Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/498



and Albert E. Wilson to dispose of for trade with the few settlers in the country. It proved a success, and Couch was enabled by the trade started in this way to keep his ship employed between the Columbia river and the Sandwich Islands until the year 1847, when he returned home to Newburyport by way of China. In the following year Couch engaged with merchants in New York to bring a cargo of goods to Oregon on the bark Madonna, Couch's brother-in-law, Capt. George H. Flanders, coming along as second officer of the ship. This ship tied up to an oak tree on the bank of the river at the new town of Portland. This cargo of goods, the first ever landed at Portland, was stored and sold out at Portland. These two men, Couch and Flanders, went into business together, set their stakes at Portland, and remained here as their home port for the rest of their lives; Couch taking up 640 acres of land as a donation, which is now all covered with Portland business houses and homes. It was John H. Couch that opened the commerce of Oregon with the world ; and it was John H. Couch who settled the future of Portland as the commercial center of the Columbia river valley. Capt. Couch had a wide acquaintance with ship captains on both the Pacific and At- lantic oceans ; and he informed them that they could bring their ships safely in over the Columbia river bar, and safely take them up to the town of Portland, but no higher up ; and all ships to Oregon after that followed his suggestions. And thus was commerce opened between Oregon and all the world. These first ships did not get much freight to carry away ; and what little they did get, was made up of hides, furs, salted salmon, wheat and lumber. As soon as Whitcomb got his saw mill in operation in Milwaukie in 1848, he always had a little lumber to ship.

THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD

The greatest economic event in the first one hundred years after the American revolution was the discovery of gold in California. At first thought this seems to be a very unfounded statement. But a careful survey of the whole field of enterprise, the commerce of the world, and the standard of living throughout the United States, will show that the discovery of gold wrought a greater change in the United States and the financial relations of this country to other nations, than any other one fact, or any other one hundred facts, subsequent to the inde- pendence of these states.

Up to the year 1848 the United States had possessed a very narrow metallic base for a circulating medium. And what the country did possess was mostly silver coin. Gold coin, the delight of kings and the sceptre of millionaires, was exceedingly scarce in the United States ; and on this account the financial stand- ing of this country and the rating of its securities were practically at the mercy of the Bank of England, and the house of Rothchilds, which financial institutions either possessed or controlled the great bulk of the gold coin of the world. When the mines of California commenced to pour out their great flood of gold, every line of business in the whole of the United States took on new life. And within five years after this great discovery, there were more manufacturing establish- ments started in the United States than had been for a generation before that event. The banking institutions took on a new phase altogether. From securing circulating notes with deposits of State's bonds, which were not payable in gold,