Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/118

112 courts of Oregon), Col. John McCraken, Jesse Applegate, S. Ellsworth, F. A. Chenoweth, Joel Palmer, E. R. Geary, M. M. Melvin, Thomas H. Cox, B. F. Brown, W. S. Ladd (founder of Ladd & Tilton), H. W. Corbett (United States senator). S. G. Reed (founder of the Reed Industrial School), J. C. Ainsworth (founder of The Oregon Steam Navigation Company), C. H. Lewis (founder of Allen & Lewis), R. R. Thompson, and Joseph Gaston, the author of this paper. These articles were filed according to law and the association of these persons became a private corporation to administer the land grant on October 6, 1866. These articles were laid before both houses of the Oregon legislature, then in session, and on October 10th, upon the motion of Hon. E. D. Foudray, representative from Jackson County, Joint Resolution No. 13, designating said corporation to receive the said land grant, was passed. And in December following fourteen of the incorporators of said company appointed Joseph Gaston "Secretary of the Board of Incorporators," and authorized him to open the stock books of the company and solicit subscriptions to its capital stock. In pursuance of this authority in April, 1867, he opened stock books and took subscriptions to the capital stock, the subscribers to the "Barry Survey" to have their subscriptions credited on stock subscriptions, and providing that whichever side of the Willamette Valley should make the greatest subscription to the capital stock would secure the location of the railroad. Persons on the east side of the Willamette River, notably, I. R. Moores and others, at Salem, opposed this proposition because it recognized the "Barry Survey"; and in consequence the people of the east side of the Willamette Valley made no subscriptions to the stock of the company, while the people of the west side made large subscriptions, and thereby secured the location of the road on the west side