a small plain, which is partially inundated by the spring freshets.
Fort Vancouver is similar in construction to the posts already described, having an enclosure of cedar pickets 15 feet high, 220 yards in length and 100 yards in depth. At the northwest angle is a square blockhouse containing six 3-lb. iron guns (vide the accompanying sketch). There is a small village occupied exclusively by the servants of the H. B. Co., on the west side, extending to the river.
The fort was formerly situated on a rising ground in the rear of its present position, but was removed on account of the inconvenient distance from the river, for the conveyance of stores, provisions, etc. The present site is ill-adapted for defense, being commanded by the ground in the rear.
About five miles above the fort, on a small stream falling into the Columbia, is an excellent saw mill, and on another small stream one mile distant is a grist mill, capable of grinding 100 bushels of wheat daily.
The Hudson's Bay Company have about 1200 acres of ground under cultivation, producing about ——— bushels of wheat and ——— bushels of potatoes annually. There are about 2000 sheep, 1300 head of cattle, and between seven and eight hundred horses belonging to the establishment.
The Willamette River, on which the American citizens have formed their principal settlement, joins the Columbia by three channels; the first, and that in most general use, is five miles below Fort Vancouver, the two others are little known and "debouche" 12 and 15 miles lower down, forming a large fertile island, but covered by water during the spring of the year, which renders this, as also many of the low lands in other parts of the country, valueless for cultivation. The three channels unite about six miles above the mouth of the upper, at a point called Linnton, where it was intended to form a village; this idea appears to have been abandoned, at the present time but one family lives there.[1]
- ↑ Peter H. Burnett and Morton M. McCarver, of the 1843 emigration, laid out the town of Linnton, believing that point the head of navigation on the Willamette.
