Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/204

 196 THOMAS W. PROSCH. % Oregon City and Winchester, the latter being established that year. During the latter half of 1854 the lands sold were only 1,766.70 acres, for which $2,208.37 were paid. During the first half of 1855, 4,592.66 acres were sold, the cash receipts amounting to $5,740.82. The business was all done at Oregon City. The lands surveyed but not offered for sale in Oregon Territory in 1854-5 aggregated 1,332,214 acres. C. K. Gardiner, Surveyor-General in 1855, reported sur- veying 1,450 donation claims, leaving 350 to be surveyed under contracts made. He then had twelve parties in the field. He urged extension of the surveys into the country east of the Cascade Mountains. His deputy surveyors in 1853 Avere Daniel Murphy and Anson G. Henry ; in 1854, Harvey Gordin, Josiah W. Preston, Joseph Hunt, Lafayette Carter, Daniel Murphy. Matthew O. C. Murphy, Nathaniel Ford, G. Clinton Gardner, Charles J. Gardner, Ambrose N. Armstrong, Butler Ives, George W. Hyde. Andrew W. Patterson and Harvey Gordon ; in 1855, Joseph Trutch, John W. Trutch, Zenas F. Moody, Harvey Gordon, Charles T. Gardner, Wells Lake, George W. Hyde, Ambrose N. Armstrong, Addison R. Flint, Dennis Hathorn, Nathaniel Ford, Lafayette Carter and Thomas H. Hutchinson. The same men were engaged in the surveys of the year following. In 1857 Samuel D. Snowden, Sewell Truax, Alex. C. Smith, David P. Thompson and E. T. T. Fisher engaged as deputies in the surveys. Several of the men named, in after years, became very prominent in the business and political affairs of Oregon, Washington and British Columbia. In 1855 Gordon reported that he had en- countered extraordinary and unexpected difficulties. He had worn out his first lot of helpers by using them as pack animals over the coast mountains, it being impossible there to use horses ; his second lot of men took the gold fever, and wages went up from $52 a month to $100. The work had so far cost him $930, which was $290 more than he had received, and to prevent further loss he asked to be allowed to relinquish the remainder of the undertaking. Completed surveys during