Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/234

224 Bros, of New South Wales, descended from the Kew flock of King George III of England, which were drawn from the Neggretti flocks of the Marchioness del Campo di Alange, by royal grant of the King of Spain, who only could permit exportation, for which courtesy the English King thanked the noble lady by a present of eight splendid English coach horses. The start of Macarthur's Australian Merinos were those drawn from the English King's flock and imported into New South Wales in 1804 by Capt. John Macarthur, founder of the Camden Park flock and father of the firm of brothers who sold the sheep, herein mentioned, to J. H. Williams, United States Consul at Sydney, N. S. W., for shipment to California in March, 1857. The ship had been driven out of her course and both food and water for the sheep scarce. The latter had been given at last out of bottles and the sheep saved were saved by that means. Mr. Jesse purchased 20 head of them and transferred them to the ship he had engaged his passage to Portland on. Thus were brought the means of reproduction of the golden fleece to Oregon. They could not be watered on the ship, but by drinking out of a bottle until they were landed on the farm of Coffin & Thompson of Dayton, Oregon.

In 1858 R. C. Geer, of Marion County, had imported Southdowns direct from England. In 1860 Hon. Benjamin Stark, United States Senator for Oregon, sent a fine Cotswold to Oregon, and a little later John Cogswell, of Lane County, imported New Oxfordshire and Hampshire Downs. Early in this year Messrs. Jones & Rockwell imported and sold in Western Oregon 45 head