Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/943

Rh and painting in mezzotints and water colors." James Douglas, of the Hudson's Bay Company, and many other prominent people, sent their daughters to Mrs. Thornton's school. To supply an immediate necessity, a large edition of Webster's old blue-backed spelling book was printed on the Spectator press, and also an almanac for Oregon, California and the Sandwich Islands.

The news of the Spectator, six months old, was obtained from papers brought by the immigrants, from Honolulu, sailing vessels, and from the Hudson's Bay Company ship from London, or overland mail from Canada. Some very good poetry appeared in the Spectator, written by Curry himself, and by Sidney W. Moss, who also wrote a book, "The Prairie Flower," that was sent east and published by Emerson Bennett at Cincinnati, running up to 90,000 copies, for all of which Mr. Moss received not one cent. The mother of Edwin Markham also contributed verse, and the famous poet himself was born soon after in a little cottage on Main street in Oregon City.

A charter for the first Odd Fellows lodge on the Pacific coast, was requested in 1846 by Oregon City Lodge No. 1. This charter, granted and sent out by ship by way of Cape Horn, was miscarried. Contrary winds prevailing, the ship, instead of entering the Columbia, went to Honolulu, where Gilbert Watson, to whom it was entrusted, died. Taking the charter, the Odd Fellows there drew a pen through the name "Oregon City" and writing above it "Excelsior Lodge No. 1," hung it on the walls of their lodge room at Honolulu. This was not discovered at Oregon City for three years, and while waiting for the charter, Salem, and then Portland, organized, and finally Oregon City in 1851.

The first Masonic charter for Oregon was hauled from Missouri across the plains by Pierre Barlow Cornwall in 1848. After escaping attacks by Indians and other adventures, on arriving at Fort Hall, Mr. Cornwall heard of the discovery of gold and promptly turned off on the California trail, leaving the charter to Joseph Kellogg, who brought it safely through the scene of the late Cayuse war to Oregon City, where Multnomah Lodge No. 84 was organized September II, 1848, in the Thomas Pope house on the bank of the river. Immediately after, the members left for the mines, and no other meeting was held for some time. Almost all the other benevolent orders followed in later years, and have been a marked feature of the social and philanthropic life of the town.

The legislature of 1845, in December, enacted a law establishing a general postoffice at Oregon City with W. G. T'Vault as postmaster-general. The first contract to carry mails overland was let to Hugh Burns, in the spring of 1846, to carry the mail from Oregon City to Weston, now Kansas City, Missouri, at fifty cents a letter. For lack of patronage this was discontinued some months later.

A British warship, the Modeste, in the Columbia river in the summer of 1846, determined the Americans to celebrate the Fourth of July with more than usual splendor. Benjamin Stark, who had arrived on the bark Toulon from Boston, presented Oregon City with a twelve-pound cannon, the first in the colony. William Holmes, an immigrant of 1843, presented a liberty pole, which was erected, and a salute of thirty-one guns for the thirty-one states was fired. A procession was formed at the city hotel and marched to the Methodist church with a home-made flag at the head. Prayer was offered by Rev. Josiah L. Parrish of 1840, the Declaration of Independence was read by Asa L. Lovejoy, of 1843, and the oration was by Judge Peter H. Burnett, afterward the first governor of California. Then all marched back to the hotel, where a public dinner was served, followed by thirteen regular toasts, and ten volunteer ones, full of the spirit of '76, but without the use of wines or liquors, as Oregon was then a prohibition state.

The Americans were particularly outraged by the conduct of the officers and crew of the Modeste who defied the colonial law and dealt liquors in every direction, and certain unpatriotic Americans were detected in secretly selling watered whiskey to the Indians.