FootNote
The new kid on the block, FootNote is known for digitizing historical
documents... many of which are genealogical gems. With naturalizations,
city directories, war records, newspapers, town records, etc... this new
kid is quickly being recognized as an alternative to Ancestry.
While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Primitive Commerce-Commercial Operations of
Hudson's Bay Company-Trade Enterprises of Hall J. Kelley,
Nathaniel J. Wyeth and Nathaniel Crosby-Period of Commercial
Adventurers-Discovery of Gold and Its Effects on
Commerce-Early Trade in Lumber--Portland a Market for Oregon
Produce---Early Sailing Vessels Which Visited
Portland-Beginning of Steam Navigation-Character and Value
of Portland's Exports From 1855 to 1865-Steamships running
to Portland from 1864 to 1869-Value of Portland's Exports in
1866 and 1867-Measures Which Secured Portland's Commercial
Independence---Growth of Foreign Commerce---Trade Statistics
for 1870---Period of Business Depression---Commercial Growth
and Development During Recent Years---Present Character and
Condition of Portland's Commerce.
In approaching the subject
of the commerce of Portland, it will be
found that it divides itself most naturally
into three periods. The first of these
begins in the most remote times, dating,
indeed, as far back as the year 1811, when
Astor projected his fur enterprise from New
York upon our shores. This extends as far
down as to 1848 and the first months of
1849-the period of gold in California.
The period from 1811 until 1849 may be
termed the age of commercial adventurers and
independent shippers, or the period of our
primitive commerce. The second stage,
beginning with 1849, continues until 1868,
and may be styled the period of dependence,
or ' at least sub-dependence, upon San
Francisco. The third, beginning with 1869,
and extending up to the present time may be
styled the period of independent commerce
with the Atlantic seaports, Europe, and all
the world.
Recurring to the primitive age we find
included in this the enterprise of Winship,
of Astor, a long regime of the Hudson's Bay
Company, and the ineffectual attempts of
Kelley, Wyeth, and Couch ; with, perhaps, a
few independent ventures of other bold but
unlucky Americans. It is not necessary here
more than to refer to the scheme of Astor.
It is well enough, however, to bear in mind
that in days so early as 1809 and 1810,
commercial men upon the Atlantic sea-board
were looking toward the Columbia River as
the next great opening for their enterprise.
Looking upon the map of North America, they
saw how the Columbia river and its
tributaries made an open way from the heart
of the continent so that the products of the
interior might readily float thence to the
sea, and were therefore impressed that at
the mouth of this stream would rise the
great emporium of the Pacific Coast and
command the trade of the Orient. Astor's
proximate object was to nourish a trade in
furs and to thereby gain a foothold for
American institutions. There is every reason
to believe that he intended to so far extend
his plans and operations as to include the
planting of colonies, the development of
agricultural and pastoral pursuits, and
thereby to insure the conditions by which a
great commerce such as then was crystalizing
about New York City, should be developed
upon the western waters. It is well enough
known how his enterprise failed, how his
ships were blown up or wrecked, and how his
agents upon this toast betrayed his
interests to his British rivals.
Nevertheless, in the two years during which
his business flourished, in spite of all his
disasters, he succeeded in establishing the
first settlement on the North Pacific coast,
and in collecting furs worth something like
two hundred thousand dollars.
The Hudson's Bay Company, which succeeded to
this enterprise, was a well established
business corporation, and for a quarter of a
century and more-1818 to 1846-carried on a
commerce worth on the average a quarter of a
million dollars per annum. This was, in the
first years, almost exclusively devoted to
the export of peltfies and to the import of
only such articles as were necessary to
secure them-that is clothes, gew-gaws,
trinkets, beads and a modicum of powder and
shot. For more than ten years their commerce
was thus restricted, and one ship a year
from London was amply sufficient to bring
all imports and to carry off all exports.
About 1829, however, McLoughlin, the chief
factor at Fort Vancouver, found that he
might advantageously supply the Russian post
at Sitka, or New Archangel, as then
denominated, with wheat; and settling,
therefore, a number of his servants upon
lands in the Willamette Valley, and in after
years encouraging the American settlers to
engage in the cultivation of the cereals, he
built up a considerable commerce in the
Northern waters. As early as 1835, or 1836,
it was found that an incidental commerce of
much value might be conducted with the
Sandwich Islands. And at this time began our
first real export of salmon, lumber, and
hoop-poles and staves. The annual ship
passing by Honolulu on her voyage to the
Columbia left at that point a portion of her
cargo to be sold to the Islanders. Taking on
here a supply of molasses, she proceeded to
the Columbia river, and after discharging at
the little fort at Vancouver, took on some
salt salmon, lumber, hoop-poles and staves
to leave at the Islands as she went on back
to London. This amounted to as much as sixty
thousand dollars per annum. This British
circuit of trade flourished until 1845, when
Nathaniel Crosby, a Yankee sea captain,
began to make inroads upon it; and, as by
the treaty of 1846, Oregon as far north as
the parallel of 49 degrees fell to our
nation, the Hudson's Bay Company
relinquished, all this business to the
Americans.
