Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/289

 REMINISCENCES OF SEVENTY YEARS 281 drew the first wagon over the Cascade Mountains. But I am not sure whether I did it or not. There was a rush and as Gaines, my brother-in-law, and we had six wagons in our family we all wanted to stay together and there might have been one wagon got over the summit first. Mr. Savage of Yamhill told me a few years ago that there was one wagon got ahead of me and he was with us all the time. That wagon was driven by Reuben Gant, now a resident of Philomath, Oregon. At any rate, we made the road and got all our wagons and household goods out in perfect order and then went back and helped finish the road clear across the mountains. We estab- lished a toll-gate about ten miles this side of Tygh Valley where there was fine bunch grass, wood, and water. Here all the emigrants laid over one or two days for recruit before starting through the mountains. I staid with my father until all emi- grants got through in the winter of '46. We then started out and made the trip clear through to Oregon City in two days. The old gent gave me $400.00 for my summer's work. I laid that out for a house and lot on Main street in Oregon City, the first real estate I had owned. The claim I had bought was only a squatter's right held by a record. By this time, emigrants were getting pretty thick around Oregon City. I soon had an offer of $600.00 for my right to the Clackamas place. I reserved all my young seedling apple trees, about 10,000 from one to two feet high, worth ten to fifteen cents apiece in anything you could get. I then went out to the big Molalla prairie and bought a section of land with no timber on it for $400.00. Now this was in the spring of '47. I hired rails made to fence in 100 acres and broke up fifty acres for wheat in the Fall. Of course, I did not do all the work myself. In fact, I did not do any of it. I had all I could do to cook and look after my stock. Hands were cheap and would work for little more than their board. Many were trying to get enough to get back "to the States" as we said then. But when gold was discovered in California, they changed their outfits and went in that direction. Three or four very