Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/480



While Burnett and McCarver did not succeed in picking out the site of Ore- gon's great commercial town, they came very near to it. On account of the great water power it was at the beginning believed by the first settlers that Oregon City would be the chief city in Oregon. There were not less than eleven locations for the site of the great city to be, a map of which is herein given, Van- couver being the first and Portland being nearly the last in the order of the several locations.

The first settlement in the district covered by this history was made at Vancouver in 1825, by the Hudson's Bay Company. The next within this district was also by the Hudson's Bay Company at Oregon City in 1829. In 1832, Dr. John McLoughlin, chief factor for the Hudson's Bay Company, blasted out and constructed a mill race to conduct the water from above the Willamette falls to a point below the waterfall, to be used in a mill to grind wheat into flour. This was the first work to start a business and manufacturing enterprise in this district. In 1838, McLoughlin had timbers cut and squared and hauled to the ground for the mill, and built a house at the "Falls." Several families settled at the "Falls" in 1841 and 18-42, and in 1843, Dr. McLoughlin surveyed oAl a mile square of land, and platted the town of Oregon City. This was the first town in Oregon, and the original rival to Portland.

Another location for a city, made in some respects anterior to Oregon City, was that of Nathaniel J. Wyeth at the lower end of Sauvie's Island, known in 1835 as Wapato Island. Wyeth was an enterprising young business man of Boston with considerable capital, and had been induced to launch a great trading and colonizing scheme to Oregon by the writings of Hall J. Kelley. Wyeth arrived in Oregon in September, 1834, having left Fort Hall on August 6th with a party of thirty men, some Indian women and one hundred and sixteen horses. On reaching Foi-t Vancouver, with Jason Lee, and others, the first Protestant religious services in Oregon or west of the Rock.y mountains were celebrated. Wj'eth took two of his scientific men in a small boat and started down the Columbia to find a good location to build a city. The party passed down and around Wapato Island, and finally decided to locate the future great city of the Pacific at the lower end of the island where his ship, the May Dacre, had tied up after reaching the Columbia and sailing up the river. This spot is just above where the government lighthouse on the lower end of the island is located. Here Wyeth assembled all this men, both from the over- land party and from the ship, and all hands went to work laying the foundations of the city. A temporary storehouse was erected, the livestock was landed from the ship, and then the goods landed and stored. Ground was cleared, streets were laid out and a row of huts built for quarters for the men; and the pigs, poultry, sheep and goats that had successfully made the trip from Boston, Mass., to old Oregon, were turned loose in the streets of "Fort William" — the name given b.v Wj-eth to his great western eit.y; and logs and boards were cut and sawed for permanent structures. Wyeth set up a cooper shop and set his coopers at work making barrels, into which he could pack the salmon they would catch in the Columbia to send back to Boston on the ship. And some salmon were caught, packed and actually shipped back to Boston.