position between the farming country above the falls and the deep-water navigation twelve miles below; and more capital and improvements are found here than at any other point.[1] It is the only incorporated town as yet in Oregon, the legislature of 1844 having granted it a charter;[2] unimproved lots are held at from $100 to $500. The canal round the falls which the same legislature authorized is in progress of construction, a wing being thrown out across the east shoot of the river above the falls which form a basin, and is of great benefit to navigation by affording quiet water for the landing of boats, which without it were in danger of being carried over the cataract.[3]
Linn City and Multnomah City just across the river from the metropolis, languish from propinquity to a greatness in which they cannot share. Milwaukee, a few miles below, is still in embryo. Linnton, the city founded during the winter of 1843 by Burnett and McCarver, has had but two adult male inhabitants, though it boasts a warehouse for wheat. Hillsboro and Lafayette aspire to the dignity of county-seats of Tualatin and Yamhill. Corvallis, Albany, and Eugene are settled by claimants of the land, but do not yet rejoice in the distinction of an urban appel-
- ↑ Thornton counts in 1847 a Methodist and a Catholic church, St James, a day-school, a private boarding-school for young ladies, kept by Mrs Thornton, a printing-press, and a public library of 300 volumes. Or. and Cal., i. 329–30. Crawford says there were 5 stores of general merchandise, the Hudson's Bay Company's, Abernethy's, Couch's (Cushing & Co.), Moss', and Robert Canfield's; and adds that there were 3 ferries across the Willamette at this place, one a horse ferry, and 2 pulled by hand, and that all were kept busy, Oregon City being 'the great rendezvous for all up and down the river to get flour.' Narrative, MS., 154; S. I. Friend, Oct. 15, 1849. Palmer states in addition that McLoughlin's grist-mill ran 3 sets of buhr-stones, and would compare favorably with most mills in the States; but that the Island Mill, then owned by Abernethy and Beers, was a smaller one, and that each had a saw-mill attached which cut a great deal of plank for the new arrivals. Journal, 85–6. There were 2 hotels, the Oregon House, which was built in 1844, costing $44,000, and which was torn down in June 1871. The other was called the City Hotel. McLoughlin's residence, built about 1845, was a large building for those times, and was later the Finnegas Hotel. Moss' Pioneer Times, MS., 30; Portland Advocate, June 3, 1871; Bacon's Merc. Life Or. City, MS., 18; Harvey's Life of McLoughlin, MS., 34; Niles' Reg., lxx. 341.
- ↑ Abernethy was the first mayor, and Lovejoy the second; McLoughlin was also mayor.
- ↑ Niles' Reg., lxviii. 84; Or. Spectator, Feb. 19, 1846.
