Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/254

190 visions for the whole missionary party. They were his guests for about two weeks, A few weeks after some of these missionaries were endeavoring to take for themselves Dr. McLoughlin's land claim at Oregon City. The Methodist mission, as such, did not officially take part in these proceedings. Some of the missionaries took no part in these actions. The mission took up a land claim of 640 acres north of Dr. McLoughlin's claim. The first missionary work on this claim was done where Gladstone park is now situated. In July. 1840, Rev. A, F. Waller, one of the new missionaries who had charge of this mission, was sent by Rev. Jason Lee to establish a mission at Oregon City. Dr. McLoughlin gave to the mission a piece of his land claim and assisted in building the mission house thereon. July 21, 1840, Dr. McLoughlin, having been informed that the mission intended to try to take his land claim, notified Rev. Jason Lee, the superintendent of the Oregon Methodist missions, that Dr. McLoughlin had taken up this claim and gave a general description of it. Lee returned a satisfactory answer. In 1841, some of these missionaries attempted to occupy what is now known as Abernethy Island, near the crest of the falls, a part of Dr. McLoughlin's claim. On Dr. McLoughlin's protest, this occupancy was stayed for a while. In the fall of 1842, after Dr. McLoughlin had made further improvements on his land, had it surveyed and laid ofif, part of it into lots and blocks, and named the place Oregon City, Waller employed John Ricord, a peripatetic lawyer, and asserted his ownership of the whole claim, except Abernethy Island, he result was that Dr. McLoughlin bought off Waller by giving him personally five hundred dollars, a few acres of land in Oregon City, and six lots, and a block in Oregon City to the Methodist mission. About three months after this settlement. Rev. George Gary, who came from the eastern states to close the mission and to dispose of all its property, compelled Dr. McLoughlin to pay $2,200 to the mission for the land he had given the mission in the settlement with Waller. In 1841 several of the missionaries formed a company called the Oregon Milling Company, which succeeded in taking Abernethy Island from Dr. McLoughlin. The details are too many to be set forth in this article. In 1842 Dr. McLoughlin built a sawmill on the river bank, near Abernethy Island, and a little later he established a flour mill. It was from the latter that the first shipment of flour was made from the Pacific coast to the Orient.

Waller and others who took part in trying to deprive Dr. ^McLoughlin of his land endeavored to justify themselves by the fact that Dr. McLoughlin was then a British subject, and was not entitled to hold a land claim in Oregon. But British subjects and citizens of the United States had equal rights under the conventions of joint occupancy, and the boundary treaty of June 15, 1846, provided that the possessory rights of land of British subjects in Oregon should be respected.

In 1845 Dr. McLoughlin tried to be naturalized by a court of the Oregon provisional government, but he was informed by its chief justice that it had no jurisdiction in the matter. The courts of Oregon territory were established in May, 1849. In that month Dr. McLoughlin, at Oregon City, made his declaration to become a citizen of the United States, as required by its naturalization laws. He became an American citizen in 1851, which was as soon as he could do so by law.

While small parties had come to Oregon from the United States prior to 1843, some of the persons composing these parties had settled in the Willamette valley, with the assistance of Dr. McLoughlin, it was in that year that the first true home building immigration came to Oregon. It left Independence, Missouri, May 20, 1843. It was composed of about 875 persons, of whom. 295 were men and boys over sixteen years of age. They were the first persons to bring loaded wagons west of Fort Hall, now in Idaho. After great hardships they arrived at The Dalles at the beginning of the winter season. There was then no way to take wagons further, except by water. Their supplies were