such trade. They were primarily fur traders, but the cheapest way to purchase the furs taken by the Russians along the coasts of Alaska and on the northern isles was to exchange for them wheat, flour, and other foodstuffs for which the Russians were willing to pay high prices. These supplies were produced at Fort Vancouver, and afterwards in the Willamette valley only a few miles away. They could be bought by the company in exchange for their merchandize, brought from London. By charging a good profit on the shoes, clothing, sugar, coffee, and other articles sold to the Oregon settlers in exchange for wheat, and then, at Sitka, receiving a good profit once more in the shape of fur, for the wheat and flour delivered there, the company was sure to prosper in that branch of its activity. They needed a sawmill for supplying their own lumber requirements, but once in operation this plant could produce economically an occasional cargo of lumber for shipment, which usually went to the Hawaiian Islands. Thus our external commerce began with wheat and lumber as the Northwest's contribution and wheat and lumber have remained to the present time the leading and almost the sole important items in our foreign trade.
When the territory of Oregon was created by act of Congress in August, 1848, a United States custom house, the first on the western coast, was established at Astoria. For some years the ships entering and clearing at that port were almost without exception engaged in the California trade. But, as California's demand
