Columbia the brig Pallas, Captain Sylvester, from Newburyport, with a cargo of Indian goods consigned to Cushing and Company. In the brig came Edmund Sylvester, also of Maine, brother of the captain, who remained in Oregon, and assisted in building the first two houses in Portland. In 1846 he removed to Puget Sound,[1] and settled at Olympia, of which town he was one of the founders.
It will be observed that those who came by sea were New Englanders. As the missionaries were all from New England and New York, they received these traders and sea-going people with a welcome warmer than that they extended to the western settlers. Their impression on the country was distinct. One class bought and sold, built mills, and speculated in any kind of property. The other, and now the larger class, cultivated the ground, opened roads, exercised an unbounded hospitality, and carried the world of politics on their shoulders.
- ↑ These items are found in Sylvester's Olympia, MS., 1-4, which treats principally of the early settlement and business of Puget Sound in a clear and comprehensive manner. This manuscript is one of the most valuable authorities on Washington Territory. Sylvester says that the brig took away 300 or 400 barrels of salmon; also that his brother sold the Pallas at the Sandwich Islands to a purchaser from Mazatlan, to carry the United States mail between that port and the Islands. He does not say what became of the cargo, or whether it was on the route to Newburyport that she was sold, or on the return to the Columbia River with another cargo. All that is known is that the brig was lost, and that in 1845 Captain Sylvester was in command of the Chenamus, which sailed from the Columbia River for Newburyport. The Chenamus never returned to Oregon after her voyage of 1845-6, of which I shall speak hereafter.
