Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/122



56 THE CENTEiNNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON

try, the ship sailed for the Coumbia via Cape Horn, while Wyeth again enlisted a party of two hundred men and started overland from Independence, Missouri, on April 24, 1834. "With that party came the first missionaries to Oregon — Jason and Daniel Lee. On his way across the continent, Wyeth stopped and erected Fort Hall, in which he stored his trading goods for the interior. He and his party reached Fort Vancouver about the same time his ship came into the Columbia and proceeding down to the lower end of the Wappatoo island (now called Sauvies island), Wyeth established a salmon fishery and built a trading house which he named Fort William. The salmon fishery was not much of a suc- cess, but it was the commencement of salmon packing on the Columbia, an in- dustry that now brings in many million dollars yearly.
 * May Dacre and filled her up with all sorts of goods and supplies for this coun-

In his journal of April 3, 1835, Wyeth writes: "On arriving here I set about preparing for fishing. Have commenced a house-boat seventy feet long for con- veyance about the different fisheries. Have finished a canoe sixty feet long, three feet wide and two and a half feet deep, out of one tree which has not a shake or knot in it ; and this is by no means a large tree here. I think I could find trees, free from shakes and knots, that would sqiiare four feet one hundred feet long.

' ' This Wappatoo Island I have selected for our establishment is fifteen miles long and three miles wide. It consists of woodlands and prairie, and on it many deer, and those who could spare time to hunt might live well ; but a sickness has carried off to a man its inhabitants (Indians), and there is nothing to attest that they ever existed here but their decaying houses, their graves, and their un- buried bones of which there are piles and heaps."

Wyeth proceeded to lay out a town ^vith streets, blocks, parks, etc., which was the first candidate for the great city of this region. A half a cargo of sal- mon was caught, dried and salted, the ship sailed for Boston in 1838, and never returned to the Columbia. Disheartened with disease on the' island and his commercial failure, Wyeth returned to Massachusetts. While Wyeth 's expedi- tions were disastrous to himself financially, they were of immense value to the United States. He prepared a memoir to Congress, setting forth the character and resources of the country which secured the attention of the American people, and from that day on it was but a question of time and courage uf)on the part of the few settlers that here should be an American state and not a British province.

In his memoir to Congress, Wyeth says: "In conclusion, I will observe that the measures of the Hudson 's Bay Company have been conceived with wisdom, steadily pursued, and have been well seconded by their government; and their success has been complete; and without being able to charge upon them gross violations of existing treaties, a few years will make the country west of the raoiuitains as English as they could desire. The Americans are unknown as a Nation ; and as individuals their power is despised by the natives. A population is growing out of the occupancy of the country that is not with us ; and before many years they will decide to whom the country belongs, unless in the meantime the American government shall make their power felt and seen to a greater degree than has yet been the case. ' '

Wyeth could see no hope for American control but in the active intervention of Congress ; and yet within four years from the time he penned the above lines,