Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 25.djvu/74

 64 FRED LOCKLEY worth, B. F. Bradford, L. W. Coe, Benjamin Stark, Rich- ard Williams, George W. Hoyt, Josiah Myrick, and some others. Captain John H. Wolf, with whom I made my first trip to The Dalles, was one of the best-known-mar- iners on the Columbia River run. In the middle sixties he was in command of the New World. Among the well- known steamers of the day were the Wilson G. Hunt, the Carrie Ladd, the Express and the Cascades. The New World ran from Portland to the Cascades and the Hassalo from the Cascades to the Dalles. After putting in a year at The Dalles, I went to Canyon City. This was in 1865. I went into partnership with John Snively, who ran a pack train, and William Claflin. My partners furnished the capital and I furnished the experience. We carried a $25,000 stock and we complied with the universal custom of those days of selling our goods at double what they eost us. This rule did not hold good in the case of flour, for we sold flour sometimes as low as 55 cents a pound, and when you know that the freight from The Dalles to Canyon City was 55 cents a pound, you will realize that we sold it for the cost of transportation and were out the orignial cost of the flour. However, we made up the loss on other things. When I went there Grant County had recently been organized. Canyon City was largely settled by the left wing of Price's army. They had left Missouri and most of them had been southern sympathizers. W. Lair Hill was county judge and Tom Brents was county clerk. At the next election Mike Goodwin, a saloonkeeper, was elected county clerk, and as he knew nothing about the duties and could not afford to neglect his saloon, he made me his deputy. C. H. Miller had been elected county judge. He had been an express messenger, a miner, had tried his hand at running a newspaper, had lived with the Indians, and when I knew him first, he was a de- voted admirer of Byron. He tried to imitate Byron in every way, even to limping like Byron. I was his unwil- ling victim. He was constantly writing poetry and com- •#