1849 to 1859
Marshall Joseph Meek and the new Territory's governor, General
Joseph Lane, arrived from San Francisco by ship
City on March 2, 1849. To celebrate, a barbecue and formal ball were held at
the home of William and Louisa Holmes, at Rose Farm on Mt.
Pleasant just above Oregon City.
The first session of territorial government, July 5 through September 9, 1849,
convened in the ballroom at Rose Farm.
This same year, the Holmes donated land for the area's
first cemetery, Mountain View.Rose Farm, owned by Louisa and William Livingston
Holmes, sat well back on the bluff above Oregon City was named for rosebushes
imported from France.
The arrival of the First Mounted Rifles,
U.S. troops from Ft. Leavenworth
Kansas, was heralded in Oregon
City by a military marching band in the
summer of 1849. Some of the soldiers had suffered a miserable trip west. A small
command, traveling by land around Mt.
Hood on the Barlow Road (while the rest took bateaux
down the Columbia River), was surprised by
heavy snows. Two-thirds of their animals died and they were forced to abandon
their wagons at a spot later known as Government Camp.
Dr. Forbes Barclay--a Hudson's Bay Company
associate of McLoughlin--built a family home on Singer Hill and served as an
mayor, educator, and physician. (The Barclay House on Center Street has been preserved as part
of Oregon City's historical district).
George Abernethy was finally, after 5 years
in business, able to make an import/export arrangement for his store in Oregon
City for better competition with the city's other stores.
Gabriel Walling took a claim this year with
river frontage in what would later be Robinwood in the Oswego area.
Hezekiah Johnson opened a school in the
By the early 1850's, private schools opened at Rose Farm (William Holmes) and
Canemah (Charles Young Draper). The Baptist school, co-founded by Ezra Fisher,
was the foundation of Oregon
In this year, Pettygrove filed for a Donation
Land Claim next to that of his business partner (and son-in-law) Philip Foster
at Eagle Creek. There were now 28 children within a mile of the farms so Pettygrove
with Philip Foster, John P. Glover, and Joseph Church began organizing a public
school which opened in its own building in 1851.
In 1849, George H. Atkinson founded the
Clackamas County Female Seminary on 12th Street, Oregon
City. Atkinson drafted the Oregon
Public School Law this
year and later opened the first public school. Both Johnson's and Atkinson's
schools were co-educational.
Lot Whitcomb, with partners William Torrance
and Joseph Kellogg, founded the town of Milwaukie on his land claim. A sawmill was established
and Kellogg built a schooner to transport the lumber to California.
Further south, Samuel K. Barlow (of Barlow Road fame)
and his son James took land claims, which became the foundation of Barlow Town.
An epidemic of small pox swept through the
Newly elected President Zachary Taylor appointed
J.P. Gaines as Oregon
Territory governor in place
of Joseph Lane.
Lane was elected, June 1850, as Oregon's delegate
to the US
The Oregon Donation
Land Claim Act was signed
into law September 27, 1850. The Act allowed claims of 320 acres for each man,
320 for a wife, and 160 per child to any white American who reached Oregon
The sizable claims under the Act were nowhere
near the 1000 acre or square-mile properties claimed by the missions, McLoughlin,
and some early settlers. Those who had taken earlier claims, however (especially
if they had farmed, built upon, or platted their land), mostly kept their land
even if the property was oversize or irregular in shape.
Land Claim Act specified that one section
in the Oregon
City area would be sold to found a university
(never realized), but otherwise excluded the area from land claim rules. McLoughlin,
the Methodist mission, and those who had purchased land in Oregon City
continued to dispute land rights. The matter wasn't settled until a court ruling
The Indian Treaty Act of 1850, passed by
Congress, separated the Oregon Superintendent of Indian Affairs from a general
western ombudsman (with ill-defined duties). Joseph P. Gaines acted as Oregon's first agent under the Act and negotiated treaties
with six separate bands of Willamette
Peter Hatch, who had raised $20,000 for
the enterprise, completed a road around the Falls from Canemah to Oregon City.
