Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/27

Rh changed his mind, thinking to remain, yet giving Lovejoy half, on condition that he would aid in improving it; for the latter, as he says in his Founding of Portland, MS., 30–34, observed the masts and booms of vessels which had been left there, and it occurred to him that this was the place for a town. So rarely did shipping come to Oregon in these days, and more rarely still into the Willamette River, that the possibility or need of a seaport or harbor town away from the Columbia does not appear to have been seriously entertained up to this time.

After some clearing, preparatory to building a house, Overton again determined to leave Oregon, and sold his half of the land to F. W. Petty grove for a small sum and went to Texas, where it has been said he was hanged. Lovejoy and Pettygrove then erected the first house in the winter of 1845, the locality being on what is now Washington street at the corner of Front street, it being built of logs covered with shingles. Into this building Pettygrove moved half of his stock of goods in the spring of 1845, and with Lovejoy opened a road to the farming lands of Tualatin County from which the traffic of the imperial city was expected to come.

The town was partially surveyed by H. N. V. Short, the initial point being Washington street and the survey extending down the river a short distance. The naming of it was decided by the tossing of a copper coin, Pettygrove, who was from Maine, gaining the right to call it Portland, against Lovejoy, who was from Massachusetts and wished to name the new town Boston. A few stragglers gathered there, and during the Cayuse war when the volunteer companies organized at Portland, and crossing the river took the road to Switzler's ferry opposite Vancouver, it began to be apparent that it was a more convenient point of departure and arrival in regard to the Columbia than