Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 5.djvu/145

Rh least two years so In- could send word to his folks and friends in the East and have room for them near him when they would coim-. So in 1846 Elijah Bristow, with three companions, Captain Scott, William Dodson, and Eugene F. Skinner, left the settlements far behind and journeyed southward. When this party reached a point on the Middle Fork, a few miles southeast of its junction with the Coast Fork, to form the Willamette, and had crossed the river and ascended the smith bank, they were struck with the beauty and grandeur of the scene before them. Then E. Bristow. as he raised his hat and let the refreshing breeze cool his heated brow, exclaimed: "What a pleasant hill! This is my claim; here will I live, and when I die, here will I be buried."

So he proceeded to erect a claim cabin, and stepped off his claim of 640 acres. About October 1, 1846, he completed his house, a lop cabin, which was the first one erected in Lajie County. Mr. Dodson next marked off his claim, south and east, and adjoining Mr. Bristow's. Mr. Scott selected the one on the north, which, however, he abandoned and settled on the south bank of the McKenzie. opposite the mouth of the Mohawk. The next spring Mr. Skinner settled on the claim on which a part of Eugene now stands.

The name Pleasant Hill was given to the claim of Mr. Bristow, at his request, by the legislature of Oregon in an act passed December 27, 1847.

Late in 1847 quite a company arrived in Lane County by way of the southern route, or as follows: When 61 miles Inflow Fort Hall they crossed over the ridge into the Humboldt Valley and down it for 300 miles; thence 50 miles across the desert to Black Rock; thence through Surprise Valley, Kandango Valley, by Goose Lake, up Lost River, by Klamath Lake, over the Cascades into Rogue River Valley; thence across to and through Umpqua Valley to Lane County.

Among these immigrants were: Isaac Briggs, Elias Briggs, Prior Blair, Charles Martin, and their families, who settled near Mr. Bristow; Cornelius Hills, who settled across the river north of Mr. Bristow; Benjamin Davis, John Akin,