proceed without delay to locate in a legal form all the land necessary to secure town sites, coal mines, and all important points whatsoever to the company. If upon due consideration any one wished to withdraw from the undertaking he was bound to hold his claim until a substitute could be provided. Each person remaining in the company agreed to pay the sum of five hundred dollars to the founder, from whom he would receive a certificate entitling him to one twentieth of the whole interest, subject to the regulations of the company, the projector of the enterprise being bound on his part to reveal to the company all the advantageous positions upon the bay or on Coquille river, and throughout the country, and to relinquish to the company his selections of land, the treasures he had discovered, both upon the earth or in it, and especially the stone-coal deposits by him found.[1]
The members of the company seemed satisfied with the project, and lost no time in seizing upon the various positions supposed to be valuable. Empire City was taken up as a town site about the time the company was formed,[2] and later Marshfield,[3] and the affairs of
- ↑ Articles of Indenture of the Coos Bay Company, in Oregonian, Jan. 7, 1854. See S. F. Alta, Jan. 3, 1854.
- ↑ Empire City had (in 1855) some thirty board houses, and a half-finished wharf. Van Tramp's Adventures, 160.
- ↑ I am informed by old residents of Marshfield that this was the claim of J. C. Tolman, who was associated in it with A. J. Davis. The usual confusion as to titles ensued. Tolman was forced to leave the place on account of his wife's health, and put a man named Chapman in charge. Davis, having to go away, put a man named Warwick in charge of his half of the town site. Subsequently Davis bought one half of Tolman's half, but having another claim, allowed Warwick to enter the Marshfield claim for him, in his own name, though according to the land law he could not enter land for town-site purposes. Warwick, however, in some way obtained a patent, and sold the claim to H. H. Luce, whose title was disputed because the patent was fraudulently obtained. A long contest over titles resulted, others claiming the right to enter it, because Davis had lost his right, and Warwick had never had any. Luce held possession, however. The remaining portion of Tolman's half of the town site was sold to a man named Hatch, whose claim is not disputed.
Harris, F. G. Lockhart, C. W. Johnson, A. P. Gaskell, W. H. Jackson, Presly G. Wilhite, A. P. De Cuis, David Rohren, Charles Pearce, Matthias M. Learn, Henry A. Stark, Charles H. Haskell, Joseph Lane, S. K. Temple. Articles of Indenture of the Coos Bay Company, in Oregonian, Jan. 7, 1854; Gibbs' Notes on Or. Hist., MS., 15.
