Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 18.djvu/290



254 Harvey W. Scott

RETROSPECT AND OUTLOOK.

(From an address at the eleventh annual banquet of the Port- land Commercial Qub, January 29, 1905.)

We can best understand where we are by some retrospect of what we have been. This is the fifty-third year of my residence in Oregon. Portland, when I first saw it, numbered perhaps eight hundred inhabitants, and was much the largest town in the Oregon country.^® Outside the Willamette Valley there were very few settlers — a few hundred in Southern Ore- gCMi and a few hundred at Puget Sound. To one who has not actual recollection of the condition of that period, it is next to impossible to form a conception of the narrowness of con- ditions, of the slowness and difficulty of communication. And, indeed, for a good many years afterwards it was no better. It would have been pertinent, perhaps, had I told the railroad men last night** how we used to travel on foot all over this country for hundreds of miles, invariably carrying a blanket for the night's sleep, but usually taking chances on the obtain- ment of food. My father made our first settlement at Paget sound.** Communication between the Columbia River and Puget Sound was by the Cowlitz trail, over which we trudged, waded and swam many a time. Between Rainier and Olympia I have consumed' three weeks, all the time making utmost efforts to get on. In the Fall of 1856 I had occasion to return to Oregon, and, on the last day of September of that year, set out on foot from Olympia to Portland.** I was just one week on the journey, and I think I was the only passenger tfiat week on the trail. Of course, "slept out" o' nights.

This reminiscence is merely personal. Now let me give an historical example : At the beginning of the year 1859 I was at Oregon City grubbing for roots under a tutor, so I might

10 In 1852.

1 1 Railroad traffic men conferred with Portland iobWnR merchants, and Mr. Scott spoke at the dinner given for them, by the Portland Qiamber of Commerce. January 28, 1005.

IS Tohn Tucker Scott settled on Scott's Ptdrie, near Shelton, in i8s4. 13 Mr. Scott, then eighteen years of age, returned from Paget Sotmd in 1856, to attend sdiool at Forest Grove and Oregon City.