Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/268

250 I have referred to the surveying expeditions in this place with the design, not only of bringing them into their proper sequence in point of time, but to make plain as I proceed correlative portions of my narrative.

Between 1846, the year following the first American settlements on Puget Sound, and 1848, population did not much increase, nor was there any commerce to speak of with the outside world until the autumn of the last-named year, when the settlers discarded their shingle-making and their insignificant trade at Fort Nisqually, to open with their ox-teams a wagon road to the mines on the American River. The new movement revolutionized affairs. Not only was the precious dust now to be found in gratifying bulk in many odd receptacles never intended for such use in the cabins of squatters, but money, real hard coin, became once more familiar to fingers that had nearly forgotten the touch of the precious metals. In January 1850, some returning miners reached the Sound in the first American vessel entering those waters for the purposes of trade, and owned by a company of four of them. This was the beginning of trade on Puget Sound, which had increased considerably in 1852–3, owing to the demand for lumber in San Francisco. The towns of Olympia, Steilacoom, Alki, Seattle, and Port Townsend already enjoyed some of the advantages of commerce, though yet in their infancy. A town had been started on Baker Bay, which, however, had but a brief existence, and settlements had been made on Shoalwater Bay and Gray Harbor, as well as on the principal rivers entering them, and at Cowlitz Landing. At the Cascades of the Columbia a town was surveyed in 1850, and