Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/747



draught and tonnage. Ever since the Star of Oregon was launched from Oak Island in the Willamette in 1841, ship-building has been carried on in a desul tory fashion along on the Columbia and Willamette, no record of which has been kept. An examination of the U. S. Commerce and Navigation Statistics from 1850 to 1856 shows that no figures are given for more than half the years, consequently the information gained is comparatively worthless. In the years given, 1850, 1857, 1865, 1868-1877, there were 109 vessels of all classes, from a barge to a brig, built in Oregon, 31 of which were sailing ves sels. According to the same authority, there were 60 steam-vessels in Oregon waters in 1874; but these returns are evidently imperfect.

The cost of ship-building as compared with Bath, Maine, is in favor of Oregon ship-yards, as shippers have been at some pains in the last ten or fifteen years to demonstrate, as well as to show that American wooden ships must soon displace English iron vessels, and American shipping, which has been permitted to decline, be restored. The report of the Pacific Social Science Association on the Restoration of American Shipping in the Foreign Trade, by a committee consisting of C. T. Hopkins, A. S. Hallidie, I. E. Thayer, A. Crawford, and C. A. Washburn, is an instructive pamphlet of some 30 pages, showing the causes of decline and the means of restoring the American shipping interest. In 1875-6, $1.513,508 was paid away in Oregon to foreign ship-owners for grain charters to Europe, which money should have been saved to the state and reinvested in ship-building. Board of T)\idellept, 1870, 10. I have quoted the opinions of competent writers in the history of Puget Sound ship-building, and will only refer here to the following pam phlets. Farrisli s iteview* of the Commercial, Financial, and Industrial Intercuts of Oreym, 1877, 31-2; Gilfnfs Ilesoitrces Or., MS., 45-50; Review of Portland Board of Trade, 1877; and Hopkins Ship-building, 1807. In view of the re quirements cf commerce in the future, the Oregon Railway and Navigation Co;::pany have provided a magniiicent dry-dock at Albina, opposite Portland, which was completed about 1883.

Flour takes the second place, in point of time if not of value, in the list of Oregon manufactures. Since the time when wheat was currency in Oregon, it has played an important part in the iinanccs of the country. Taking a compar atively recent view of its importance, the fact that the wheat crop increased from 2.340,000 bushels in 1870 to 7,486,000 in 1880, establishes its relative value to any and all other products. A very large proportion of the wheat raised in Oregon was exported in bulk, but there was also a large export of manufactured Hour. The first to export a full cargo of wheat direct to Europe was Joseph Watt, who sent one to Liverpool by the tiallie Brown in 1868. It cost Watt 4,000 to make the experiment. The English millers, unacquainted with tho plump Willamette grain, condemned it as swollen, but bought it at a reduced price, and ground it up with English wheat to give whiteness to the flour, sines which time they have understood its value. Grover s Pub. Life in Or., MS., 69; Watt, in Camp-fire Orations, MS., 1-2. Another cargo went the same year in the II den Angier. The year previous to Watt s shipment a cargo of wheat and flour was sent direct to Australia by the bark Whistler. As early as 1861 H. E. Hayes and C. B. Hawley of Yamhill had 10,000 bushels ground up at the Linn City Mills (swept away in the flood of the following win ter) for shipment to Liverpool, taking it to S. F. to put it on board a clipper ship. Or. Argun, Jan. 12, 1861. In 1868-9, 30,305 bushels of wheat and 200 barrels of flour, worth 36,447, were shipped direct to Europe. The trade increased rapidly, and in 1874 there were 74,715 bushels of wheat and 28,811 barrels of flour sent to foreign ports, worth $1,026,302. S. F. Bulletin, Jan. 20, 1875.

The number of flouring and grist mills in the state was over a hundred, in which more than a million and a quarter of capital was invested, producing annually three and a half millions worth of flour. Some of the most famous mills were the following: Standard Mills at Milwaukee, completed in I860 by Eddy, Kellogg, and Bradbury, which could make 250 barrels daily. The Oregon City Mills, owned by J. D. Miller, capable of turning out 300 barrels \n\n