Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/43

Rh were doing on the coast; it had been reported that the Russians had four settlements, coming down as far south as Nootka, and it was feared that the Russians might come still farther south, as probably they did. This Spanish expedition consisted of two vessels, commanded by Martinez, and de Haro, for •each of which important coast points have been named. This expedition shows clearly enough that Spain was asserting her title to the coast against all the world as far up as 60 degrees north.

And now we reach the date when citizens of the United States for the first time, show an interest in the country we write this book about. Here for the first time do the "Bostons" and the "King George" men (as the Indians named them) come in contact as explorers, traders and rivals for the great northwest. For the year 1788, the history of this vast region is made up of the movements of the American captains, Kendrick and Gray in command of the ships Lady Washington and Columbia, and the British captains, Meares in command of the Felice and Douglas in command of the Iphegenia. All these old sea captains were exceedingly polite to each other, accepting various favors, the Americans firing a salute on the launching of Meares new schooner, but each man kept a sharp lookout for "the main chance."

Captain Gray, the first American citizen to set eyes on the coast of Oregon, hailed the land near the boundary between California and Oregon, August 2., 1788, and coasted north, keeping in close to the shore. Two days after sighting land, ten natives came off in a canoe and gave the strangers a friendly greeting. On the 14th of August, Gray crossed over the Tillamook bar and anchored in thirteen feet of water near where the town of Bay city is now located. The Indians appeared to be friendly, furnishing large quantities of fish and berries without payment, and trading furs freely for iron implements, taking what was offered in exchange, and also furnishing wood and water as desired. Gray thought he had entered the mouth of the great "River of the West"; which Jonathan Carver had figured out on his map of the northwest, made ten years prior, from conversations he had with Indians on the Mississippi river, near where St. Paul is located. But remaining a few days in the Tillamook bay to recuperate his men from scurvy, he got into a hot fight with the Indians about a cutlass one of them had stolen from his servant Lopeze. Poor Lopez a native of the Cape Verde islands, was killed, three sailors badly beaten, barely escaping with their fives, the captain had to drive the savages away with the swivel gun, killing many of them, and naming the place "Murderer's Harbor." The speculators who are now so noisily "boosting" that beautiful sheet of water for a fashionable summer resort, will hardly adopt its first white man's name as an attractive historical suggestion. Tillamook bay may be considered the first harbor on the coast of Oregon entered by a white man's ship; and all the more appreciated is the fact that the ship was American, and that its captain was the discoverer of our grand river, Columbia.

Leaving Tillamook and proceeding north up the coast, the navigators found nothing new in adventure or discovery. They did not even see the entrance to the Straits of Fuca, although Haswell, the ship's second officer, wrote at the time, "I am of the opinion that the Straits of Fuca do exist, though Captain Cook positively asserts they do not, for at this point the coast takes a bend that may be the entrance." It is surprising that so important a geographical feature of the northwest coast should not have been discovered sooner than it was. And it is a painful disappointment that the name of the discoverer, Captain James Barclay should not have been attached to the strait, instead of that of the Greek imposter, De Fuca. It is some satisfaction, however, to know that the first man to sail through the great strait was an American—Captain Robert Gray, and making a remarkable and most happy coincidence, in that his ship was named Lady Washington in honor of the wife of the man who was at the date of that memorable voyage through the strait, inaugurated the first president of the United States.