FOUNDING OF TOWNS.
3
houses on the land-claims, however, are still of hewn logs, in the style of western frontier dwellings of the Mississippi states.[1]
- ↑ George Gay had a brick dwelling, and Abernethy a brick store; and brick was also used in the erection of the Catholic church at St Pauls. Crawford tells us a good deal about where to look for settlers. Reason Read, he says, was located on Nathan Crosby's land-claim, a mile below Pettygrove's dwelling in Portland, on the right bank of the Willamette, just below a high gravelly bluff, that is, in what is now the north part of East Portland. Two of the Belknaps were making brick at this place, assisted by Read. A house was being erected for Crosby by a mechanic named Richardson. Daniel Lownsdale had a tannery west of Portland town-site. South of it on the same side of the river were the claims of Finice Caruthers, William Johnson, Thomas Stevens, and James Terwilliger. On the island in front of Stevens' place lived Richard McCrary, celebrated for making 'blue ruin' whiskey out of molasses. James Stevens lived opposite Caruthers, on the east bank of the Willamette, where he had acooper-shop, and William Kilborne a warehouse. Three miles above Milwaukee, where Whitcomb, William Meek, and Luelling were settled, was a German named Piper, attempting to make pottery. Opposite Oregon City lived S. Thurston, R. Moore, H. Burns, and Judge Lancaster. Philip Foster and other settlers lived on the Clackamas River, east of Oregon City. Turning back, and going north of Portland, John H. Couch claimed the land adjoining that place. Below him were settled at intervals on the same side of the river William Blackstone, Peter Gill, Doane, and Watts. At Linnton there were two settlers, William Dillon and Dick Richards. Opposite to Watt's on the east bank was James Loomis, and just above him James John. At the head of Sauvé Island lived John Miller. Near James Logie's place, before mentioned as a dairy-farm of the Hudson's Bay Company, Alexander McQuinn was settled, and on different parts of the island Jacob Cline, Joseph Charlton, James Bybee, Malcolm Smith a Scotchman, Gilbau a Canadian, and an American named Walker. On the Scappoose plains south of the island was settled McPherson, a Scotchman; and during the summer Nelson Hoyt took a claim on the Scappoose. At Plymouth Rock, now St Helen, lived H. M. Knighton who the year before had succeeded to the claim of its first settler, Bartholomew White, who was a cripple, and unable to make improvements. A town was already projected at this place, though not surveyed till 1849, when a few lots were laid off by James Brown of Canemah. The survey was subsequently completed by N. H. Tappan and P. W. Crawford, and mapped by Joseph Trutch, in the spring of 1851. A few miles below Knighton were settled the Merrill family and a man named Tulitson. The only settler in the region of the Dalles was Nathan Olney, who in 1847 took a claim 3 miles below the present town, on the south side of the river. On the north side of the Columbia, in the neighborhood of Vancouver, the land formerly occupied by the fur company, after the settlement of the boundary was claimed to a considerable extent by individuals, British subjects as well as Americans. Above the fort, Forbes Barclay and Mr Lowe, members of the company, held claims as individuals, as also Mr Covington, teacher at the fort. On the south side, opposite Vancouver, John Switzler kept a ferry, which had been much in use during the Cayuse war as well as in the season of immigrant arrivals. On Cathlapootle, or Lewis, river there was also a settler. On the Kalama River Jonathan Burpee had taken a claim; he afterward removed to the Cowlitz, where Thibault, a Canadian,
separate, as the mill established for sawing lumber by Mr Hunsaker at the junction of the Willamette with the Columbia; by Charles McKay on the Tualatin Plains, and by Hunt near Astoria. There were others to the number of 15 in different parts of the territory. Thornton's Or. and Cal., i. 330; Crawford's Nar., MS., 164.
