THE QUARTERLY
OF THE
OREGON HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
"THE MERCER IMMIGRATION:" TWO CARGOES OF MAIDENS FOR THE SOUND COUNTRY.
By Clarence B. Bagley.
The early migrations to Oregon were nearly all of the farming class and composed of families. The "Donation Act" became a law September 27, 1850, and it proved to be a dominant factor in the early development of the Willamette Valley. Beginning with 1843, thousands of emigrants from the States in the Mississippi Valley, but mostly from Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Arkansas, sold out their small holdings, put their wives and children into wagons and started for Oregon. For this reason the great disparity in the numbers of men and women did not exist there comparable to Washington and California.
California was admitted as a State in 1850, and almost the entire population was males, attracted there from all over the world by the discoveries of gold. Washington gained slowly in population during the quarter century following its separation from Oregon. Until about 1860 nearly all the increase was on Puget Sound or west of the Cascade Mountains. Most of it was composed of loggers, millmen, sailors, etc., who were unmarried. The ratio of males to females was not less than nine to one.
The "Donation Act" at first gave 320 acres to each unmar-
