Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/552

 "Beaver Money" made from dust at the Oregon City mint, became the circulating medium and greatly stimulated trade in all its branches.

Thomas Carter and wife came in from Georgia and located the land claim south of the King claim, and which covered what is now known as Portland Heights. Carter built the first old-style southern states' mansion house out in the region for a long time demeaned by the name of "Goose Hollow," but subsequently changed into "Paradise Valley"—the region bounded by Jefferson street on the north, Chapman street on the west, Lownsdale street on the east, and Market street on the south. Carter lived on the claim for many years, but finally sold out to his two sons, Charles M. Carter and Thomas Jefferson Carter, both forceful and public-spirited men.

"Goose Hollow" was for a long time a sort of "no man's land," being too far out to be salable for city lots, and not worth grubbing out to put in potatoes. In consequence of which a miscellaneous lot of people got in there who did not really go in the "upper ten" class in 1862. And while the good husbands were busy digging stumps or catering to the thirst of the sturdy yeomen on Front street, their good wives were adding to family comforts by raising geese and plucking their feathers as far out as the Carter mansion. In consequence of this goose industry it soon got to be that every woman in the little valley had a flock of geese. And in consequence of the numbers of them they all mixed up together, and every good woman in the whole neighborhood claimed all the geese. And from pulling feathers they got to pulling other things, and some twenty, more or less, goose owners were cited to appear before Police Judge J. F. McCoy to receive justice at the august forum of Portland's first police court. McCoy had a worse job of it than the judge who decided the case between the two women who claimed the same baby, two thousand years ago. But he was equal to the occasion and his decision was, that Marshal J. H. Lappeus and his two deputies should repair to the seat of war and round up every flock of geese that he could find, count them and then divide them equally among the contending owners; and that thereafter the first woman who complained about the geese should be "incerated in the city bastile." For that trip, Lappeus named it "Goose Hollow," and the name stuck.

A careful review of the facts and the men will show that the future of the city and its permanent and substantial success dates back to this period, and practically to a group of about a dozen leading men who were compelled, from the very nature of the case, to pull together for self-preservation. Much has been said and written from time to time about the want of unanimity and harmonious enterprise among the rich men of Portland. And while there had been often outward manifestations of a want of harmony, if not secret opposition to each other, yet altogether the evolutionary progress of the city has compelled inharmonious elements to work and labor for the common good. Incoming business men were loth to open their purses to make improvements which they thought added more to the prosperity of the townsite owners than their own. And some of these same business men were so stiff upon this point that they would not buy town lots at a low price which would have made them wealthy while they waited for profits from other sources. But altogether the logic of events compelled all of them, in one way or the other, to contribute their time, energies, and money indirectly to build a city which made all of them rich.