shore was lined with a fleet of barks, brigs, and ships, and where wharves and warehouses were in great demand.[1] In Oregon City the mills were kept busy making flour and lumber,[2] and new saw-mills were erected on the Columbia.[3]
The farmers did not at first derive much benefit from the change in affairs, as labor was so high and scarce, and there was a partial loss of crops in consequence. Furthermore their wheat was already in store with the merchants and millers at a fixed price, or contracted for to pay debts. They therefore could not demand the advanced price of wheat till the crop of 1849 was harvested, while the merchant–millers had almost a whole year in which to make flour out of wheat costing them not more than five eighths of a dollar a bushel in goods, and which they sold at ten and twelve dollars a barrel at the mills. If able to send it to San Francisco, they realized double that price. As with wheat so with other things,[4] the speculators had the best of it.
- ↑ Couch returned in August from the east, in the bark Madonna, with G. A. Flanders as mate, in the service of the Shermans, shipping merchants of New York. They built a wharf and warehouse, and had soon laid the foundation of a handsome fortune. Eugene La Forrest, in Portland Oregonian, Jan. 29, 1870; Deady, in Trans. Or. Pioneer Assoc., 1876, 33–4. Nathaniel Crosby, also of Portland, was owner of the O. C. Raymond, which carried on so profitable a trade that he could afford to pay the master $300 a month, the mate $200, and ordinary seamen $100. He had built himself a residence costing $5,000 before the gold discovery. Honolulu Friend, Oct. 15, 1849.
- ↑ McLoughlin's miller was James Bachan, a Scotchman. The island gristmill was in charge of Robert Pentland, an Englishman, miller for Abernethy. Crawford's Nar., MS.
- ↑ A mill was erected in 1848 on Milton Creek, which falls into Scappoose Bay, an inlet of the lower Willamette at its junction with the Columbia, where the town of Milton was subsequently laid off and had a brief existence. It was owned by T. H. Hemsaker, and built by Joseph Cunningham. It began running in 1849, and was subsequently sold to Captain N. Crosbey and Thomas W. Smith, who employed the bark Louisiana, Captain Williams, carrying lumber to San Francisco. Crawford's Nar., MS., 217. By the bark Diamond, which arrived from Boston in August, Hiram Clark supercargo, Abernethy received a lot of goods and took Clark as partner. Together they built a saw and planing mill on the Columbia at Oak Point, opposite the original Oak Point of the Winship brothers, a more convenient place for getting timber or loading vessels than Oregon City. The island mill at the latter place was rented to Walter Pomeroy, and subsequently sold, as I shall relate hereafter. Another mill was erected above and back of Tongue Point by Henry Marland in 1849. Id.; Honolulu Friend, Oct. 3, 1849.
- ↑ In the Spectator of Oct. 18, 1849, the price of beef on foot is given at 6 and 8 cents; in market, 10 and 12 cents per pound; pork, 16 and 20 cents;
