scription business. In his sixteenth year he entered Illinois College, but at the end of a half term found that his finances needed his attention, so that for a year or more he taught penmanship in the surrounding small towns, having from twenty to forty-five scholars who paid him a dollar and a half for twelve lessons. It was his ambition to pursue the classical course in Harvard and then enter Rush Medical College of Chicago. Believing that dentistry would furnish a good field of revenue whereby he could gain the money necessary to pursue his Harvard and Rush Medical College courses, he began studying under Dr. G. Y. Shirley of Jacksonville, a leading dentist of the west, who eighteen months later gave him a certificate of good moral character and competence to practice dentistry. He then visited Springfield and worked in three ofiices in that city so that he was allowed to refer to the Springfield dentists concerning his ability. Dental practice then consisted of removing tartar and extracting teeth, although to some extent the filling of teeth and the insertion of artificial teeth was practiced. But such methods were largely regarded with suspicion at that day.
In 1850 Dr. Cardwell located for practice in Decatur, Illinois, then a town of about five hundred inhabitants, and proudly hung out a sign of Japan tin on which was painted "J. R. Cardwell, Surgeon Dentist." He was the first practitioner in the town and at the end of the year found his receipts amounted to about one hundred dollars per month. Dental work was of the most primitive character and it was only the better class of people who were acquainted with the use of the toothbrush. Teeth were filled with Dunlevy's gold foil or Jones, White & McCurdy's tin foil, and he practiced twenty years before using amalgam or cement. Well-to-do people sometimes had artificial teeth inserted on gold or silver plates of wooden pivots.
In the fall of 1851 B. R. Biddle, an uncle of Dr. Cardwell, who had gone to California in 1849, returned to Springfield. He had spent a few months in Oregon and spoke so favorably and eloquently concerning the country and its resources that he induced more than one hundred people to go with him to the northwest the next spring. He proposed that Dr. Cardwell should accompany him and take charge of a nursery and fruit farm in Oregon on an equal partnership relation, Mr. Biddle to furnish the capital. To Dr. Cardwell it seemed the ideal business life, and on the ist of May, 1852, they left the Missouri river for Oregon with a fine nursery outfit of selected growing grafts and ornamentals thickly set in a wagonload of black Illinois soil drawn by four yoke of oxenAll went well until on the banks of Snake river, on a steep hillside, the wagon was overturned and the entire contents thrown into the river and carried away by the swift current. Dr. Cardwell saved only one Chinese Daily rose and now has a growing cutting from it more than fifty years old. This ended his dream of becoming a nurseryman and orchardist and, locating in Portland in November, 1852, he began practicing as the only resident dentist in this city, which at that time contained about one thousand inhabitants. Throughout the intervening years he has continued in active connection with the profession, advancing with the progress made. He opened an office in the Kamm building at the corner of First and Washington streets. The public manifested some doubt in the ability of so young a man, but he soon proved his worth and successfully engaged in practice at a time when five dollars was charged for an extraction, five dollars and upwards for gold fillings, ten dollars for teeth on a hickory pivot and two hundred dollars for a full set of teeth. These prices, however, were only in proportion to other professional charges and the prices paid for all commodities. Dental supplies and stock were generally purchased in San Francisco, to which place they had been sent by the water route. With ten and twenty dollar Spanish gold pieces upon a blacksmith's anvil they hammered out their plates and also made their own solder.
While practicing Dr. Cardwell took occasion at times to venture into other business fields. Portland was situated in the midst of a dense fir forest. The first salmon fishery, Chinook salmon, were selling in Oregon and San Francisco
