Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/65

Rh Sierra Foothills than in the Valley Willamette. Still they were not hard to satisfy; and they began to return early in the spring of 1849, when every vessel that entered the Columbia was crowded with home-loving Oregonians. A few went into business in California. The success of those that returned stimulated others to go who at first had not been able. P. W. Crawford gives the following account of his efforts to raise the means to go to California: He was an immigrant of 1847, and had not yet acquired property that could be converted into money. Being a surveyor he spent most of his time in laying out town sites and claims, for which he received lots in payment, and in some cases wheat, and often nothing. He had a claim on the Cowlitz which he managed to get planted in potatoes. Owning a little skiff called the E. West, he traded it to Geer for a hundred seedling apple-trees, but not being able to return to his claim, he planted them on the land of Wilson Blain, opposite Oregon City. Having considerable wheat at McLoughlin's mill he had a portion of it ground, and sold the flour for cash. He gave some wheat to newly arrived emigrants, and traded the rest for a fat ox, which he sold to a butcher at Oregon City for twenty-five dollars cash. Winter coming on he assisted his friend Reed in the pioneer bakery of Portland. In February he traded a Durham bull which he purchased of an Indian at Fort Laramie and drove to Oregon, for a good sailing boat, with which he took a load of hoop-poles down the Columbia to Hunt's mill, where salmon barrels were made, and brought back some passengers, and a few goods for Capt. Crosby, having a rough hard time working his way through the floating ice. On getting back to Portland, Crawford and Williams, the former mate of the Starling, engaged of the supercargo Gray, at sixty dollars each, steerage passage on the Undine then lying at Hunt's mill. The next thing was to get supplies and tools, such as were needed to go to the mines. For these it was necessary to make a visit to Vancouver, which could nob be done in a boat, as the river was still full of ice, above the mouth of the WilliametteWillamette [sic]. He succeeded in crossing the Columbia opposite the head of Sauvé Island, and walked from the landing to Vancouver, a distance of about six miles. This business accomplished, he rejoined his companion in the boat, and set out for Hunt's mill, still endangered by floating ice, but