Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/361



JOHN MINTO 333

name of Portland), to the home at Chehulpum hill. Of their life there he has left a fine record in his contribution to the HISTORICAL QUARTERLY of 1908.

The "Plains" invited settlement very early, doubtless because of interest in the missions of the Methodists and Presbyterians, both located as adjoining neighbors at Morrison, the Metho- dist being first, in 1840. "Clatsop" was the largest area of habitable prairie west of the Willamette, and was highly at- tractive for many reasons. The plains since that time have been robbed of much of their original fertility, and despoiled by intruding sands of the sea which have stolen hundreds of acres that were originally thickly covered with excellent grass. The forest, too, has encroached upon tilth and pasture, and has changed the wide, open aspect of the plains greatly, even within the past ten years.

As we sauntered down the old plains road, or through the Gearhart woods, or along the clean, hard beach he recalled many interesting facts connected with the early settlement of that part of Oregon ; of the Clatsop Indians and their habits ; of the great "Clatsop booms," when in the early days of the gold-seekers everything produced on the plains became sud- denly three- or five- or ten-fold dearer than ever before. "More people lived on the plains in 1850 than now," he told me.

We were crossing the Wohana and stood a moment on the bridge looking northward, where the river flows wide and deep in a beautiful meadow, with trees that grow parklike, set by Nature's skillful hand. "There was a mill near this spot in 1845," he said. Having known the locality very intimately for a dozen years, I was incredulous.

"What was the business of the mill?"

"Why, it was a sawmill, of course."

"But no white people lived within miles of the Wohana then. What was the market for the lumber ?"

"They used the product of the mill in building the houses at Clatsop, Skippanon and Morrison."

"What ! Hauled lumber over these miles of sand ?"