It was in 1830 that Hall J. Kelley began his
unlucky series of enterprises, and although
he met nothing but failure from beginning to
end, and contemplated a system of
colonization rather than commerce, the
agitation into which the Eastern States, and
especially the commercial circles of Boston
were thereby thrown, produced fruit later
on. Nathaniel J. Wyeth, of Boston, a clever,
mettlesome, idealistic, but nevertheless
sagacious New Englander, conducted his
expedition across the continent to the mouth
of the Willamette river. His plan was to
establish forts on the upper waters of the
Columbia, which were to be supplied with
goods for the Indian trade, while at the
mouth of the Willamette he was to have a
central station. To this point should be
gathered the pelts collected from the
Indians, and hither a ship should come every
year bringing a supply of goods sufficient
for the interior posts. A system of salmon
fishing was also to be conducted on the
lower Columbia, and as his vessel sailed
away with the product of the year's labor of
the trappers and the traders, she was also
to carry a cargo of salt fish to be traded
at the Sandwich Islands for whale oil or
other products of that region. This
brilliant scheme proved equally disastrous
with that of Kelley's. Wyeth's little band,
which he left at Fort Hall, had much ado to
escape extermination at the hands of the red
men. His fishermen on the lower Columbia had
bad luck in taking salmon-some of them being
drowned; and he was only too willing, after
a struggle of less than three years, to sell
out to his rivals and accept passage home in
one of their ships. Captain Couch, in 1839,
under the direction of John and Caleb
Cushing, of Newburyport, Massachusetts,
entered upon a scheme very similar to that
of Wyeth's, with the exception that he did
not contemplate dealing to any extent in
furs. With the brig Maryland he
sailed around Cape Horn, arriving at the
month of the Columbia river and passing up
its waters to the Willamette, and thence to
Oregon City on the solsticial freshet of
May, 1840. He had on board an assorted cargo
for trade with the American settlers in
Oregon, and intended to load up with salmon
and return to the Sandwich Islands and there
exchange his cargo for whale oil and return
via the Cape of Good Hope to Massachusetts.
His plans, however, totally failed from his
inability to sell his goods at Oregon City
at prices to compete with the Hudson's Bay
Company, and from the impossibility of
obtaining a cargo of fish. He sailed empty
to Honolulu, and there had to sell the
Maryland in order to get home.
In 1845, however, the persevering attempts
of Americans to control this trade met with
success. It was in that year that Captain
Nathaniel Crosby came around the Horn from
Massachusetts, and entering the Columbia
river, sailed up to Portland, and, anchoring
here, began to sell off his stock of goods.
By means of batteaux, or flat boats, his
goods were lightened up to Oregon City and
there disposed of as the settlers found
need. It was in connection with this bark,
the Toulon, that the name of Portland
began to be known. People at the thriving
city of the falls inquired when they learned
that Crosby's ship was in the river where
she would unload, and the answer was made
"At Portland." This venture was measurably
successful, and thenceforward Crosby began a
regular trade between Portland and the
Sandwich Islands, carrying away salmon,
hoop-poles, staves, and a little whip-sawed
lumber, or perhaps something of the product
of the saw-mills at Oregon City, near
Vancouver, or the Hunt's mill on Cathlamet
bay. In 1846 this success of Crosby's was
followed up by the arrival of the
Chenamus, from Newburyport, under
Captain Couch, on his second venture.
In 1847, as the supremacy of the United
States in the western waters began to he
fully assured, other ships with cargoes of
goods began to arrive. One of these was the
bark Whitton, of New York, under
Captain Ghelstom. She came up to Portland,
and, after discharging, took on a
considerable supply of produce, making a
temporary wharf by drawing up near to the
shore and placing poles from the bank to her
deck, and upon these laying planks. At the
same time the brig Henry was in the
river on the East Portland side; the
American bark Parsons is also mentioned as
having entered the Columbia, and the
Eveline from Newburyport.
The Star of Oregon, a schooner, built
in the early forties by Joseph Gale and
other Americans, on Swan Island, was run
down to San Francisco, but of course
exported nothing, unless she herself be
considered an export-for she was sold at San
Francisco, and the money thus obtained was
invested in cattle, which were driven to
Oregon. It is not known that there were any
other exports from Oregon, or, at least,
that any passed Portland during those early
times. This whole epoch, at least so far as
concerns Americans, was that of commercial
adventurers, and old-time traders, such as
flourished on every sea from about the year
1790 to 1850.
