Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/258

Rh up the valley would have been preferable. In October 1842, the Island Milling Company had erected a saw-mill on the island part of McLoughlin's claim, intending to follow it as early as possible with a grist-mill.

McLoughlin now became satisfied that it was the intention of the missionaries to seize his land, and deprive him of his rights. Hence to save his interests he built a saw-mill on the river bank near by, and gave notice that a grist-mill would soon be added. Indignant at what they chose to term the arbitrary proceedings of the Hudson's Bay Company monopoly, a petition to congress was framed. This was done by George Abernethy, who kept the Mission store at Oregon City, and from notes furnished chiefly by Robert Shortess, a convert of the Mission before Lee had turned his attention to colonization and self-aggrandizement. The memorial is known as the Shortess petition, for Abernethy was unwilling to have his own name connected with it, and to avoid this it was copied by Albert E. Wilson, employed in an American trading-house established in Oregon City in 1842.

This petition was of considerable length, and set