Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/938

656 built Methodist church. All winter long and into the spring belated ones came straggling in, having tarried at The Dalles and Vancouver, and at Whitman's in the upper country. Some passed on up the Willamette, founding the city of Salem; some went over to Tualatin plains, establishing Forest Grove; in fact Oregon City was the capital and center for which all steered from the moment of leaving Missouri, and from Oregon City they radiated, taking up the unsettled country. Oregon City has never lost this characteristic of a floating population looking for a place to settle.

Among the emigrants of 1843 who settled in Oregon City were Gen. M. M. McCarver, the founder of Burlington, Iowa, who, in trying to locate the future great city of Oregon missed Portland by about ten miles; James A. Athey and family settled on the west side somewhere beyond Wanaxka's village, where with a turning lathe he manufactured the first furniture made in Oregon; James W. Nesmith, who read that solitary Iowa law book by the light of a pine knot fire and became a lawyer and a member of congress; Hiram E. Straight and others. With this accession of immigrants, the Oregon Lyceum took on new activity. A committee was appointed to secure subscriptions to start a newspaper. In March, 1844, the committee reported $645, and in October George Abernethy, the treasurer, reported that he had sent $800 to "The States" for press, type, ink and paper.

Disquieting rumors followed in the track of the newcomers whose numbers excited the Indians, and when, early in 1844, a few painted Indians galloped through the town brandishing their tomahawks, many of the more timid looked for an immediate attack. After staying an hour "shooting up the town," Cockstock, the principal offender, recrossed the river to Wanaxka's village for an interpreter, that he might talk to the white folks, and tell his trouble. It seems he had been engaged by a colored man to grub the stumps off a piece of land, for which he was to receive a horse. When the land was done, he came for his pay, but the negro had sold the horse and refused to pay. Taking the law Into his own hands, Cockstock went and took the horse; the new owner complained to the authorities, and a warrant was out for Cockstock's arrest. Not understanding the white man's way of doing things, he came into town but was unable to tell his troubles. Having found an interpreter, he attempted to return, but was met by several citizens who tried to arrest him; a fight ensued, Cockstock was killed; also a Mr. Rogers, and George Le Breton was fatally wounded, dying a few days later. Of course, there was much excitement, and when the legislature met in June, at the house of Felix Hathaway, M. M. McCarver speaker, one of the first acts was to prohibit negroes forever from settling in Oregon. In view, also, of similar difficulties with Indians and some whites, the same legislature passed a prohibitory liquor law, forbidding the introduction, sale or distillation of ardent spirits in Oregon. This prohibitory liquor law was the first in the United States, antedating the Maine law by several years.

In December the legislature met at the house of Dr. John E. Long, the pioneer physician of Oregon City, and among other things passed an act for the erection of a jail with money from the estate of Ewing Young, who had died without heirs. Dr. McLoughlin offered a lot and Peter H. Hatch, a blacksmith, forged the iron for this, the first prison in the colony. An emigrant wrote home to the east, "We are getting along finely, we are building a jail." At this legislature, also, Robert Moore and Hugh Burns were granted rights to keep public ferries on the Willamette, one crossing just below the falls, and the other at about where nth street now is, and John McLoughlin was given a permit to construct a canal around the falls, which he did about where the basin now is, facilitating the landing of boats.

Again in the autumn of 1844 all eyes were turned toward the Columbia, whence boats were paddling into the Willamette bearing another thousand immigrants, ragged and weary. Dr. McLoughlin gave some employment at a mill he was building at the falls, others engaged at Abernethy's mill on the island,