Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/744



in jail after confessing the act. Or. Statesman, Aug. 12, 1856; Deady\&lt;* Ffit. Or., MS., 78. It was chosen for the seat of the county in August 1858. It3 court-house, erected in 1859 at a cost of $14,000, was the pride of the county at that time, but its age is now against it, and it does not do credit to so rich a county. The population of Lafayette is 600. The town was incorporated in 1878. McMinnville, founded by William T. Newby in 1854, was named after his native town in Tennessee. It is the seat of the baptist college, is on the line of the Oregon Central railroad, and has a population of 800. Its incorporation was in 1872. Dayton, founded by Joel Palmer on land pur chased of Andrew Smith, and named after Dayton, Ohio, is a pretty town, on the Yamhill River, of 300 inhabitants, and the initial point of the Dayton, Sheridan, and Grand Rond narrow-gauge railroad. It is a shipping point for the wheat grown in the county, which is here transferred from the railroads to steamboats, and carried down the Yamhill arid Willamette Rivers to Port land or Astoria. Dayton has a grain elevator and mills. It was incorporated in 1880. Sheridan, at the present western terminus of the narrow-gauge railroad, is a picturesque town of less than 200 inhabitants, named after General P. Sheridan, who as a lieutenant was stationed at Fort Yamhill, near here. It was settled in 1847 by Absolem B. Faulconer, and incorporated in 1880. Amity, founded in 1850, is another pretty village, in a fine agricul tural region, incorporated in 1880. The minor settlements are Bellevue, Carlton, Ekins, Ncwburg, North Yamhill, West Chehalem, and Willamina.

There was a proposition before the legislature of 1882 to create one or more counties out of Umatilla. By a comparison of the wealth of the several counties of Oregon, it is found that the amount per capita is largest in Mult- noraah, which is a commercial county. The agricultural counties of the Willamette Valley rank, Linn first, Yamhill second, Lane third, and Marion fourth, Clackamas ranking least. The coast and Columbia-River counties fall below the interior ones. In the southern part of western Oregon there is also much less wealth than in the W 7 illamette Valley, Douglas county, how ever, leading Jackson. In eastern Oregon, Umatilla leads the other counties in per capita wealth, Grant, Union, W r asco, Lake, and Baker following in the order named. This may be different since the cutting-off of Crook county, which took much of the best portion of Wasco. The comparative amount of wheat raised in 1880 was greatest in Marion county, which raised 1,000,000 bushels, Yamhill, Umatilla, Linn, and Polk following with nearly 1,000,000 each. Clackamas county raised less than 500 bushels. But Clackarnas pro duced $80,000 worth of fruit, being the second fruit county, Linn leading the state. Lake raised almost none, Curry, Clatsop, and Tillamook very little, and all the other counties from $4,000 to $^77,000 worth, all but three, Baker, Grant, and Columbia, producing over $10,000 worth, and nine of them from $30,- 000 to $57,000 worth. The gross value of the fruit crop was over $581,000. From this general and comparative review of the counties and towns of the state, as taken from the assessors statistics, to which a large amount in values may safely be added, the condition of the population at large may be gathered, especially as refers to agriculture. Manufactures are considered under a separate head.

MANUFACTURES.

The earliest manufactured product of Oregon was lumber. From the building of the first mills for commercial purposes, in 1844, to 1885, this has continued to be a grand staple of the country. At the last date mentioned there were over 228 saw-mills in the state, costing over a million and a half of dollars, and producing annually lumber valued at over two millions. It i difficult to give even apppoximately the percentage of acres of timbered land that would produce lumber. Both sides of the Coast Range, the west side of the Cascade Range, the highlands of the Columbia, and the north end of the Willamette, as well as the bottom-lands along that river for sixty miles, are heavily timbered; while the east side of the Cascades, the west side of the Blue Mountains, and the flanks of the cross ranges between the Willamette, \n