Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 4.djvu/145

Rh differences of both, isolation being the protection of either. In the upper town was the customhouse; in the lower town two companies of United States engineers, under command of Major J. S. Hathaway. There were not, excepting the military and those attached to them and the customhouse officials, to exceed twenty-five men in both towns. At the time of our arrival in the country there was considerable commerce carried on, principally in sailing vessels, between the Columbia River and San Francisco. The exports were chiefly lumber, the imports merchandise.

The United States census of 1850 gives Astoria a population of two hundred and fifty-two, which number included the two companies of United States engineers stationed here and probably a number of transients.

I have before me a photograph of a painting copied from a daguerreotype picture of Astoria taken in 1856. This picture was taken from a spot near where the Parker House now stands and shows a wharf and a dozen houses. The wharf was known as the Parker wharf and extended from the Parker mill in a northeasterly direction to a point just north of the Occident Hotel. This was the first wharf erected in Astoria and was built in the early fifties. The picture also shows the old Methodist Church which was built in 1853-54, a cooper shop, the Shively house, the present residence of Judge F. J. Taylor, and the buildings occupied by the United States troops during their stay here. A few houses were not shown in the picture, those in the then western part of the town and those in upper town.

Astoria was now assuming the proportions of a town and in 1856 was incorporated by the territorial legislature. The town included the Shively claim and a part of the McClure claim.

With the incorporation of the Astoria and Willamette Valley Railroad in 1858 by T. R. Cornelius, W. W. Parker, John Adair and others began Astoria's struggle for rail connections with other parts of the state and with the