lamette River; $30,000 for opening a military road from Steilacoom to Fort Walla Walla; $40,000 for a military road from Scottsburg to Rogue River Valley; $15,000 to build a light-house at the mouth of the Umpqua; $15,000 for buoys at the entrance of that river; and $40,000 to erect a fire-proof custom-house at that place. He was also instructed to have St Helen made a port of delivery; to have the surveyor general's office removed to Salem; to procure an increase in the number of members of council from nine to fifteen, and in the house of representatives from eighteen to thirty; to ask for a military reconnoissance of the country between the Willamette Valley and Fort Boisé; to procure the establishment of a mail route from Olympia to Port Townsend, with post-offices at Steilacoom, Seattle, and Port Townsend, with other routes and offices at Whidby Island and the mouth of the Snohomish River; to urge the survey of the boundary line between California and Oregon; to procure money for the continuance of the geological survey which had been carried on for one year previous in Oregon territory;[1] to call the attention of congress to the manner in which the Pacific Mail Steamship Company violated their contract to carry the mail from Panamá to Astoria;[2] and to endeavor
- ↑ In 1851 congress ordered a general reconnoissance from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific, to be performed by the geologists J. Evans, D. D. Owens, B. F. Shumard, and Norwood. It was useful in pointing out the location of various minerals used in the operations of commerce and manufacture, though most of the important discoveries have been made by the unlearned but practical miner. U. S. H. Ex. Doc., 2, pt ii. 7, 32d cong. 1 sess.; U. S. Sen. Com. Rept, 177, 1–3, 6, 36th cong. 1st sess.; Or. Spectator, Nov. 18, 1851; Olympia Columbian, Jan. 22, 1852.
- ↑ No steamship except the Frémont, and she only once, had ventured to cross the Umpqua bar. From 1851 to 1858 the following vessels were lost on the southern coast of Oregon: At or near the mouth of the Umpqua, the Bostonian, Caleb Curtis, Roanoke, Achilles, Nassau, Almira, Fawn, and Loo-Choo; and at or near the entrance of Coos Bay the Cyclops, Jackson, and two
sion, the first enacted in the territory, divorces hitherto having been granted by the legislature, which failed to inquire closely into the cause for complaint. The law made impotency, adultery, bigamy, compulsion or fraud, wilful desertion for two years, conviction of felony, habitual drunkenness, gross cruelty, and failure to support the wife, one or all justification for severing the marriage tie. A later divorce law required three years' abandonment, not otherwise differing essentially from that of 1852–3. A large number of road acts were passed, showing the development of the country.
