Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 3.djvu/398

392 ing factors in organizing the North Pacific Dental College, of which he is now vice president and one of the trustees, and is now professor of dental history, dental jurisprudence and dental ethics. He was one of the first workers in behalf of the Portland Museum and has now an extensive collection of birds and animals which he is holding, awaiting the erection of a museum building, which question he is agitating before the public. As a collector his name is catalogued in the United States and Europe. He has also collected and is growing all the conifers of Oregon, and has twenty-seven varities growing upon his lawn. He has collected and mounted all of the birds in Oregon and has given much study to the geology of the state and made a large and valuable collection of its rocks and minerals. Upon all these subjects he has written quite extensively for the press. He still continues in the practice of dentistry and finds the same delight and interest in setting out and cultivating trees, shrubs and plants. Development as expressed in life and in science has always been of the deepest interest to him, and his own labors have been a valuable contribution to the world's progress.

Captain Mellie Albertus Hackett, as president of the Columbia Digger Company, has become so well known in Portland and the northwest that he needs no introduction to the readers of this volume. His life, especially in more recent years, has been devoted to the utilization of the natural resources of the state and his efforts have been of incalculable benefit to the section at large.

It was on the 20th of April, 1857, near Lawrence, Kansas, that Captain M. A. Hackett was born and he spent his youthful days in the home of his parents, Nathan and Lavina (Thurston) Hackett. He was only four years of age when the family removed from Kansas to Colorado and was a youth of twelve years when they started across the plains by wagon train to California, where the father engaged in farming until 1872. That year witnessed his arrival in Oregon.

Captain Hackett accompanied his parents on their removal to this state and has largely made his home here from the age of fifteen years. He was first employed in a salmon cannery until nineteen years of age, during which time he familiarized himself with various departments of the business until he was able to take charge of a cannery that he built for the firm of Hepburn & Jackson on Woody Island. He afterward took charge of a cannery for John Keirnan and Everding & Parrel, at Pillar Rock, Washington, and continued in close connection with the salmon canning industry until 1881, when he came to Portland. Here he built the first ferry that operated on what is now known as the Albina ferry route, continuing in charge for some time. He was also interested in the Jefferson ferry, which he operated for fifteen years, and likewise owned and ran the Selwood ferry. He was connected with this business until the Madison bridge was made a free highway and the support of the ferries naturally fell off. He then took the machinery of the Jefferson street ferry, using it in the building of the steamer Hattie Belle, which he ran on the Columbia river in the service of the government. Later he sold that vessel and commanded the steamer H. C. Grady, running between Portland and Astoria, for a year. On the 24th of March, 1899, Captain Hackett organized a company under the name of the Columbia Digger Company, and they engaged in diking tide lands in the vicinity of Astoria for a year. This w^as the first undertaking in the state of Oregon where the work was done by machinery. The purpose was to reclaim the lowlands and also to dig canals for the government. Still operating under the name of Columbia Digger Company, Captain Hackett opened a sand and gravel business at the foot of Ankeny street in April, 1903. Since establishing the enterprise over one hundred and fifty thousand dollars have been