself chartered a large native canoe for ourselves and baggage and were poled, paddled and pulled by three natives to Gorgona, head of navigation. From there to Panama on mule-back, and our baggage on the heads and backs of natives, and sailed from Panama on board the steamer Califonia for San Fran- cisco, touching at every point of importance between those points, ar- riving in San Francisco and anchored at eleven o'clock at night on the 31st day of December, 1849, just in time to make us numbered among the pioneers of '49. As there was only then about one steamer per month, an arrival. there was quite an event, and the next morning as we disembarked, all San Francisco seemed to be upon the beach to greet us. No docks there then. I met the first day after landing several of my old friends from New York who had preceded me, and I felt quite
75
D. C. Leonard
at home. My old friend, John Green, of New York, who left the em- ploy of Pomeroy & Leonard as a salesman and had left New York in a sailing vessel around Cape Horn, had reached there after a very long voyage (nearly six months) and was engaged in business and had been for some months. It was he that with myself formed the firm of Leonard & Green. Within two months after I reached San Francisco I found that Mr. Green had become imbued with the idea that Oregon would be a better field for us to cast our fortunes than California and I agreed with him. We bought out his partner's interest in San Fran- cisco, packed up our stock and shipped it on board a bark bound for Oregon, on which he sailed with further additions to the stock, which we purchased in San Francisco, and landed at Astoria in February, 1850, and started in business there under the firm name of Leonard & Green. I remained in San Francisco awaiting the arrival of a steamship, the Sarah Sands, coming around Cape Horn for goods consigned to me from New York, principally from Pomeroy & Leonard, and to fill orders he might send me from Oregon for our Astoria trade.
I went to Oregon in June, 1850, and found him well established there in business, occupying a storehouse built by and formerly occu- pied by the old English Hudson's Bay Company years before, they having abandoned that post. Our trade then was principally with In- dians, then still very numerous there. We remained in Astoria be- tween two and three years, when we began to realize the fact that Asto- ria would never prove to be a leading business place in the future of Oregon, although situated, as it is, at the mouth of the great Columbia and with a fine harbor for shipping. The Columbia being navigable to Portland on the Willamette, one hundred and twenty miles above, and that much nearer to the great and productive region, it would be the city of the future, and we had made a mistake in casting our anchor at Astoria. About that time Green's brother, Henry D., and my brother, Irving, arrived in Astoria. We soon installed them in charge of our interests there, dividing our profits there with them, and then established our business as a general wholesale house in Portland. I went to New York immediately, my first trip there from the coast, and on my way there stopped over a few days in Owego to visit, then on to New York to purchase goods for our Portland house. I made my headquarters with Hurlbut, Sweetzer & Company, of which my brother William B. was a partner, and from whom I purchased quite largely. They also consigned us goods for sale on their account.
At Portland we secured a position for our business on Front street with a landing dock for vessels-the only dock in Portland at that
76
D. C. Leonard
time. Now how changed-miles of connected docks on both sides, flanked by capacious warehouses for the accommodation of the large commercial trade that has grown here. About the time we were fully established The Pacific Mail Company established the connection of their Panama line, putting on a weekly line of steamers between San Francisco and Portland, and our firm was made their agents here. Our success in our mercantile career here was very satisfactory. I went to San Francisco in 1854, and purchased the bark Metropolis, which we placed on the San Francisco route for the transporting of lumber, produce, etc., to San Francisco, and from there to Portland as a freighter for ourselves and the public generally.
We afterward opened up a business with the Sandwich Islands, despatching her with cargoes of lumber to Honolulu. About the time she had accomplished her third trip and was commencing to load another cargo, we received rather unfavorable news as to the lumber trade, etc., from our agents there, and just about that time I noticed the advertisement in a San Francisco paper of a bark that would sail in a few days for Australia touching at Honolulu, and deciding that it would be well for me to take the steamer leaving for San Francisco the next day, by which I could reach there in time to take passage for Honolulu and could reach there two weeks sooner than our bark would, giving plenty of time to size up our Honolulu affairs. So I sailed for that port on the bark Lucky Star and reached there before our bark came in from Portland. I found out in the meantime that the lumber dealers had combined to force the sale of our next coming cargo of lumber to a very low figure and of course divide the profit. I had an invoice of the cargo she was loading when I left and it was then just such a kind of lumber as was not in the market and was greatly in demand. It was almost entirely composed of inch boards and other light lumber, which would retail from their yards at thirty- five to forty dollars per thousand feet. The best offer to me was about sixteen dollars per thousand, and in the meantime before my bark showed herself off the harbor, I had made up my mind what to do and acted upon it. I had taken an option to lease (if I chose to do so) in a central location a lot enclosed by a high fence with a vacant ware- house upon it, just such a place as I wanted for the storage and sale of produce from Oregon, such as flour, oats, baled hay, etc., which we generally shipped as part cargoes and to store sugar and such products of the islands as we brought back to Portland. So you see, I was pre- pared. On the day my bark sailed into the harbor I had my last inter- view with the lumber dealers. We did not come to terms, and on the next day all the trucks in Honolulu were busy hauling the cargo of
77
D. C. Leonard
the metropolis to my place of business, for which I had closed the lease, and the year and a half I lived in Honolulu commenced. I had se- cured the services of a very nice young American who was born there. He could speak the Hawaiian language in dealing with the natives. There was a rush at once for the lumber among the Kanakas at thirty- five dollars per thousand feet, and they carried it off on their backs and hand carts for a few days about as fast as the draymen could haul it from the wharf.
