Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/723

 short line and the Oregon and California branch of the Central Pacific, there were three transcontinental routes opened from the Atlantic to the Columbia River. In 1885 a railroad was in process of construction from the Willamette to Yaquina Bay, destined to be extended east to connect with an overland road, and another projected. The projectors of the Winnemucca and Salt Lake roads deserve mention. Both had been surveyor-generals of Oregon. W. W. Chapman, who was appointed in territorial times, and was thoroughly acquainted with the topography of the country, selected the route via the Columbia and Snake, rivers to Salt Lake, both as one that would be free from snow and that would develop eastern Oregon and Washington and the mining regions of Idaho. He made extensive surveys, attended several sessions of congress, and sent an agent to London at his own expense, making himself poor in the effort to secure his aims. The state legislature granted the proceeds of its swamp-lands in aid of his enterprise, and the city council of Portland granted to his company the franchise of building a bridge across the Willamette at Portland. But he failed, because the power of the Central Pacific railroad of California was exerted to oppose the construction of any road connecting Oregon with the east which would not be tributary to it.

Chapman died in 1884, after living to see another company constructing a road over the line of his survey. He had been the first surveyor-general of Iowa, its first delegate in congress, and one of its first presidential electors. On coming to Oregon he became one of the owners in Portland town site, and with his partner, Stephen Coffin, built the Gold Hunter, the first ocean steamer owned in Oregon, which, through the bad faith of her officers, ruined her owners. Gaston's Railroad Development in Or., 73-8. B. J. Pengra, appointed by President Lincoln, was, as I have already said, the founder of the Winnemucca scheme. While in office he explored this route, and secured from congress the grant to aid in the construction of a military wagon-road to Owyhee, of which the history has been given. His railroad survey passed over a considerable portion of the route of the military road, the opening of which promoted the settlement of the country. But for the opposition of Holladay to his land-grant bill, it would have passed as desired, and the Central Pacific would have constructed this branch; but owing to this opposition it failed. Pengra resided at Springfield, where he had some lumber-mills.

A man who has had much to do with Oregon railroads is James Boyce Montgomery, who was born in Perry co., Penn., in 1832, and sent to school in Pittsburgh. He learned printing in Philadelphia, in the office of the Bulletin newspaper, and took an editorial position on the Register, published at Sandusky, Ohio, owned by Henry D. Cooke, afterwards first governor of the District of Columbia. From Sandusky he returned to Pittsburgh in 1853, and purchased an interest in the Daily Morning Post. About 1857 he was acting as the Harrisburg correspondent of the Philadelphia Press for a year or more. Following this, he took a contract to build a bridge over the Susquehanna River for the Philadelphia and Erie railroad, 6 miles above Williamsport, Penn., his first railroad contract. Subsequently he took several contracts on eastern roads, building portions of the Lehi and Susquehanna, the Susquehanna Valley, and other railroads, and was an original owner in the Baltimore and Potomac railroad with Joseph D. Potts, besides having a con tract to build 150 miles of the Kansas Pacific, and also a portion of the Oil Creek and Alleghany railroad in Penn. In 1870 Montgomery came to the Pacific coast, residing for one year on Puget Sound, since which time he has resided in Portland, where he has a pleasant home. His wife is a daughter of Gov. Phelps of Mo. The first railroad contract taken in the north-west was the first 25-mile division of the Northern Pacific, beginning at Kalama, on the Columbia River, and extending towards Tacoma. Since that he has completed the road from Kalama to Tacoma, and from Kalama south to Port land. Montgomery started the subscription on which the first actual money was raised to build the Northern Pacific, in Dec. 1869. Jay Cooke had agreed to furnish $5,600,000 to float the bonds of the company by April 1, 1870, and Montgomery, at his request, undertook to raise a part of it, in which he was