have the best trade in Oregon just now". "Yes",' he replied, "But from my boyhood I have wanted to own an orchard". "Well", I said, "You get your staves from Overton and some one else brings your hoop material of oak and hazel from the east bank; your market for barrels is mainly down the Columbia—why not buy the Carter claim if you can?" I do not remember on which of four nights I had this conversation with Mr. Stephens about the land which became East Portland.
When I went to Pettygrove's store as "Billy" McKay had suggested, I found there General A. L. Lovejoy, Captain John H. Couch and James Birnie who was even then contemplating taking the claim on the north bank of the Columbia, which he named Cathlamet. These men were so intently considering the question of the best point on the lower Willamette for shipping to lie, that I did not intrude into their talk. Captain Couch had the most to say. He said the best water on the lower Willamette was opposite the Overton claim for shipping, and said it very quietly for such a full-bodied sailor. Thus it was John H. Couch who located west Portland I believe, and the cooper, James Stevens, succeeded in his bid for the Carter claim which enriched him—with his ferry and orchard.
So far my rude narrative has touched the names of the first town-builders only, and quite naturally, town, city, state and National builders as they are. Of these, Dr. John McLoughlin planted the first on the waters of the "River of the West"—the old Oregon. Much has been said, and well said as to the nobility of McLoughlin's actions as chief factor or trader in the district of the Columbia for over twenty years of time, when Oregon was debatable land on both sides between Great Britain and the United States: held by joint treaty, free to occupancy by the subjects of the one and the citizens of the other. There was this difference between the joint occupants: the jealousy of the British Parliament as to land tenure, inhibited Canada from meddling with land titles in adjoining territory, and the original charter of the "Gentlemen Adventurers
