is the probability of its throwing me out of the chance of helping to bring the imegrants from the Cascades in the fall, and perhaps the chance of going up on the Chehalis River, or to Pugets Sound to get a claim this summer. I was just getting into good employment, such as stubshoting lumber, for shipping, for which I could get my $4.00 pr day. The support of the family has mostly come from Anns labour, since we have been here, in consequence of my not being able to get employment one fourth of the time. She has earned over ten dollars this week and has now gone to Portland with Irving & Frances in a Skiff. This though has been an extry week with her, for she seldom earns more than half that much.
Times are very dull now, the water in the Willamette is very high and is still rising very fast. It is owing to the high water in the Columbia which backs the water up in this river. The rise in the Columbia is owing to the melting of the snow in the mountains, in the eastern part of the Teritory, but it appears to be coming earlyer this year than usual, or else we shall have a larger freshet, for the highest water usually comes about the 10th of June, and it is about as high now as it generally is.
The first monday in June is the annual election, when there will be one delegate to Congress elected, the members of our next Legislature & County and Precint officers. A man by the name of Skinner[1] from the Rogue River country (or there abouts) and Gen. Jo. Lane are candidates. Lane[2] went up the River one week ago last sunday morning on the Steamer Multnomah with a band of music playing. He stoped her, but there was but a very few people went to see him so he stayed but a few moments. People here thought none the better of him for it, and as near as I can judge, the people in these parts will not trouble him in
the way of going to Washington again. I hear but a very little
- ↑ Alonzo A. Skinner came to Oregon in 1845; was a judge under the provisional government; was a candidate for congressional delegate against Lane in 1853; judge of the second judicial district of Oregon, 1869-70; died April 30, 1877; Scott, History of the Oregon Country, V, 254.
- ↑ "Governor Lane, with a large party of his admirers, left here on the steamer Multnomah, on Sunday morning last, with a band of music and much noise and confusion, on his way to Salem;" Oregonian, May 21, 1853.
