Only a small portion of the land being fenced, almost the whole Willamette Valley is open to travel, and covered with the herds of the settlers, some of whom own between two and three thousand cattle and horses. Though thus pastured the grass is knee-high on the plains, and yet more luxuriant on the low lands; in summer the hilly parts are incarnadine with strawberries.[1] Besides the natural increase of the first importations, not a year has passed since the venture of the Willamette Cattle Company in 1837, without the introduction of cattle and horses from California, to which are added those driven from the States annually after 1842,[2] whence come likewise constantly increasing flocks of sheep. The towns, as is too often the case, are out of proportion to the rural population. Oregon City, with six or seven hundred inhabitants, is still the metropolis, having the advantage of a central
- ↑ 'The most beautiful country I ever saw in my life.' Weed's Queen Charlotte I. Exped., MS., 2.
- ↑ Clyman's Note Book, MS., 6; W. B. Ide's Biog., 34.
was living in charge of the warehouse of the Hudson's Bay Company, and where during the spring and summer Peter W. Crawford, E. West, and one or two others settled. Before the autumn of 1849 several families were located near the mouth of the Cowlitz. H. D. Huntington, Nathaniel Stone, David Stone, Seth Catlin, James Porter, and R. C. Smith were making shingles here for the California market. Below the Cowlitz, at old Oak Point on the south side of the river, lived John McLean, a Scotchman. Oak Point Mills on the north side were not built till the following summer, when they were erected by a man named Dyer for Abernethy and Clark of Oregon City. At Cathlamet on the north bank of the river lived James Birnie, who had settled there in 1846. There was no settlement between Cathlamet and Hunt's Mill, and none between Hunt's Mill, where a man named Spears was living, and Astoria, except the claim of Robert Shortess near Tongue Point. At Astoria the old fur company's post was in charge of Mr McKay; and there were several Americans living there, namely, John McClure, James Welch, John M. Shivery, Van Dusen and family, and others; in all about 30 persons; but the town was partially surveyed this year by P. W. Crawford. There were about a dozen settlers on Clatsop plains, and a town had been projected on Point Adams by two brothers O'Brien, called New York, which never came to anything. At Baker Bay lived John Edmunds, though the claim belonged to Peter Skeen Ogden. On Scarborough Hill, just above, a claim had been taken by an English captain of that name in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. The greater number of these items have been taken from Crawford's Narrative, MS.; but other authorities have contributed, namely: Minto's Early Days, MS.; Weed's Queen Charlotte I. Exped., MS.; Deady's Hist. Or., MS.; Pettygrove's Or., MS.; Lovejoy's Portland, MS.; Moss' Pioneer Times, MS.; Brown's Willamette Valley, MS.; Or. Statutes; Victor's Oregon and Wash.; Murphy's Or. Directory, 1; S. I. Friend, Oct. 15, 1849; Wilkes' Nar.; Palmer's Journal; Home Missionary Mag., xxii. 63–4.
