Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/131

Rh location gave them, always making exorbitant demands and charges for any privilege granted or service rendered, and often robbed weak and unprotected parties. When Lewis and Clark passed there with well-armed and well-drilled men they were mi molested, but seven years later, when Wilson P. Hunt arrived there with his half-starved, worn-out and discouraged party, they were very troublesome and insolent. Soon after this part of the country fell into the hands of the white men, he, too, saw the importance of that location and eagerly seized it, and was no less willing to make it a source of profit, in fact, to use it "for all it was worth," proving that human nature is the same, be it Indian or white man. F. A. Chenoweth, afterwards Judge Chenoweth, of Corvallis, settled at the Cascades, and in 1850 built the first portage road on the line of the old Indian trail, which had been in use so long "that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary."

His road was a railroad built entirely of wood, and the car was drawn by one lone mule. The road was on the north side of the Columbia, and at that time was in Oregon. I saw him in Salem in the winter of 1852 and 1853. a Representative from the Cascades. He was made a Circuit Judge in Oregon Territory by President Pierce and lived to be an octogenarian.

Then there were no settlers east of the Cascade Mountains. and no immediate prospect of any, so he sold his road to D. F. and P. F. Bradford, who were either more hopeful of the future, or had better foresight than Judge Chencweth. They rebuilt the road in 1S."><;. making many improvements on it. The Indian massacre at the Cascades occurred while this improvement was helm; made. The men were attacked while at work, and fled in all directions; one or two of them being killed.

This road was rebuilt again in 1861, with iron rails, and had steam locomotives. It was (lie first railroad of the kind built in Oregon, and though small was the beginning of railroading in the Northwest.

This was the first railroad propelled by steam power I ever traveled upon.