Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/77

Rh for wharves. A second bench, considerably more elevated, is covered with beautiful firs, in the midst of which stands a neat, white church. The village is grouped below, and has an air of cheerfulness not common to embryo towns. Our steamer is lying alongside the wharf of a lumber-mill, of a capacity evidently greater than any we have heretofore seen along the river. The mill is a fine structure, and the wharves are piled high with lumber, which is being loaded upon a vessel bound for Callao. There are several stores near the landing, and a whole fleet of little boats beached on a bit of sand close by. This is evidently a trading post of some consequence.

We take pains to inquire into the business and history of the place. Its history is a little peculiar. "Hope deferred which maketh the heart sick" has been its fortune from first to last. As long ago as when Wyeth was trying to establish American commerce on the Columbia, he selected this spot for his future city, and it obtained among the first settlers the name of "Wyeth's Rock." Afterward it was claimed by a man named Knighton, who, holding the same view of it, laid it out in a town-site, having it properly surveyed, the streets named, etc. But Mr. Knighton entertained such exalted notions of the value of his lots, and of his ability to build up a town without assistance, that those men who would have "stuck their stakes" in St. Helen, in a fit of pique, turned themselves into all opposition party, and laid out the town of Portland. By wiser management than Knighton's, they succeeded in drawing away from him the business he thought himself able to secure—and the result is, a city of ten thousand inhabitants at Portland, and only a couple of hundreds at St. Helen.