CHAMPOEG, MARION COUNTY, THE FIRST GRAIN MARKET IN OREGON[1]
By John Minto
It was named by the natives from an edible root, good for winter food, found on the south face of the Chehalem hills, on the west side of the Willamette river, opposite. The location was chosen as the site of a grain market for the Canadian farmers whom Dr. John McLoughlin induced to settle in what is now the north part of Marion county, as a market and shipping point, which position it held from 1830 to 1860. In 1843 it was chosen as an adjourned meeting place to form a provisional civil American government, which was done. So that from and after May 2, 1843, food was provided for the first important overland immigration, through the kindness of the chief factor, Dr. McLoughlin, in selling, loaning or giving food supplies at Fort Vancouver; upward of 800 of whom had that year arrived in Oregon, more than doubling the power of the provisional government. There was no serious privation in the winter of 1842–43. The great McLoughlin was incessant in 1844 in urging and aiding the growing of wheat, which was also used by him in the fall and winter of 1844–45, with like kind liberality. In 1845 Dr. McLoughlin went to London, to give an account of his stewardship, and he was forbidden in future to make such loans to American immigrants, as above related; in consequence he resigned his position and pay of $12,000 a year rather than obey. There was sufficient wheat produced in 1845, '46, '47, '48, and '49, to meet all wants.
When the Indians murdered Dr. Whitman, his wife, and twelve others, in frenzy of superstitious hate and fear, no company sent to punish them was more effective than the French
settlers sent in command of Thomas McKay. Many of
- ↑ In this connection it should be noted that the site of Champoeg, or "Champooick," as it was originally known, was the only point between the Willamette Falls and Salem where a trail or road could be opened to the river without having to cut through a heavy body of timber. In 1901 David McLoughlin, the youngest son of Dr. John McLoughlin, told me that was the reason why his father selected that place as the site of his warehouse in which to store the wheat he expected to secure from the French-Canadian trappers to whom he gave seed wheat in the spring of 1830.—George H. Himes.
