Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/658

444 The name Chanipooick was the name of the Indian village at the point now known as ' ' Champoeg ' ' ; and from that association became the name of the dis- trict. It is an Indian word, without doubt, and was often referred to in early days as meaning the "place of the Camp," as it was the only point along the Willamette river for more than seventy-five miles where a portion of the virgin prairie extended to the river bank.

The name Tuality, after being bandied around by the writers and historians from 1834 to 1850 as "Palatine, Fallatten, Twality, Tualitin, Fallatry, Faulitz, Fallatah, and Quality," finally settled down to be by common usage spelled as "Tualatin," and was the name of the county until changed to that of Wash- ington by the Territorial Legislature in 1849. The name of Tualatin still adheres to the only river in the county, and to the beautiful prairie country siirround- ing Hillsboro, Forest Grove, Banks, Glencoe and Cornelius. The name of the river is an Indian name and signifies sloth or sluggish, and whether applied by the Indians to the river exclusively, or to the river and the plains both, nobody can tell. As a general thing Indian names of natural features applied to places and not streams, so that a long river might have different names to different tribes. The name of the Yamhill river is a case in point; for it de- rived its name from the bald hills, northeast of Lafayette which the Indians termed "Che-am-il. " This discovery was made by Judge Deady, who first settled at old Lafayette and looked up the origin of the name among the few remaining Indians then in the Willamette valley; and from the name of the hills, both the river and the county derive their names. Clackamas is another Indian name, and has had a great variety of spelling and pronunciation. The word was apparently originally applied to the tribe of Indians living on the Clackamas river ; and from the tribe the river took its name, and from that com- bination the county got its name. Tolbert Carter, a pioneer of 1846, always claimed that the word "Tualatin" was an Indian word which meant a "land without trees" — significant in its application to the broad plains in Washington county as they appeared sixty years ago.

Clatsop is another county, originally called a "District" which derives its name from a small Indian tribe located south of the mouth of the Columbia river; and which was created, organized or segregated as a District by an Act of the Provisional Government Legislature on June 22, 1844. Clatsop is dis- tinguished as being the first point of land in the old Oregon country on which the American flag was flung to the breeze. Here the Astor expedition by sea and land located in 1811, and erected a stockade fort and within which erected storehouses, dwelling houses and means of defense. It is the only county that has had or could have a "Centennial" celebration of its founding and exis- tence as an American community; and it is the only place where British guns were trained to fire on American interests in Oregon. Its chief city, Astoria, is the outpost and sentinel holding the keys to the gate, to protect the name, fame and vast interests of Oregon and the great Columbia river valley. And well and faithfully has the ' ' City by the Sea ' ' performed that duty.