Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/952

666 until a room was fitted up for the purpose. In 1861 Bishop Scott built the present Episcopal church.

On May 30, 1849, Dr. McLoughlin filed his intention to become an American citizen, but this did not end his troubles, although he had resigned from the Hudson's Bay Company and moved to Oregon City before the treaty of joint occupancy was abrogated. On the anti-Hudson's bay platform Samuel R. Thurston was elected Oregon's first delegate to congress, and although ill, set out in a boat from his home on the west side of the river at Oregon City, on the journey to Washington. There he so presented the case that congress withheld the claim of Dr. McLoughlin, while confirming that of every other settler. When news of this arrived at Oregon City, a public indignation meeting was held at which fifty-six leading citizens signed a memorial declaring the reservation unjust, and later, in 1862, the state legislature restored the title to his heirs; but, meanwhile, the doctor, overwhelmed with distress and grief, had died in 1857, owing more than he could pay to the Hudson's Bay Company for outfits and favors granted to the early impoverished American immigrants. By united request of the chief factors of the west, the Hudson's Bay Company cancelled the claim in view of the very great services of Dr. McLoughlin. No officer surpassed him in executive ability. During this time the uncertainty of Oregon City titles drove more and more settlers to other towns.

Senator Thurston, dying on his way home, was succeeded in congress by Joseph Lane. Abraham Lincoln was appointed governor of Oregon but declined, and General John P. Gaines, of Mexican war fame, accepted and arrived at Oregon City with his family and furniture in 1850. Among other things. Delegate Thurston had secured an appropriation of $20,000 for public buildings. Oregon City wanted these, so did Salem, Corvallis and Eugene, and the capital location fight began in earnest. It became a political issue, the democrats going for Salem and the whigs for Oregon City. In December, 1851, the legislature met at Salem, except a minority of one senator and four representatives, who resolved that Oregon City was the capital, and continued to meet and adjourn for two weeks. At the old legislative hall, corner 6th and Main streets, Columbia Lancaster elected himself president of the upper house, and made motions and seconded them himself, and prepared a memorial to congress that was signed by himself and the speaker of the house of representatives, at Oregon City. At this same time a majority of the legislature met at Salem and a majority of the supreme court met at Oregon City. Governor Gaines said Oregon City was the capital, and when Judge O. C. Pratt ordered the territorial library brought to Salem, Judges Strong and Nelson ordered it to remain at Oregon City.

To end the trouble, by request of the president, congress fixed the capital at Salem, and Oregon City, for years the social, commercial and political center of the northwest, the home of governors, judges and other prominent people, lost the capital in 1852. In 1853 there were one thousand people at Oregon City, and two thousand at Portland. On December 4, 1850, Thomas J. Dryer began the Oregonian at Portland, and three months later, March, 1851, Asahel Bush issued the first number of the Statesman at Oregon City. When the capital was changed to Salem, the Statesman followed; when it went to Corvallis, there, too, went the Statesman. Some laughed at the "paper on wheels." "Wherever the seat of government is, there is the statesman," answered Asahel Bush, as back with the legislators it finally went to Salem for a permanent home.

But Oregon City had other papers, the Spectator, the Free Press started by George L. Curry, when he left the Spectator. In 1855 W. L. Adams bought the Spectator press for $1,200 and started the Oregon Argus, which he edited for nine years as a republican journal. With the old whig stronghold, Oregon City, as his headquarters, Adams stumped the state, writing his editorials on his knee, armed with two revolvers and a bowie knife, and called the first republican convention ever held in the state. He is known today as "The Father of the Republican Party in Oregon." Says an admirer, "Through the Argus, with