Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/373



REMINISCENCES OF CAPT. W. P. GRAY 333

ette helped to impress the severity of the winter upon my mem- ory. My brother, J. H. D. Gray, and my cousin, P. C. Schuyler, and myself were skating on the river at what was called Clinton Point in those days. It is just about where the new O.-W. R. & N. steel bridge crosses the river now. We were playing tag and I took a short-cut across the thin ice near an airhole. My skates cut through, tripped me and down I went into the water. The thermometer was standing at about zero. My brother and my cousin could not come near me on account of also breaking through the thin ice. I finally broke the thin ice with my fist until I got to where the ice was so thick I could not break it. My brother and cousin lay down, one holding the other and tying the sleeves of their coats together, threw me one end. I caught the end of the coat sleeve and they pulled; me out. The instant the air struck me my clothing froze and by the time I had got to the river bank near Ankeny's dock my trousers were frozen stiff, and when I bent my knees my trousers broke off at the knee. I walked to the corner of Third and B streets (now Burnside), where we lived, and got thawed out.

"Portland in those days was a pretty small town, all of the business being on the streets near the river. Mr. Robert Pittock had a store on First street, between A and B streets (Ankeny and Burnside), where we traded.

"I had to quit school in April of 1862, as father needed my help on the river. We began boating, carrying freight between Deschutes and Wallula, operating our boat by sail. There were several other competing sailboats, steamboats at that time not being very numerous. After making a few trips father decided he would build a steamboat. He picked out Columbus, on the Washington side, a few miles above Celilo, as the best point at which to build his boat. The reason he picked out Columbus was that it was the landing for the entire Klickitat valley, and it was the point through which all of the pine timber growing on the Simcoe mountains came to the river.

"I was sixteen years old at this time and father wanted some- one who knew the river and some one whom he could trust