Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/382



Tenino April 29 2,595.00

Tenino May 5 6,780.00

Okanogan May 11 2,145.00

Tenino May 13 10,945.00

Okanogan May 17 2,265.00

Okanogan May 26 6,615.00

These are for tickets sold at The Dalles for up-trips only. Down stream the traffic was not so great, but from $1,000 to $4,000 each trip, and the freight was enormous. One up-trip on the Tenino in May produced over $18,000 for freight, fares, meals and berths. The extras and the bar privilege produced a monthly income of $1,200.

The treasure shipments that passed through Portland were in part as fol- lows : June 25, 1861, the steamer "Sierra Nevada" left for San Francisco with a treasure shipment of $228,000. July 3d, the steamer "Brother Jonathan" left with $50,000 in treasure. July 14th, the steamer "Sierra Nevada" with $110,- 000 in treasure. August 12th, $20,000; August 24th, $195,558; September I2th, $130,000; September 30th, $315,780; October 13th, $203,835; November 14th, $260,483; November 29th, $240,000; December 5th, $750,000. On Oc- tober 12, 1865, Wells Fargo & Company shipped $150,000 in crude bullion. Another trip brought 1,125 pounds of crude bullion, twenty-eight sacks, aver- aging forty pounds each.

Wells, Fargo exports of treasure were as follows:

1864 $6,200,000

1865 5,800,000

1866 5,400,000

1867 4,001,000

The policy of the company was to charge high rates ; all, in fact, that the traffic would bear. Its earnings were consequently good, the company paying as high as 12 per cent on its $5,000,000 capital as annual dividends. All freight except solids, such as lead, nails, etc., were estimated by measurement, forty cubic feet making a ton. The passage from Portland to The Dalles was $8 and 75 cents extra for meals. Portland to Lewiston $60, and meals and beds $1 each. Today the price of freight from Portland to The Dalles is $1.50 per ton and passage $1.50, and 25 cents extra for meals. H. D. Sanborn, a mer- chant of Lewiston, in 1862 received a case of miner's shovels. The case meas- ured one ton and contained 120 shovels. The freight, $120 per ton, made the freight on each shovel $1. A merchant at Hood river, eighty-five miles, said that before the railroad, the freight on one dozen brooms was one dollar. When O. B. Gibson was in the employ of the company at The Dalles, he went down to get the measurement of a small mounted cannon that had to be shipped for the government. After measuring several ways and figuring up the amount he seemed so perplexed that he attracted the attention of two soldiers who were lying in the shade of a pine tree near by. One of them finally called out, "What is the trouble, Captain?" "I am trying to take the measurement of this blamed gun, but some way I cannot get it right," said Gibson. "Oh, I will show you," said the soldier leading up a pair of harnessed mules that stood near and hitching them to the gun, "Try it now, Captain." "Thanks, that makes it all right; I see now why I could not get the correct measurement." In meas- uring a wagon or any piece of freight, the full length, the height and thickness were taken and carried out full size, the largest way of the piece. For in- stance, a wagon was measured from the back wheels to the end of the tongue, then the tongue was turned up and it was measured from the ground to the tip of the tongue again. This constituted the cubic contents, nothing deducted for vacuum, but when the wagon was shipped, the tongue was placed under the wagon box out of the way.