Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 18.djvu/78



56 Leslie M. Scott

The march of the new time is seen also in the election of Oregon's new Governor — a scientific professor of soils and farm animals, and, withal, a practical farmer. Many years he was dean of the activities of the State Agricultural College, and spokesman of the regeneration of the Willamette Valley. Dr. Withycombe, the farmer-Governor, knows the problem fully. His knowledge begins with pioneer history, in which he is well informed, through study and personal contact. His father, Thomas Withycombe, was a pioneer of the later set- tlement period in Washington County, and the son there grew into the life of Oregon.

I.

It seems a far glance backward to 1810, when white men made the first gardens in "Old Oregon" — now comprising Oregon, Washington, Idaho and part of Montana — ^at Oak Point, on Columbia River. These first white tillers of the soil were the Winship brothers, of Brighton, Mass. They planted seeds and started a settlement. But the June freshet of the Coltmibia River soon ended the enterprise.

Next year, the first farm animals came to old Oregon — late in March, 1811 — brought from Sandwich Islands on the ship Tonquin, by the fur-trading party of John Jacob Astor. These were fifty hogs (Franchere's Narrative, p. 98) and they were landed near the later settlement of Astoria, presumably in the vicinity of Point Adams, where a pen was built to con- fine them. In that same Spring the Astor newcomers planted radishes, turnips and other garden vegetables; also twelve potatoes. The harvest of these twelve potatoes was 190; in the year 1812, five bushels; in the year 1813, fifty bushels. Besides potatoes, only turnips and radishes matured. This American post, Astoria, fell into the hands of the British as a war prize in 1813, and these first American eflForts in agri- culture ended.

It seems again a far glance backward to the next farm woiic in Old Oregon — ^at Fort Vancouver on the Coltmibia River, in