Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/66

48 There was a complete revolution in trade, as remarkable as it was unlocked for two years before, when the farmers were trying to form a coöperative ship-building association to carry the products of their farms to a market where cash could be obtained for wheat. No need longer to complain of the absence of vessels, or the terrible bar of the Columbia. I have mentioned in the preceding chapter that the Henry and the Toulon were the only two American vessels trading regularly to the Columbia River in the spring of 1848. Hitherto only an occasional vessel from California had entered the river for lumber and flour; but now they came in fleets, taking besides these articles vegetables, butter, eggs, and other products needed by the thousands arriving at the mines, the traffic at first yielding enormous profits. Instead of from three to eight arrivals and departures in a year, there were more than fifty in 1849, of which twenty were in the river in October awaiting cargoes at one time. They were from sixty to six or or seven hundred tons burden, and three of them were built in Oregon. Whether it was due to their