Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/497

Rh to hold the first state fair on the Linn county fair grounds, as planned in the spring, it was decided to postpone the matter for a year and hold the fair in Clackamas county on October 1-4. The site of the fair was on the north bank of the Clackamas river, about half a mile east from its junction with the Willamette river, near the present town of Gladstone. The area occupied was four acres, and was upon the donation claim of Peter M. Rinearson, a pioneer of 1845. The day before the fair was opened Robbins resigned as president, and Simeon Francis, then editor of the Oregonian, was elected, and made the annual address. There were one hundred and forty-two exhibitors and two hundred and sixty-two premiums were awarded. The receipts were $1,446.17 and expenditures $1,200.67, leaving a balance of $245.50.

In closing up the business of this first state fair in Oregon the board of directors decided that the site used was not satisfactory, and advertised for proposals for a place to hold the second state fair. In response four counties responded—Lane, Linn, Marion and Yamhill—and the proposal from Marion county was accepted as being the most favorable, and the date of the second fair was fixed on September 30, 1862, to continue four days. At a meeting of the Oregon Agricultural Society on September 18, 1862, the vote of the stockholders was taken to settle the question of permanent location, and resulted as follows: Corvallis, 1; Eugene, 1; Salem, 65; Oregon City, 2.

While the coming of ships into the Columbia river from Capt. Gray's discovery in 1792 down to the first steamship—the Beaver, in 1836, are matters of great historical interest, and noticed herein in other chapters, yet no one of them or all of them together, constitute the commencement of foreign commerce with Oregon. Gray's ship, and all the shipping of the Hudson's Bay Co., down to and including the first steamship, the Beaver, were strictly fur trading propositions limited to a special interest and coming for a single purpose, and not for trade in general. Winship's and Wyeth's ventures, if successful, would doubtless have grown into a general business and served all interests and persons without discrimination. The mistake of these two American traders was that they anticipated the prospects in Oregon by a dozen years or more. The timber was here and to be cut without leave or license from any one; but there was no market for it to be reached by either Winship or Wyeth. The fish was here without limit, but modern methods of taking and curing them had not been discovered, and Indian labor was inadequate to the undertaking; and so Wyeth's efforts were fruitless at his fishery. Capt. John H. Couch who came out with the ship Maryland in 1840, made the same mistake that Winship and Wyeth did. But it was not his mistake, but the mistake of the owners of the ship—the Cushings of Newburyport, Mass. Couch quickly discovered that the Indians could not be relied on to load a ship with dried or salted salmon. It is generally believed that Jason Lee inspired the Cushings to make this venture. But Capt. Couch being a practical man, measured up the prospects and advantages of this country and returned to the Columbia river with another ship in 1842, and a stock of general merchandise suitable for a new country; and with this merchandise opened a store at Oregon City and placed it in the hands of George W. Le Breton