Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/524

356 the erection of a log cabin. But before these improvements could be even commenced, Overton's restless disposition led him to sell out his half interest in the land to Francis W. Pettygrove for the sum of fifty dollars to purchase an outfit to go back to "The States" or somewhere else, nobody ever knew where. Of Overton nothing is known of the slightest consequence to the location of the town. One account says that he made shingles on the place. If he did, it was probably only for the cabin that was necessary to hold the claim, but he never built any sort of a house protection, and sold out to Pettygrove before the cabin was built. Overton was a mere bird of passage; no one ever knew where he came from or where he went to.

By some writers, Overton is given the honor of being the "first owner of the Portland Land Claim," and "after completing his settlement" he sold out to Lovejoy and Pettygrove. But he never was the owner of the claim, and he never made or completed any settlement. He had done nothing to entitle him to the land; he merely said to a passer-by, "This is my claim." He filed no claim with the Provisional Government, he posted no notice, he built no cabin, and he did not even do what the pioneers of the Ohio valley did, in a hostile Indian country in taking lands—he blazed no line or boundary trees. The Ohio valley pioneers took what was called in their day "tomahawk" claims to land. That is, they picked out a tract of land that suited their fancy, two or three hundred acres, and then taking a light axe or Indian tomahawk, they established and marked a boundary line around the piece of land by blazing a line of forest trees all around that land. That was the custom of the country. There was no law for it. Those settlers were hundreds of miles beyond the jurisdiction of any state, or the surveillance of any government officer. But when the public surveys were extended west from Pennsylvania and Virginia, these "tomahawk claims" were found to cover large settlements. Their blazed trees were notice to everybody and were respected by all incoming settlers; and the United States government surveyors were instructed to adjust all these irregular boundary lines and give the actual settlers on the lands, or their bona fide assignees, accurate descriptions of these claims, which were in due course confirmed by government patents. The first settlers in Oregon, both British and American, were doing precisely the same thing to secure their home and farms; and it was one of the objects of forming the Provisional Government to provide for the recording of all these claims to the end that strife and litigation might be prevented. The Provisional Government had already before Overton set up a verbal claim to the land provided for this registry of claims. Overton had not complied with that law, but gave Lovejoy half of his inchoate right, whatever it might be, to go ahead and comply with the law, and which Lovejoy did. Lovejoy is then in truth and fact the founder of Portland, Oregon, for it was he who secured the title to the land for a town site, and originated the town site proposition.

Amos L. Lovejoy, born in Groton, Mass., March 14, 1808, a graduate of Amherst college, related to the Lawrence family of the old Bay state, studied law, read Hall Kelley's descriptions of Oregon, and started west. Halting in Missouri, he commenced the practice of law in that state. But falling in with Dr. Elijah White, who had been appointed some kind of an Indian agent for Oregon, Lovejoy crossed the plains and came to Oregon in 1842, with the party of Dr. White, and in which party he acted as one of the