Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/276

 268 WILLIAM BARLOW had had something to eat all the time, but their rations had been short and not choice either. The next day we arrived at Philip Foster's, where we laid over one day, rested and ate cautiously but heartily. The next day, December 25th, 1845, we arrived in Oregon City. A few of the party stayed at Foster's for rest. Albert Gaines afterward took up a claim there and stayed a year or two. It was Christmas night when we landed in Oregon City, just eight months and twenty-four days from Fulton County, Illinois. At this time, Oregon had a Provisional legislature of its own, and Governor Abernethy was governor. The old pathfinder went to the assembly and asked for a charter to build and make a wagon road over the Cascade Mountains south of Mt. Hood. The request was immediately granted. And it was not long before he accomplished what he said he could and would do. He never was a man that hunted after notoriety. He only wanted to benefit mankind in building this road and wherever he could. All he asked in the venture was to get his money back in doing it. To show that that was all he wanted, when he got all the cost of the road, or what he thought was all the cost, he threw open the road to the public. He had five or six hundred dollars in notes that he had taken for toll in lieu of cash. But to his surprise, he never got the half of it, though the parties said the first money they could get would go to him, but when they got out of reach they forgot all that. The worst thing he did do was throwing up the charter, and it was the worst thing for the emigrants that could have been done, for there is no road that will keep up itself, and it soon became al- most impassable. Poor jaded teams would mire down and emigrants lost sometimes more than three times what the toll would have been,, besides the delay and time lost. Soon after Foster and Young re-chartered the road and made some money on the investment, besides making it prove a great accommo- dation to emigrants. This road was kept in pretty fair condi- tion until the railroad was built down the Columbia River. Even now it seems to be the best route across the Cascade Mountains that has been found.