Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/329

Rh Crosby, were the first mate, Drew; the second mate, "One Armed": Robinson; and the boatswain, De Wit, who afterwards settled on a farm on Tualatin Plains, but later went into business in Portland.

The season was now advanced into late November, and the weather was damp and cloudy. Bradbury was still weak from his long illness, and had not regained fully the use of his faculties. He was entirely destitute, also, except for his mattress and blankets, which he carried with him. He was a total stranger, and the fact that he had drifted in from the sea was but a poor recommendation. "It was a terrible sin those days in Oregon,he says, "to be either a Yankee or a sailor—for whatever reason I can not imagine." This was, perhaps, some exaggeration of the feeling, but the early Oregonians being largely from the South and West, and unused to the sea, did probably feel some provincial prejudice against those belonging to the more versatile race of Yankee sailors and traders, and looked with suspicion upon their cleverness. Bradbury's introduction to life in Oregon was not wholly agreeable, but well illustrates how our state was built by men who brought nothing here but their strong hands and hearts.

At Portland he found a boat about leaving for Oregon City; into this he was taken upon what terms he hardly understood. He did not learn, either, that at the Clackamas Rapids, where they arrived in course of time, and were set ashore while the boat was cordeled to the calm water above, that he was simply to pass around and enter the boat again; but he left the boat altogether, and wandered off to the first house he saw, which was Straight's. He was there hospitably entertained over night, and in