Well, at this point of my narrative I can say that I was now fairly anchored and established in business at Honolulu for an indefinite time as a branch of the firm of Leonard & Green, and I was there to manage it. The bark Metropolis was despatched back to Oregon after unloading with what freight I had secured for her return, principally sugar. I kept steadily at it while I remained there-one year and a half.
In the meantime (while I was there) a small brigantine sailed into Honolulu and was sold there, the purchaser intending to place her in the Oregon trade and had purchased about one hundred tons of sugar (about one-half her capacity) for her first trip, and not being able to procure enough for a full freight, began to think poorly of his ven- ture. He offered to sell the vessel and the sugar for a fair price and I bought him out and fitted her out with a crew and freight I had wait- ing for the next return of the bark, and sent her to Oregon with an order for her return cargo of lumber, etc., etc. So then, I had two ves- sels in my sevice which I kept running until my Honolulu business was closed out and cleaned up. I sold both my vessels there. After my career there, which I spent very pleasantly and very profitably, I returned to Portland, taking passage on the Bark Live Yankee for San Francisco and proceeded to Portland again.
I must here turn back in my reminiscences to the time previous to our starting out in the Honolulu venture and relate what I should have written up before. I mean my first voyage to China on the Me- tropolis. This was in 1855, when Green and myself conceived the plan of making a venture to Hong Kong with a shipment of a cargo of lumber and ship-spars (on deck), and we acted upon it, and I went with her as super cargo, arriving safely at Hong Kong and making sale of my cargo, which I had to proceed to a port, Whampoa, about one hundred miles from Hong Kong, to make delivery of it. There I placed my bark in dry dock to recopper, then returned to Hong Kong. After investing the proceeds from the sale of lumber in such
78
D. C. Leonard
Chinese merchandise as I thought best for Portland, I sailed home, making a very satisfactory venture. I omitted to state above that in my cargo to China in the Metropolis I carried over in her cargo three hundred barrels of Oregon flour; this was the first Oregon flour that had ever been sent to China for a market, and was the first export of flour to a foreign country made from Portland. In the year 1907 one million four hundred and thirty-four thousand one hundred and fifty-three barrels were exported, showing quite an increase in the ex- portation of flour. Here I remained assisting in the management of our business save the time in making two or three trips to New York to make purchases of goods in our business.
During this period we closed our old concern, and Irving and Henry Green came to Portland to assist with their services on our busi- ness here. We had purchased a block of ground on which we had erected a nice bachelors' home in which we four lived very comfortably. This block we paid twelve hundred dollars for and kept it until the date of the closing up of the firm of Leonard & Green; at that time Green and myself divided the ownership of it, each taking a one-half. I sold my one-half a few years since for fifty-five thousand dollars. The estate of Green (his heirs) still own theirs and it is worth at least one hundred thousand dollars. I merely mention this to show you something that will give you and idea of the advance of values in real estate in Portland.
