Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 17.djvu/88



80 H. R. KINCAID

was on board, and he and others patronized the bar and were a lively crowd.



Returning to Oregon I arrived at the family home, in the hills about three miles southeast of Eugene, about the last week in December, in the year 1857, having been away a little more than 31 months, tramping and working wherever I could find employment, in Southern Oregon and California, usually on ranches at about $25 a month. During my absence my father had purchased six acres of land in the southern part of Eugene, at the south end of Olive street, now in almost the center of the town, and had the deed made to me.

In October, 1866, I started east, intending to visit a World's Fair to be held in Paris, France, the next year. I went with my friend Congressman J. H. D. Henderson, to Washington, D. C, to spend the winter there and witness the proceedings of Congress and the scenes at the national capital, and then intended to go on to France the next Summer. I went to Portland and from Portland to San Francisco by steamer. At San Francisco he engaged the same stateroom for both of us on the new steamer Montana, which had just been sent around Cape Horn.



At Aspinwall, or Colon, we were put on board an old steamer called the Ocean Queen. When in sight of Cuba the boat caught fire and the officers expected it would be de- stroyed. They got the life boats ready, and we all expected to be burned or drowned, unless we could escape in the life boats to Cuba, which was about eight miles north. But after great efforts the fire was put out. One engine was disabled, and the steamer ran to New York with one engine. We were twenty-one days making the trip, about 7,000 miles, from San Francisco to New York. We ran down a tug in the Hudson River and sank it just before landing at the wharf.