Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/400



358 GEORGE H. HIMES

tain Scarborough. About the latter part of November, we boarded this vessel and sailed for San Francisco. We ran down to Baker's Bay and lay there about six weeks windbound, but eventually arrived in San Francisco, the sixth day of Jan- uary, 1847.

I have two reasons for giving you so detailed an account of my peregrinations around the mouth of the Columbia River: One is, I have nothing much else to do, only sit by the fire and nurse the "rheumatics" and to muse on past events of my life ; and the other is to show you that our time was limited in procuring many land-marks of that country, for our liberty was curtailed to a great extent on account of running a-foul of the Indians.

I never saw or heard of McTavish tombstone nor the Con- comly grave. There was a head-board near the large tree, but do not recollect the name. I also forget the officer's name that attended to the store. He was one of the Hudson Bay Com- pany's officials. Never heard of any Fort Astoria ; there was, as I have described it, a double log house with the two log huts near by. These three houses, with the missionary's house situated some twenty-five or thirty rods back near the forest, were the only sign of any house that was in this vicinity until we built the log house at Fort George's point, unless it was an Indian tepee east of the store about forty rods.

I am sending you a sketch of Astoria under separate cover, as it looked to me when I was there, and the surroundings. I did not know John Shively or Jim Welch. Your postoffice picture has no resemblance to the Baptist missionary house. His house was about 18x24, one and one-half stories high, without any sort of a veranda or addition.

Point George or Shark's Point was what they called Fort George. The main camp of Indians was back through the for- est near the hills, but I never visited their village. The land- ing place, as I stated before, was at the junction of the bluff and the beginning of the incline, as you will note on the sketch. I do not know of any other survivor of the Shark. I never heard of General Warren. There was a sloop-of-war Warren in San Francisco.