Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/539

 of free land to be had for the taking, and a town site or two more or less eould not make mueli diifereiiee to Porlhuid, and the doughty eaptaiu was told to go ahead with his town, for it would all be Portland after awhile, and so now, sixtylive years afterward, it is all Portland, with five bridges to connect the two sides and another bridge coming.

Captain Gelston, mentioned above, made a second voyage to the Pacific coast, arriving in San Francisco baj', just after the great gold fever excitement got well started, and taking advantage of the gold panic news sent to the states, Gelston had laid in a heavy stock of picks, gold pans and shovels, and when he got safe within the "Golden Gate" his fortune was made, from the sales of his hardware at prices twenty-fold of what it had cost him.

With these ships came in some good men who located, drove down their stakes, and staid with the town until all got rich and repaid the town by great service as good and useful citizens. Of these may be mentioned Richard Hoyt, who canie as first officer on the Whiton; and Daniel Lunt, one of the mates of the Chenamus. Lunt took up a land claim south of Terwilliger's, and subsequently sold it to Thomas Stevens. The suburb of Fulton is now- built on the Lunt claim.

But according to the recollection of Colonel Nesmith, the first land claim within the present limits of the city was the claim just south of Lovejoy and Pettygrove. This was taken up in 1842 by William Johnson, an English sailor, who was living on his claim before Overton was claiming the land he sold to Lovejoy and Pettygrove. Johnson's name figured considerably in the history of the celebrated or notorious "Wrestling Joe" Thomas' lawsuit about the Caruthers estate, that estate being almost wholly the land originally claimed by Johnson and abandoned or sold by him to Finiee Caruthers. Mrs. Charlotte Moffett Cartwright remembers well the cabin of Johnson and his half-blood Indian wife, which was located near the ti-ail which led from the Terwilliger home to the "town." Johnson removed from the site of Portland to the vicinity of Champoeg.

Johnson had an interesting history, showing what a lot of odd and celebrated characters drifted into this then out-of-the-way corner of the world. He was originally an English sailor, subject of Great Britain, but foreswore his allegiance to the British king, and took service with the United States on the old frigate Constitution, and was in the celebrated naval battle between that ship and the British "man-of-war" Guerriere, in which bloody battle he made one of boarding party charging the bulwarks of the Guerriere and received an ugly scalp wound from a British cutlass. He delighted to tell of this terrible sea fight, speaking of the "Old Ironsides" as one might speak of their dearest friend. And being the only Oregoniau known to have taken part in a naval battle in defense of the American flag, he is entitled to have his name reverently preserved in this history. When the war of 1812 broke out between the United States and Great Britain, it was supposed that as this country had no navy, the English would sweep the American merchantmen from the seas. This they tried to do; and the few small frigates of the Americans could offer but little opposition. The American ship made famous by the battle here commemorated, had but then recently returned from European waters, where she barely escaped capture by the speed of her sailing. And when she fell in with the British