Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/362

256 offers to extend the transportation to Panama and up the Pacific coast to the mouth of the Columbia river, and thence to the Sandwich islands, the senate recommending a mail route to Oregon. Between 1846 and 1848 the government thought of the plan of encouragmg by subsidies the establishment of a line of steamers between Panama and Oregon by way of some port in California — gold had not yet been discovered. Upon the discovery of gold in California a United States postal agent for the Pacific coast was appointed to reside at San Francisco, and manage the mails, appoint postmasters, and generally regulate the entire postal business for the coast. Under this authority, John Adair was appointed postmaster at Astoria, F. M. Smith at Portland, George L. Curry at Oregon City, J. B. Lane at Salem, and J. C. Avery at Corvallis; and the mail for Oregon from the eastern states was sent up on sailing vessels as they chanced to come during the year 1849. Not a single mail steamer appeared on the Columbia river in 1849; and when Mr. Thurston, Oregon's delegate to congress, hunted out the matter in the postoffice department, he found that the secretary of the navy had agreed with Mr. Aspinwall, who had contracted to deliver mail in Oregon, that if he (Aspinwall) would take the mail once a month by sailing vessel "to the mouth of Klamath river, and touch at San Francisco, Monterey, and San Diego free of cost to the government, he would not be required to run mail steamers to Oregon until after receiving six months notice."

Here was mail service in hot haste. Oregon was to be at the end of the line, but get the mail at the mouth of the Klamath river. The secretary of the navy that made this brilliant arrangement had not found out that the people of Oregon at that time lived in the Columbia river valley, and that the mouth of the Klamath river was in California. After resigning as secretary of the navy iii the administration of President Zachary Taylor, he became president of South Carolina college, and is known to fame as William C. Preston. Such facts as these show the difficulties under which Portland struggled to get a start. The next move to get mail service to Portland was secured by Mr. Thurston through the regular channels of the post office department. And here Thurston ran up against another townsite. Commodore Wilkes and Sir George Simpson of the Hudson's Bay Company had evidently pooled their issues in favor of a proposed city at the Hudson's Bay station at the mouth of the Nisqualley river at the head of Puget sound; and had got an order to run the mail steamers to that point without stopping at Astoria. Thurston's job was to knock out Nisqualley and substitute Astoria, which he succeeded in doing. In writing about the matter to a friend, he says: "If they get ahead of me they will rise early and work late." Thurston, also, at that time got letter postage reduced from forty cents for letters of a single sheet down to 12½ cents. Mr. Thurston was a man of great energy, and very positive and aggressive convictions in politics. He told the late General Ben Simpson that the only sure way to carry an election was to never stop campaigning until he had personally interviewed every voter in his district.

Samuel R. Thurston was born in Monmouth, Maine, in 1816, came to Oregon from Iowa in 1847, ran for congress at the first election after the territory was organized, and was elected after a hot contest with Columbia Lancaster and J. W. Nesmith, Thurston running as the champion of the missionaries against the Hudson's Bay Company, and died at sea on his way home to Oregon, April 9, 1851, and was buried at Acapulco, Mexico.

In June, 1850, the steamship Carolina, Captain L. R. Whiting, made her first trip to Portland with mails and passengers. She was withdrawn in June following and placed on the route from San Francisco to Panama. On October 24, 1850, the steamer Oregon brought up the mail on her first trip to this port, and was an object of much interest, being the first ship to carry the name of the state. But there was no regularity in arrivals, or departure of the mail from Portland until the arrival of the steamer Columbia, which was brought out from New York in March, 185 1, by Lieutenant Totten, and afterwards commanded