Some months before closing out our business, Leonard & Green applied to the territorial government and to the city council for a gas franchise. We obtained it; at that time there were but two gas works on this coast, one at San Francisco and one in Sacramento, California. After obtaining our franchise, we started on the erection of our gas works. Mr. Green went east to purchase the necessary machinery, and our works were completed and gas turned on and the city lighted with gas in 1859. Before the completion of our works, we realized that we would require aid of a small vessel to ply between Portland and the coal mines of Nanaimo on Vancouver island to transport our coal for gas from there and hearing that one was for sale at Victoria that would answer the purpose, I went there and purchased her, taking her to Nanaimo for a cargo of coal, loaded and brought her to Portland. I speak of this little brig, the Orbit, as you will see that later on she contributed to my making two voyages to Japan and the Amoor river in Siberia before we parted company. Early in the spring of 1860 we found she was of no further use to us as a coal carrier, as coal of better quality for gas at a less price was being brought to Portland and to get rid of her thinking she would bring a readier sale in San
79
I. C. Leonard
Francisco, we loaded her with lumber and away I sailed for San Francisco, sold my cargo, but was not able to find so readily a pur- chaser for the vessel. After trying for a week or more for a purchaser in vain, I learned that a party of two who were looking for an oppor- tunity for shipment to Nicholaski on the Amoor river with a passage for themselves (two of them) and also another lot of about fifty tons for Hakodadi, Japan, was in the market. Both being quite out-of- the-way places then, Hakodadi being directly on the route, and this making nearly a full freight for my little brig, I closed with them, wrote to Portland that within five days I would be on my way-I soon filled my brig with freight on my own account and was off. I reached my destination and had a favorable voyage. My vessel was the first anchored in the Amoor in the spring of 1860, as the ice had but just left the river and this was about the middle of June. There was a scarcity of many necessary articles in that rushing port after their long winter, and my little vessel's advent just then was hailed with delight by the Russians. Having some freight space left after having discharged my Japan merchandise at Hakodadi, I purchased there for my own account and received on consignment from others merchandise enough to fill my vessel, all of which was in good demand and found quick sale. After my brig was discharged, I sailed for home, touching at Hakodadi, to close up my business there. I pur- chased a few goods there to bring over with me (more as novelties than anything else), as there was not at that date even a beginning of trade thought of. I did bring over with me on my return the very first specimen of what is now going on a large scale, which I must relate-a real live Japanese native, the first one ever seen in Portland; his name was Suzukie Kinzo, a young man about the age of twenty years, and it came about in this manner:
The day I sailed for home, Mr. Rice, the first American consul there, with whom I was, of course, well acquainted, as he frequently invited me to his house to dine, said. to me, regarding Kinzo, who was and had been I might say a ward of the consul and was in his house- hold, this was when I saw him, as he waited upon the table, etc., and I had taken quite an interest in him. He was fine looking, handsome and polite. He spoke English then fluently; this I had remarked, and in this respect Mr. Rice himself said that during his residence there of nearly one year he had not seen his equal among the natives there in any respect. He then gave me, as far as he knew, of his his- tory. He said he walked into his office a few months ago and wished to see the American consul and Mr. Rice gave him an audience. He came with his two swords on his person, which was then a distinction
80
4. C. Leonard
of rank and honor in Japan; he seemed somewhat excited and possibly in trouble; said he was an entire stranger and had not an acquaintance there, that he was a native of Tokio, the capital of Japan, the residence of the emperor, and in fact confessed himself a refugee from there and was quietly smuggled on board a small Japanese junk bound for Hakodadi. He was in fact a political refugee, escaped from Tokio to save his life, and he voluntarily threw himself into the arms of the American consul for protection. About this time Japan was in the throes of a revolution going on among themselves. The reform party, to which Kinzo was allied, was temporarily the under dog, and he among many others had to flee to save his life. Mr. Rice kindly sym- pathized with him and gave him refuge. His being in the "fold," as I may call it properly, of the consul's protection saved him from arrest and extradition back to Tokio, and I have no doubt but the fact that I was just on the point of sailing away and bringing him with me was none too soon. To turn back a little, after writing up Kinzo's advent into Hakodadi, Mr. Rice said Kinzo came that morning to him to intercede with me to take him on my vessel; he was frightened and trembling, said he had received anonymous letters from some of the friends he had made there, giving him warning that he would very soon be arrested. Mr. Rice said he had learned that a very strict watch was being kept upon him, and gave it as his opinion that the only way of his escape to save his life would be in my taking him with me on the Orbit; I said without hesitation, I will do it, but you know my vessel is closely watched by the harbor police and will be until I am outside the harbor. His clerk, Mr. Pitts, was with us, a young American who had been there about three years and had acquired quite a facility in speaking Japanese. Colonel Rice said Mr. Pitts has a plan which will work and told Mr. Pitts to explain it to me. Mr. Pitts told me the plan; he said: "I will take Kinzo in my boat with my dog and gun tomorrow morning about nine o'clock and will make it so the harbor police can see us; this I have been in the habit of doing once a week, going down the straits to a little bay about ten miles below to shoot ducks. The police are all acquainted with me and accustomed to see me with Kinzo, and I know what I am about. You will leave the harbor at the first ebb tide about two p. m. You will have but little wind in the straits in the afternoon, and about ten miles below on the starboard side I will shoot out from behind the headland of a little bay with Kinzo, came alongside and we will come on board; will make my boat fast alongside; then you can square away again on your course. I will remain until dusk sets in, then I will take my boat and with my dog, will start back and will get the usual sea
81
D. C. Leonard
breeze and sail back into the harbor after dark." I said: "Pitts, your plan is alright," and the plan worked to a charm. We soon bid good- bye to Pitts and were soon clear of the straits of Matsnai, and the little Orbit once more pointed her prow toward Oregon seven thousand miles away. We took the extreme northerly passage, skirting along the southern shores of Kamchatka and the Aleutian islands for better easterly currents and more favorable winds, making a fine passage to Victoria, without going out of our way at all, as we made coast a little north of the straits of Juan De Fuca. I had decided to run in to Victoria and take a cargo of coal to Portland, as I had no freight to speak of. Sold what few Japanese goods I had, loaded with coal, then to Portland after a very pleasant and profitable little voyage, and Kinzo was the happiest man on board. The first day he got the mate to shear the topknot off his head, as he said he was tired of that custom.
