Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/139



for December, 1902, contains Joseph Gaston's story of the Oregon Central Railroad, that virtually claims for him credit for securing the land grant that passed Congress July 25, 1866, and for construction of the railroad to California. Mr. Gaston is mistaken in announcing that he is the only survivor of the board of directors of the companies who contended for the railway land grant.

My attention was first called to this subject by reading H. S. Lyman's account of early railroad building and his eulogy of Gaston as one of the foremost in early successful railroad enterprise in Oregon, naming him with Henry Villard. I also find that Bancroft's History of Oregon quotes as authority a manuscript prepared by Gaston on early railroad building.

S. A. Clarke still survives, who drew the incorporation papers for the company organized at Salem November 17, 1866, and was secretary of that company for three years, until it passed under control of Ben Holladay, who reorganized it to suit existing conditions, when he resigned. He had bought the Salem Statesman and had enough to do to run a daily newspaper. As Gaston does not give a clear idea of the railroad situation from 1866 to 1870, I will try to tell the story of the two companies known as the Oregon Central Railroad Company at their early organization.

I had been absent a year and was returning to Oregon by steamer, via Panama, in the fall of 1866, when I met S. G. Elliot, who had been at Washington representing the California and Oregon Railroad Company, of San