Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/362



334 JOHN GILL

"No, certainly not; it was rafted up the Neacoxie to the nearest point to where it was to be used."

"Come! You couldn't float lumber a mile up Neacoxie."

"But they did, I assure you."

So we went down along the east bank of Wohana, and a little above the mouth of the Tidegate or Mill creek (as I had some- times heard it called) we found two "snubbing posts," nearly rotted away, which were used to hold sawed lumber from the mill until the tide served to carry it down to the mouth of Neacoxie, when on the next flood it would be floated up that creek to its destination.

Still the matter seemed inexplicable to me. I have often been along the course of Neacoxie since our argument and seen abundant proof of the truth of my friend's story. That river formerly drained Cullaby lake into the bay at the mouth of Wohana and Necanicum, and its valley for miles was a deep, long hollow between the outer dune which faces the sea and the next inland from that. In the prosperous days of the early '50s the settlers pastured too many cattle on the rich grass which then reached almost to the high-tide mark all along the shore. They fed the pastures to the very roots, broke through sod on the outer ridge in many places, and the strong winds began to undermine and cut away the outer dunes. The flying sand was mostly checked by the Neacoxie, sank to the bottom of its bed and constantly raised it higher, filling the former narrow valley to a breadth of a hundred yards in some places, the stream pouring thinly over the sur- face and catching more sand as it widened. Several lakes now occupy the old river-bed, dammed west of Clatsop station by this accumulated sand evidently to a height of twenty feet above the level when it was a tidal river.

When I bought a tract at Wohana for a summer home Mr. Minto wished to buy an acre north of mine and build a cottage there; but the owner would not give a deed to the shore of Necanicum, and without that provision he would not buy. He later thought of buying a tract on the northern slope of Tilla-