Page:The Overland Monthly, volume 1, issue 1.djvu/27

1868] one hundred and twenty-two degrees, twenty-seven minutes, and thirty seconds, on the west bank of the Wallamet river and near the northern end of the great valley of the same name. From the sea, the town is approached by the Columbia river. This magnificent stream drains a greater and more varied extent of country than any water course upon the continent. Vessels drawing sixteen feet of water can go in and out the Columbia in ordinary weather and tide with safety; and when these are favorable they may sink four feet deeper without danger. After crossing the bar you sail or steam up this broad stream, past Irving's classic Astoria, in nearly a due west direction about fifty miles, then twining shortly but not sharply to the south, you hold the latter course for about forty miles. These ninety miles are counted "as the crow flies," on an air line, but by the thread of the river the distance is reckoned one hundred and eight miles. At this point the Columbia bends (speaking or rather looking up stream) a little north of west, making quite an elbow. On the outer and west side of this elbow enters the Wallamet river, flowing generally from the south. Up this deep, quiet stream you glide twelve miles, when you step ashore at Portland and make yourself at home at any one of a dozen hotels that promise at least all they perform. There is also a daily line of stages and steamboats leaving Portland for the south—the former going up the Wallamet river from sixty to one hundred and fifty miles, owing to the season of the year, and the latter running to the Sacramento valley, and thence connecting by railway and steamboats with San Francisco. In the months of May, June and July, the healthy traveller may enjoy a delightful ride upon these stages—clearing the ground at the rate of one hundred miles in twenty-four hours.

At this time work is going on upon two lines of railway extending from Portland up the Wallamet valley, one on either side of the Wallamet river. How many struggles and failures these experimental enterprises are doomed to undergo before they are accomplished, no one can predict. out as the world now goes, their accomplishment is only a question of time. From the conformation of the country these roads must merge into one at about one hundred and twenty miles south of Portland. Then, whether they will deflect to the left and go through the Cascade mountains to the east of Eugene, and on in the direction of Goose lake and the Humboldt to the Central Pacific, or continue due south to the southern border of Oregon, through the Umpqua and Rogue river valleys, with a view of meeting a railway from Sacramento, is a question now under discussion, somewhat prematurely. A railway up the valley of the Columbia, to connect Portland with the Central Pacific at Salt Lake, is also a favorite project with many Portlanders, and one that persons now living are likely to see realized.

From this hasty glance at the lines of travel—actual and possible—that terminate in Portland, it is apparent that its facilities for commerce and communication with the world must always give it great importance in the business affairs of the coast.

In 1843—three years before the treaty with Great Britian, by which the latter withdrew all claim to Oregon Territory south of the forty-ninth parallel, and before the American people by the election of President Polk declared for the whole of Oregon—"Fifty-four forty or fight"—the site of Portland was, in the language of the country, "taken up" by a settler named Overton. Nothing much is remembered of Overton. It is understood that he was from Tennessee. He left the country soon after, and among the early settlers there is a tradition that he was hung in Texas, whether justly or not is not known. Probably