Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/924



planted at Fort Vancouver when the gentleman reached his post in October of that year.

An officer in the service of the United States and for many years commander of the Vancouver post, gives a further account of the land troubles and other matters at Vancouver as follows :

"In the days of old when the Hudson's Bay barons held their sway at Fort Vancouver, a church of England chaplain, Rev. Beaver, accused the chief factor, of King David's transgression. Thereupon the chief smote the bold prophet and discharged him from the company's service. This incident was unimportant in it- self, yet had important consequences, from the fact that Catholic priests were given the position of the over zealous chaplain. For soon after this change the regents of the company in London began to show a disapproval of the liberal policy of the chief factor, who in time severed his connection with the company to become a resident of Oregon and a citizen of the United States.

Up to May, 1849, the portentious banner of Britain waved over the Hud- son bay establishments on the north bank of Columbia; but at that time a gar- rison of United States soldiers displaced the Hudson bay officials at Fort Van- couver, who then moved their headquarters to Victoria on Vancouver island.

But the Catholic chaplain remained and claimed the Hudson bay reservation at Vancouver, under a provision of the enabling act of Oregon, which assured a statutory title for 640 acres of land to any religious denomination having a mis- sion in the Indian country. Under color of this claim, the military officers com- manding the post established at Vancouver, through good nature or indifference allowed the representatives of the Catholic church to hold joint possession with them on the government reservation from 1849 to 1888. At that time Gen. Thos. M. Anderson, then colonel of the Fourteenth Infantry became commander of the post. His first act was to eject the Catholic claimants. This compelled the church to bring suit. The title of the action was : The Roman Catholic bishop of Nesqually, vs. John Gibbon, Department Commander, Thomas M. Anderson, commandant of the post.

The government defended its claims on the ground that the Recolet fathers designated by Dr. McLoughlin were not missionaries, but the paid servants of the Hudson's Bay Company, at a stipend of iioo a year, and the further claim that if missionaries, the padres were sent by the bishop of Quebec, a subject of Great Britain which claimed the whole of the Oregon country to the California line. It was upon these contentions that the supreme court of the United States finally decided against the church, and in favor of the military.

The city of Vancouver is the trading center and capital of Clarke County, which has an area of 646 square miles of very rich and productive soil.

Immense crops of hay, oats, potatoes and all kinds of garden vegetables are produced. Upon the upland all varieties of soil are to be found. A wide range of crops is grown with success, fruit-raising, especially yielding large returns. Among the fruits the most important is the prune. The growing, drying and packing of the Italian prunes for the eastern market is an important industry. From 200 to 300 carloads of the dried product are shipped out of the county every year.

Originally, almost the entire county was covered with a dense forest of red and yellow fir, cedar and hemlock, and the work of marketing this great supply of timber and of transforming the land into cultivated farms is going on at a rapid rate. Over 260,000,000 feet of lumber, railroad ties and logs were produced dur- ing the last year.

The city itself possesses the most beautiful site for a great city that can be found. Without the high hills which fence in the west of the city of Portland the plateau on which Vancouver is located rises gently from its harbor on the broad Columbia, and rolls back for twenty miles to the foothills of the Cascade range. The eternal snow peaks of St. Helens in Washington, and Hood in