Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/142

136 company would have had no rival; certainly no rival could have claim to priority of right to antagonize it.

In of December, 1902, referred to, Gaston tells how Elliot appeared on the scene later, and unfolded a scheme to his west side company, but he—Gaston—prevented its acceptance. He says that then three of his incorporators seceded and filed articles on April 22, 1867, in the same name. The facts are that those three seceders were J. S. Smith, George L. Woods, and I. R. Moores, who had signed the articles confiscated—to use a mild term—who merely demanded that their names should be removed from the purloined papers.

Gaston says the Salem company's articles were filed on April 22, 1867, but a recent letter from F. I. Dunbar, Secretary of State, tells me the first articles of that name were filed, as I have before stated, on November 17, 1866. Bancroft's history quotes from Gaston's manuscript on "Railroad Development of Oregon," which tells that ground was broken by Elliot on the east side road, on April 18, 1867, four days before he would now have us believe that company was alive.

I had intimate relations with Elliot, who came to Oregon in response to the action of our company and made a contract to build the road that he was not able to carry out; then Ben Holladay took hold with him and was virtually the "whole thing." He built part way, and found his means insufficient. It is possible that in trying to handle so great an enterprise we mistook legal rights,—as when Governor Woods as chairman of the stockholders' meeting signed for $7,000,000 of stock, but that was no intended fraud and was as consistent as for Gaston to subscribe for $2,500,000 to float his west side company.

Elliot undertook too much; Ben Holladay took hold with his million dollars, made by overland staging and