Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/276

204 ing other vessels to tie up at Portland, he probably exerted more influence to give Portland a start than all other persons combined.

Next after Couch, in giving Portland a start, comes Captain Nathaniel Crosby, who founded the town of Milton, near the mouth of the Willamette slough. Crosby brought the bark Toulon into the river in 1845, and unloaded his vessel on the river bank at the foot of Washington street, and from there transported his goods up to Oregon City by smaller craft. Captain Crosby made numerous trips, and finally anchored in Portland and erected the first palatial residence in the new city — the old story-and-a-half house with dormer windows which stood for so many years on the east side of Fourth street, be- tween Yamhill and Taylor, having been removed to that site from its original location on Second street. To accommodate the increasing traffic of his ship- ping, Crosby erected a small storehouse on the city front, probably on the open strip east of Front street, but most of his merchandise was sent up to Oregon City, which continued to be the commercial center of the whole country.

Besides Couch and Crosby, there were other traders with ships entering the river. In 1847 Captain Roland Ghelston of New York, brought in the bark Whitton loaded with merchandise, and Captain Kilbourn came in with the brig Henry, also loaded with merchandise, and tied up at the east side opposite Port- land, and seriously threatened to start a rival city over there. There was plenty of free land to be had for the taking, and a townsite or two, more or less, could not make much difference to Portland ; and the doughty captain was told to go ahead with his town, for it would all be Portland after awhile — and so now, sixty-three years afterward, it is all Portland, with four bridges to connect the two sides and another bridge coming.

Captain Ghelston, mentioned above, made a second voyage to the Pacific coast, arriving in San Francisco bay just after the great gold fever excitement got well started. And taking advantage of the gold panic news sent to the states, Ghelston had laid in a heavy stock of picks, shovels and gold pans, and when he got safe within the "golden gate," his fortune was made from the sales of his hardware at prices twenty fold of what it had cost him.

With these ships came in some good men, who located, drove down their stakes, and stayed with the town until all got rich and repaid the town by great service as good and useful citizens. Of these may be mentioned Benjamin Stark, who came as supercargo on the Toulon ; Richard Hoyt, who came as first officer on the Whitton; and Daniel Lunt, one of the mates of the Chena- mus. Lunt took up a land claim south of that of Terwilliger's, and subse- quently sold it to Thomas Stevens. The suburb of Fulton is now built on the Lunt claim.

But according to the recollection of Col. Nesmith, the first land claimed within the present Hmits of the city, was the claim just south of that of Love- joy and Pettygrove. This was taken up in 1842 by William Johnson, an Eng- lish sailor, who was living on his claim before Overton was claiming the land he sold to Lovejoy and Pettygrove. Johnson's name figured considerably in the history of the celebrated or notorious "Wrestling Joe" Thomas' lawsuit about the Caruthers estate, that estate being almost wholly the land originally claimed by Johnson and abandoned or sold by him to Finice Caruthers. Mrs. Charlotte Moffett Cartwright remembers well the cabin of Johnson and his half blood Indian wife, which was located near the trail which led from the Terwilliger home to the "town." Johnson dropped out of sight soon after Ca- ruthers came into the country, and nobody ever knew what became of him.

Johnson had an interesting history, showing what a lot of odd and cele- brated characters drifted into this then out-of-the-way corner of the world. He was originally an English sailor, subject of Great Britain, but forswore his allegiance to the British king, and took service with the United States on the old frigate Constitution, and was in the celebrated naval battle between that ship and the British man-of-war Guerriere, in which bloody battle he made one