Coming now to the second
epoch we find a commercial revolution
consequent upon the discovery of gold in
California. Thenceforth the objective point
of the commerce of Oregon and of Portland as
her principal shipping point was the Golden
Gate. At the time that the discovery of gold
was announced in Oregon in August, 1848, the
brig Henry happened to be lying in the
river, and her captain believing that the
discovery of gold would produce permanent
industries on the most gigantic scale,
seized the opportunity, before the news
became general, to buy up as many as
possible of the spades, shovels and pans,
that were to be found among the householders
and farmers of young Oregon. With these he
sailed off, and, although experiencing a
long delay on the bar of the Columbia, and
passing through a storm at sea, by which he
was well nigh shipwrecked, he made the port
of San Francisco without great loss, and
realized a fortune. Other craft going down
the coast to the same place carried produce
of various kinds and some deck loads of
]umber which had been cut out by whip saws,
or at Hunt's mill. From 1849 until about
1855, and even later, the trade in Oregon
produce and lumber became exceedingly
remunerative. One of the ship captains who
made it a great success was Couch. He
arrived on his third trip from Massachusetts
at San Francisco in 1849, with the
Madonna, and sold what lumber he had on
board at the fabulous price of six hundred
dollars per thousand feet. Five hundred
dollars a thousand was for some time the
regular market price. The Madonna
came up to Portland and thereafter made
regular trips under command of Captain
Flanders, now of our city. Stimulated by the
great demand for lumber, mills began to
spring up along the lower Willamette, and a
heavy export trade was continued. Lot
Whitcomb and Captain Kellogg, at Milwaukie,
operated a saw mill and regularly despatched
vessels to the Golden Gate, carrying their
own lumber and also that of other mills, for
which they received a hundred dollars a
thousand as freight. The exact amount of
lumber thus exported during thee years is
not known, but, together with shingles,
puncheons, poles, timbers, hoop-poles,
shooks and staves, aggregated a value of
many thousand dollars.
Under the stimulus of enormous prices and
unlimited demand Oregon produce began to be
gathered likewise and sent below. Butter at
two dollars a pound, beef at one dollar;
wheat, potatoes and other vegetables, at
corresponding figures, were eagerly brought
from all parts of the Willamette valley and
shipped at Portland or other points on the
lower Willamette and Columbia. To meet this
growing commerce sailing craft became
multiplied, and steam communication was soon
demanded. The Pacific Mail Steamship
Company, of New York City, under the
presidency of Aspinwall, had in 1849 sent
the old Pacific through the straits
of Magellan for Astoria, but she stopped at
San Francisco. In 1851 she was followed by
the old Columbia, a side-wheeler of
about six hundred tons, which reached the
mouth of the Columbia river and stopped at
Astoria. After this she made regular trips
between San Francisco and the Columbia
river, coming finally as far up that stream
as St. Helens. In the latter part of the
same year the Gold Hunter came up
from San Francisco, and being purchased by
the town proprietors and other citizens
first connected our city by steam with the
outer world.
There was no product of our valley which met
with a greater demand than the Oregon apple.
Orchards were exceedingly few, and in 1850
to 1855 the trees were so young that even
the total aggregate of the entire Willamette
valley was not large. People from the
Eastern and Middle States, who had been
accustomed to this fruit, and in crossing
the plains or sailing around the Horn, or
via the Isthmus, when they had been
compelled to live upon fried bacon or salt
beef, with little or no fruit or vegetables,
were ravenous for the beautiful red or
golden apples that grew large and fair in
the Oregon rain and sunshine. They were
willing, especially if their belts were full
of " dust," to give almost their weight in
gold for the pomes. A dollar apiece, and
even five dollars for a big one, was a
regular price in the earliest days. The
first shipment was made from the nursery of
Luelling & Meek, at Milwaukie, in 1853. This
was a consignment of two hundred pounds for
the San Francisco market, from which they
realized five hundred dollars. In 1854 they
sent forty bushels down, making twenty-five
hundred dollars by the trans-action. About
the same time Mr. J. A. Strowbridge, now one
of our most substantial citizens, began
making collections and consignments, going
about from orchard to orchard, and
encouraging the farmers to plant trees as
rapidly as possible. His returns were large,
and the encouragement which he gave the
farmers resulted in the extension of the
early orchards. In 1855 the export reached
fifteen hundred boxes, which sold at fifty
cents to a dollar a pound; in 1856, five
thousand boxes, selling at twenty-five to
fifty cents a pound; in 1857, fifteen
thousand boxes, at fifteen cents to fifty
cents; in 1858, twenty-nine thousand, one
hundred and ninety boxes, at seven cents to
thirty-five cents; in 1859, seventy-two
thousand boxes, at three cents to
twenty-five cents; in 1860, eighty-six
thousand boxes, at three cents to nineteen
cents. In the winter of 1861, owing to the
severity of the season, the orchards
suffered a great loss, many of them being
completely ruined, so that the exports did
not for many years come up to their early
productiveness. Even in 1863 we find the
exports only forty-two thousand and
thirty-one boxes. Yet it is to be noticed
that after the discovery of gold and silver
in Eastern Oregon and Idaho, quite
considerable shipments were made thither, of
which no record is found; and it was
becoming customary also to turn the product
into dried fruit, which subsequently
exceeded in value the shipments of the
green. Moreover, as prices fell, the crops
were not fully gathered and thousands of
bushels were suffered to rot under the
trees, or were fed to the cattle and hogs.
