and even advertised, to build a railroad from St Helen on the Columbia to Lafayette in Yamhill county as early as 1850. Or. Spectator, Jan. 30, 1850. Knighton, Tappan, Smith, and Crosby were the projectors of this road.
In the latter part of 1853 came I. I. Stevens to Puget Sound, full of the enthusiasm of an explorer, and sanguine with regard to a road which should unite the Atlantic and Pacific states. Under the excitement of this confident hope, the legislature of 1853–4 granted charters to no less than four railway companies in Oregon, and passed resolutions asking for aid from congress. Or. Jour. Council, 1853–4, 125. The Willamette Valley Railroad Company, the Oregon and California Railroad Company, the Cincinnati Railroad Company, and the Clackamas Railroad Company were the four mentioned. The Cincinnati company proposed to build a road from the town of that name in Polk county to some coal lands in the same county. Id., 125; Or. Statesman, April 18, 1854. The act concerning the Clackamas company is lacking among the laws of that session, although the proceedings of the council show that it passed. It related to the portage around the falls at Oregon City. Or. Jour. Council, 94, 95, 107, 116, 126. One of these companies went so far as to hold meetings and open books for subscriptions, but nothing further came of it. The commissioners were Frederick Waymire, Martin L. Barker, John Thorp, Solomon Tetherow, James S. Holman, Harrison Linnville, Fielder M. Thorp, J. C. Avery, and James O Neil. Or. Statesman, April 11 and 25, 1854. This was called the Willamette Valley Railroad Company.
A charter was granted to a company styling itself the Oregon and California Railroad Company, who proposed to build a road from Eugene City to some point on the east side of the Willamette River below Oregon City, or possibly to the Columbia River. The commissioners for the Oregon and California road were Lot Whitcomb, N. P. Doland, W. Meek, James B. Stephens, William Holmes, Charles Walker, Samuel Officer, William Barlow, John Gribble, Harrison Wright, J. D. Boon, J. L. Parrish, Joseph Holman, William H. Rector, Daniel Waldo, Benj. F. Harding, Samuel Simmons, Ralph C. Geer, William Parker, Augustus R. Dimick, Hugh Cosgrove, Robert Newell, W. H. Willson, Green McDonald, James Curl, E. H. Randall, Luther Elkins, John Crabtree, David Claypole, Elmore Keyes, James H. Foster, George Cline, John Smith, Anderson Cox, John H. Lines, Jeremiah Duggs, John N. Donnell, Asa McCully, Hugh L. Brown, James N. Smith, William Earle, W. W. Bristow, Milton S. Riggs, James C. Robinson, P. Wilkins, William Stevens, Jacob Spores, Benjamin Richardson, E. F. Skinner, James Hetherly. Felix Scott, Henry Owen, Benjamin Davis, Joseph Bailey, J. W. Nesmith, and Samuel Brown. Id., April 4, 1854. Of this likewise nothing came except the name, which descended to a successor. Another corporation received a charter in 1857 to build a road to Newport on Yaquina Bay, which was not built by the company chartered at that date. The only railroads in Oregon previous to the organization of the Oregon Central Railroad Company, of which I am about to give the history, were the portages about the cascades and dalles of the Columbia and the falls at Oregon City.
In 1863 S. G. Eliot, civil engineer, made a survey of a railroad line from Marysville in California to Jacksonville in Oregon, where his labors ended and his party was disbanded. This survey was made for the California and Columbia River Railroad Company, incorporated October 13, 1863, at Marysville, California. Eliot endeavored to raise money in Oregon to complete his survey, but was opposed by the people, partly from prejudice against Californian enterprises. Marysville Appeal, June 27, 1863; Portland Oregonian, Jan. 4, 1864; Deady's Scrap-Book, 37, 56; Portland Oregonian, Dec. 17, 1863. Joseph Gaston, the railroad pioneer of the Willamette, then residing in Jackson county, being deeply interested in the completion of the survey to the Columbia River, took it upon himself to raise a company, which he placed under the control of A. C. Barry, who after serving in the civil war had come to the Pacific coast to regain his health. Barry was ably assisted by George H. Belden of the U. S. land survey. As the enterprise was wholly a volunteer undertaking, the means to conduct it had to be raised by contribution,
