Page:All Over Oregon and Washington.djvu/155

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UP THE WALLAMET TO PORTLAND.
149

the mile square of land for which they had come to this far-off country. The same continued to be true of the steadily increasing immigration of the following years; so that it was not until 1848 that Portland attained to the dignity of a name.

Of the two owners, one, Mr. Pettygrove, was from Maine, and desired the bantling to be called after the chief town of his native State. With the same laudable State love, Mr. Lovejoy, who was from Massachusetts, insisted on calling the town Boston. To end the dispute a penny was tossed up, and Mr. Pettygrove winning, the future city was christened Portland. When it is taken into consideration that Portland, Maine, is nearly two degrees farther south than Portland, Oregon, and that roses are blossoming in the gardens of the latter, while snow lies white and winter winds whistle over the leafless gardens of the former, the older city has no occasion to feel concerned for the comfort of its godchild.

After being named, Portland changed owners again. Mr. Pettygrove bought out his partner, and afterward sold the whole property to Mr. Daniel H. Lownsdale, receiving for it $5,000 in leather, tanned by Mr. Lownsdale in a tannery adjoining the town site. In 1848, or before the gold discoveries, money was almost unknown in Oregon; orders on the Hudson's Bay Company, the Methodist Mission, and wheat, being the currency of the country. Mr. Lownsdale, it seems, had the honor of introducing a new circulating medium, which was Oregon-tanned leather.

Still another change in the proprietorship occurred in 1849—Lownsdale selling an interest in the town to W. W. Chapman and Stephen Coffin. During this year—there being now about one hundred inhabitants