Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/699

 ed here in

Portland was on July 31, 1848. The little schooner Honolulu from San Fran- cisco sailed in over the Columbia bar and slowly beat her way up the river, and finally tied up to an oak tree where the west end of the steel railroad bridge now stands. The captain of the schooner was in a hurry to discharge cargo and get away. He made haste to load up with all the meat and flour his ship would carry, and then bought up all the picks, pans, and shovels he could find in town. And when he had got everything aboard, he made known the news — and it spread as if by the wireless telegraph of sixty years later.

THE OREGON MINT AND BEAVER MONEY.

The gold discovery was put in here to show how the Oregon mint and beaver money was evolved therefrom. Marshall's discovery was purely an accident. No evolution in that. But Oregon is wholly an evolution from pre-existing forces and influences. It started that way, and is today proceeding on to its great future as a purely evolutionary growth from fundamental causes to reasonable results.

The Oregon rush to California for gold resulted in bringing back within a year unimaginable wealth. From poverty the Oregonians had leaped to great riches at a single bound. The miners not only returned loaded down with gold dust, but the few people that had remained in Oregon had got rich in shipping down to the mines their flour, beans, bacon and lumber. From a legal tender cur- rency of beaver skins and bacon sides, Oregonians were struggling with a cur- rency of gold dust. An ounce of gold dust was practically worth $16, but the Oregon merchants would not take it for goods, for more than $11, while the Hudson's Bay Company, having some coined money, was buying up gold dust at $10 an ounce and shipping it to the mint in London. This condition of affairs caused the circulation of a petition to the Oregon provisional government, set- ting forth that in consequence of the neglect of the United States government, the people must combine against the greed of the merchants ; and the provisional government must at once set up an Oregon mint to coin the gold dust into legal tender money. It was represented as a basis of action that there was then in February, 1849, $2,000,000 worth of gold dust ready to be coined. That was about six times as much money per capita of the population as there is now, or ever has been since 1852. And prices of everything went up accordingly. Beef was ten to twelve cents a pound on the block ; pork sixteen to twenty cents ; but- ter sixty-two to seventy-five cents — nearly double what it is today ; flour was $14 per barrel; potatoes $2.50 a bushel, and apples $10 a bushel.

The petition for the mint was favorably considered by the provisional legis- lature, and a bill was passed to authorize it and to coin money. Two members of the legislature — Medorum Crawford and W. J. Martin — voted against the measure on the grounds that it was inexpedient and a violation of the constitu- tion of the United States. The acts provided for an assayer, melter and coiner, and an alloy was forbidden in the money. Two pieces only were to be coined — one to weigh five pennyweights, and one ten pennyweights, and both to be pure gold. The coins were to be stamped on one side with the Roman figure for the smaller coin, and the other with the figure ten on one side. And on the reserve sides the words "Oregon territory" with the date of the year around the face, with the arms of Oregon in the center. The officers of this mint were James Taylor, director, Truman P. Powers, treasurer, W. H. Willson, melter and coiner, and George L. Curry, assayer. The mint succeeded in coining $50,000 of these coins before Governor Joseph Lane reached Oregon and closed it up. Nobody was ever prosecuted for issuing this money, although it was a clear violation of the constitution and laws of the United States.

But Governor Lane did not stop the coining of gold dust. Although the ter- ritorial mint was closed up, the need of a currency of certain value still remained. And to supply that, a partnership was formed, called the "Oregon Exchange Company," which at once proceeded to coin gold on its own responsibility. The