Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/402



360 GEORGE H. HIMES

The next morning-, the 13th, we started for Astoria, then about twenty miles from the mouth of the river.

This shanty that we stopped in on Clatsop Beach, we learned subsequently had been built by some of Lewis and Clark's men, some forty years previous. 6

On arriving at Astoria, we found the village situated on a bluff, as near as I can remember about twenty or thirty feet high, and consisted of three log houses and one frame house. The log houses belonged to the Hudson's Bay Company, with their headquarters located at Vancouver, ninety-six miles above the mouth of the river, where they had a large store house and a few dwelling places. There were not many whites there, only what were in the employ of the company. One of the log houses in Astoria was a double one, used by the com- pany as a branch store house and was kept by one man (I forget his name) ; he received the furs from the trappers and paid for them in dicker, such as guns, traps, ammunition, beads for the Indians, whisky, etc. The other two smaller log houses were for the use of the trappers, when they came in with their furs.

These three log houses were situated within a few rods of the bluff and within a few rods of the landing, the landing being close to the beginning of the bluff, west of the log houses, which were built in a cluster, there soon commenced an incline toward what they called Ft. George, where us boys built the log house and named it Sharks ville, after our lost ship. As I remember, after going down this incline from the houses, there was no bluff to speak of, to Ft. George, it being a gravelly beach some of the way. They called it one mile from the stores to Fort George.

The store house was situated east of the other two huts, about three rods, as I remember. The man that kept the store and the missionary were the only white men that I saw there, besides our own crew do not remember the names of either of these men. As I remember, the missionary lived about

6 Near sJte where Lewis and Clark's men distilled salt from sea water in January, 1805.