Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/554

 his employers had so much confidence in him that they sold him a stock of goods on credit which he brought around Cape Horn in a ship that landed at this town on March 4, 1851. There were four hundred people here then, with five little stores in town. Corbett rented an unfinished building at the southwest corner of Front and Oak streets, paying a hundred and twenty-five dollars a month rent for it. He worked hard, being proprietor, clerk, salesman, and bookkeeper all in one, and at the end of fourteen months, had sold out his whole stock, cleared twenty thousand dollars, and started back to New York to get another cargo of merchandise.

He remained in New York one year, but continued to ship goods to Portland for sale. He then determined to make Portland his home, and returned in 1853, with a larger stock of general merchandise, and in 1860 converted his store into an exclusive hardware business, and in 1871 consolidated with Henry Failing, forming the firm of Corbett, Failing & Co., making it the largest hardware establishment on the Pacific coast. Mr. Corbett 's activities in business life have been more extensive and varied than that of any other citizen of Portland, which, with his service in the United States Senate, has made him one of the most useful, if not the most conspicuous, citizen of the state of Oregon.

Cicero H. Lewis is the typical merchant in all comparison, among men who have followed the business of merchandising in the city of Portland. He is the only man among the many distinguished business men that Portland has developed that has been "the merchant" from first to last. Messrs. Corbett, Failing, Ladd, Ainsworth, and others might be named who commenced as merchants, switched off into some other pursuit, before ending their career. Mr. Lewis commenced his career as a merchant in 1851, and remained steadfast in the harness until death called him January 5, 1897. He founded and built up the great wholesale grocery house of Allen & Lewis, until now its patrons cover the whole country from Ashland, Oregon, up to the furthest limits of Alaska. Many a distressed country retail man he has helped along for years until farms and business grew up to help him out. Like Henry Failing, C. H. Lewis never pressed a customer, and his word was as good as government bonds throughout the whole northwest. Aside from this business nearly all the educational and charitable institutions—especially the Good Samaritan Hospital and the Protestant Episcopal Church—owe much to his wise guidance and financial support, or that of his family.

Henry Failing came to Portland in 1851, in a subordinate position with his father, Josiah Failing, of blessed memory, and became a partner in the firm of J. Failing & Company. The business prospered, and in 1864, Failing, Sr., retired, leaving the hardware business to his sons, Henry, Edward and James. This business was carried on with success and profit until it was consolidated with that of Mr. Corbett in 1871. In 1869 Mr. Corbett and Henry Failing purchased a controlling interest in the First National Bank, which had been organized by the Starr Bros., it being the first National Bank on the Pacific coast. Mr. Failing became president of the bank and from that day on it has been the great bank success of the Pacific coast. As mayor of the city, as president of the board of commissioners that constructed the water works to bring water from Bull Run lake, a few miles north of Mt. Hood, and in every trust reposed in him, Henry Failing, is the man against whom there never was a doubt, but that the