John and Henry Green were managing our business and our gas works successfully, and Kinzo was at once installed in our bachelor household and made "manager" of that department. We afterward gave him a position in our gas works, which duties he faithfully ful- filled a portion of each year. He was a faithful and hard student, always at his studies half the night and won first prizes in his class frequently in the high school here, and as the old lady said about her daughter, "she was a carniverous reader of all the books she could get hold of." So was Kinzo.
Coming back to myself-after reaching home I found everything going along satisfactorily, during which time I sent the brig to San Francisco for a trip. I loaded her again for that port and went with her, determined to. sell her before I returned, and was disappointed in not finding a purchaser again. With a full cargo on our own account, I sailed for Hong Kong, sold about half the cargo on arrival, and by the advice of a business firm there (of my acquaintance) retained the balance on board. This firm took half an interest in filling her up with a venture for Saigon in southern China.
A large fleet of French war vessels had just preceded my arrival; they had passed through Hong Kong coming down from Peiko in north China, where with an allied force of the British navy, they had been for some time fighting the Chinese, but the trouble was over. My unsold portion of my Oregon freight being suitable for ships' supplies, the joint venture the firm made with me was also selected, reasoning that the fleet would soon be short and they were in a poor port to re- plenish. I found it as we predicted, and soon sold out my whole cargo. My intention was to fill my vessel with Saigon rice on my own account
82
I. C. Leonard
and return to Hong Kong, as rice was scarce and high when I left and could I have done so I would have made a fine voyage, but the fighting going on then (on the river a few miles above the city) had completely stopped the coming in of rice and I could not buy a pound, but there was one China firm there that had just about a cargo which he wished to ship to Macao, about forty miles south of Hong Kong, which I secured at a good rate of freight and delivered safe in Macao (pro- nounced Makow). The city and little island on which it stands and belongs has been there ever since China has been known to Portugal. This was about the middle of May, 1862.
After closing up my business the next morning, my captain asked me. "Well, Mr. Leonard, what will we do next?" I said, "We will run over to Hong Kong today." "I was thinking last night," said he, "that if we could find a suitable cargo in Hong Kong for the Russians at Nicholacfsky and be the first to get there this spring as we were last spring, we could do well." "That's just what I was thinking of too," said I, "and if I cannot sell the Orbit there, it's what we will do." We then went over to Hong Kong and could find no purchaser for my brig. Lost no time in filling her for another trip to the Amoor, filling my brig with goods for Nicholacfsky.
After getting some consignments from my friends in Hong Kong, on which profits were to be divided equally in consideration for my freighting and commissions, I was off as soon as possible. Made a good run to Nicholacfsky, Siberia, arriving there in June, 1863. The little Orbit being the first vessel to reach there after the river was free from ice as she was the year before, my cargo found a ready sale at good profit. I soon left, sailing for Hakodadi, and secured a full cargo (on freight) for Shanghai, China. There sold my vessel to the agent of an American firm just then established in business in Yoko- hama, Japan. After closing up my business in Shanghai, after a week's stay, I took passage on the English steamer, Ly. E. Moon, for Hong Kong, where I had to close up my affairs; and here I must again speak of my little brig Orbit. Immediately after I sold her she left for her new home port and was with a number of other vessels lying at Woosung at the mouth of the river at anchor waiting for the weather to clear before starting out to run over to her new home port in Japan. Our steamer on her way out to sea passed close by her. Her captain and crew (so long with me) were on deck to give a part- ing salute which passed between us. A few days after reaching Hong Kong, an American bark came in partially dismasted, that was also lying at Woosung as I passed out, her captain told me that the follow- ing day he and the Orbit went out in company and when both were
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.