Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/151

 Tarbox, John Ummicker, Samuel Vance, William Vaughn, George Vernon, James Wilmot, William H. Wilson, J. W. Wair, Archibald Winkle, Edward Williams, H. Wheeler, John Wagoner, Benjamin Williams, David Williams, William Wilson, John Williams, James Williams, Squire Williams, Isaac Williams, T. B Ward, James White, John Watson, James Waters, William Winter, Daniel Waldo, David Waldo, William Waldo, Alexander Zachary, John Zachary.

What did all these men come away out here to Oregon for in the year 1843? The dangers, toils, troubles and vicissitudes of the journey have already been described. It is an interesting question in this history, for these men not only made Portland possible but were by labors and influences a part of Portland in every sense of the word, and one of them (A. L. Lovejoy) helped name the town. Their original personal reasons for coming to Oregon was not to oppose the British and hold the country for the United States, although that sentiment was prominent in all their thoughts and they were ready to serve the country in that respect. Home, comfort, independence and business were their first thoughts. But why should they leave established homes in the Mississippi valley, and come to Oregon, where the work of home building must be done all over again?

A few facts will answer this question satisfactorily. All the western states had then, prior to 1843, but recently passed through the worst bank and money panic in the history of the country, resulting in widespread financial distress to everybody. The farmers were rich in all farm productions and the necessaries of life which the farm could produce. But the banks had failed everywhere. There was no money in circulation to do business with. The era of speculation preceding the panic, founded on "wild cat" bank paper, had left everybody in debt with nothing but unsalable lands and farm produce to pay with. There was not a mile of railroad west of the Allegheny mountains at that time, and all surplus produce had to be sent down the rivers to New Orleans and take such prices as might be offered. Jesse Applegate, one of the pioneers named above, just before starting for Oregon, sold a steamboat load of bacon and lard for one hundred dollars, which was used for fuel to make steam on Mississippi steamboats, and started for Oregon without trying to sell his land at all. The writer of this book remembers perfectly well seeing the farmers of Central Ohio in Morgan county building flatboats, called "broad horns," and loading them with farm produce, wheat, flour, corn, corn meal, bacon, lard, soft soap, honey, cider, salt, dried apples, beans, maple sugar, and whiskey, and then floating the cargo down the Muskingum river into the Ohio and down the Ohio into the Mississippi, and down that river to New Orleans, where the cargo was traded for groceries. New Orleans sugar, and molasses, and such other necessaries of life that could be had with possibly ten or fifteen per cent, of the proceeds in Spanish silver coin ; and then after unloading the cargo, break the boat up and sell it for lumber, and shipping the purchased goods back on the little steamboats of that day.

It was this great money panic in the west, and the want of a market for their produce, that set them to thinking. They got their idea that Oregon with a mild climate and rich lands, was on the sea coast, and that there would be an outlet to the markets of the world, and for that reason, its future was more inviting and reliable than that of what they then considered "the overcrowded west." Senator Linn of Missouri, had then already, in 1840, introduced in congress a bill to give every able bodied male person one thousand acres of land. This proposition was of course known to all the frontiersmen, and had settled their minds in favor of Oregon as far as the land question was concerned.

What sort of people were these bold emigrants? To begin with, they were nearly all farmer folks, brought up to hard work on western farms. With more than average intelligence and education for the meager opportunities the