Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/19

HISTORY OF OREGON.

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CHAPTER I.

CONDITION OF AFFAIRS.

1848.

Population—Products—Places of Settlement—The First Families of Oregon—Stock-raising and Agriculture—Founding of Towns—Land Titles—Ocean Traffic—Ship-building and Commerce—Domestic Matters: Food, Clothing, and Shelter—Society: Religion, Education, and Morals—Benevolent Societies—Aids and Checks to Progress—Notable Institutions—Character of the People.

 

Fourteen years have now elapsed since Jason Lee began his missionary station on the east bank of the Willamette, and five years since the first considerable settlement was made by an agricultural population from the western states. It is well to pause a moment in our historical progress and to take a general survey.

First as to population, there are between ten and twelve thousand white inhabitants and half-breeds scattered about the valley of the Willamette, with a few in the valleys of the Columbia, the Cowlitz, and on Puget Sound. Most of these are stock-raisers and grain-growers. The extent of land cultivated is not great,^[1] from twenty to fifty acres only being in cereals on single farms within reach of warehouses of the fur

1. In Hastings' Or. and Cal., 55–6, the average size of farms is given at 500 acres, which is much too high an estimate. There was no need to fence so much land, and had it been cultivated the crops would have found no market.