With much of the new road blasted from shear rock cliffs, it was a vast improvement
over the hand cart and backpack trail that had previously provided portage around
the Falls. The new road allowed wagon traffic and featured a boardwalk with
a rail on the riverside. Passengers debarked from steamships at Canemah and
safely made way around the Falls to waiting passenger steamers below.
On the west side of the Falls, there was
a hoist for small steamers. For a large fee, crews of men could muscle ships
over the Falls with hawser and winch. This lining method was rarely used, however,
and downriver and upriver craft were mostly maintained as separate shipping
By the early 1850's, the Robert Moore family,
founders of Linn, had organized the Willamette Falls
Canal, Milling, and Transportation
Company. Their Linn City Works Company, established 1852-53, included a breakwater
to create a basin below the Falls, a sawmill, gristmill, a warehouse, and wharves.
The company operated a hoist for small vessels to a similar facility at the
top of the Falls. This year, 1850, a US post office opened in Linn City.
US post offices also opened in Milwaukie and Molalla this
On January 1, 1850, Moore bought the Spectator newspaper.
Publication continued at Oregon City but the paper's editorial policy boosted Linn City and
supported Dr. John McLoughlin's claim to land in Oregon City.
During this year, five more families filed
claims in the future Oswego area: Socrates H. Tryon took the land around Tryon
Creek; Jesse Bullock settled in the Marylhurst area; F.A. Collard's property
ran from present day Glenmorrie to just south of Sucker (Oswego) Creek; Josiah
Franklin claimed a nearly square area to the north (that is, roughly Oswego's
New Town neighborhood); and Albert Alonzo Durham built a sawmill on Sucker Creek
and filed for land between the southern bank of the creek north to approximately
A Avenue. (Collard may have settled his land long before he filed his claim
in 1850). In October, Durham filed a plat for
a town named Oswego after his former home, Oswego,
The first plat for the city of San Francisco was filed at Oregon
City, the only incorporated American
city west of the Rocky Mountains.
The steamer Columbia
began regular service between Oregon
City on the Willamette
River and Astoria
on the Columbia
at the coast. A journey of 125 miles, the voyage took 25 hours and required
a $50 fare. Another steamship, the Senator Linn, was launched this year.
To end the Cayuse War, five Indians had
been surrendered by their tribe as the culprits in the Whitman Massacre of late
1847. They had been imprisoned on Abernethy
Island above the Falls.
In 1850 they were tried, sentenced to hang, and executed in Oregon City.
Beginning this year and ending in 1853,
the Oregon Legislature financed a project to
deepen the channel at the Clackamas
River rapids on the Willamette
River just below Oregon City.
It was still too shallow for ocean going ships and Portland continued as the port of choice. The
Oregon City region, however, became the center
of ship building in the Territory.
Isaac Beals platted the town of New Era this year.
Two new newspapers opened in Oregon in 1850; the first issue of the Western Star
(published by Lot Whitcomb) appeared in Milwaukie
in November and the Weekly Oregonian (by Henry Pittock of Portland) began in December.
Charles Ray began to operate a regular stagecoach
line between Oregon City and Salem
in 1850. Roads in Oregon
were so muddy that stages and wagons could only travel 25 miles per day rather
than the 60 typical for dry roads.
Scholl's Ferry began operation for passage
over the Tualatin
William Meek (partner of Lot Whitcomb and
his son-in-law William Torrance of Milwaukie)
built a large-scale sawmill at the mouth of Johnson Creek. Meek's Milwaukie
Milling Company began producing lumber for export in 1850. With this second
mill, the Whitcomb/Kellogg/Torrance enterprise was exporting enough lumber to
California to employ two
Lot Whitcomb had returned from a round trip
He brought with him Captain John C. Ainsworth, engineer Jacob Kramm, and machinery
to outfit a steamship. At Milwaukie, the men
began to build the first steamship manufactured in Oregon. Milwaukie at the time was a thriving town of
about 500 inhabitants.
Named for one of the partners,
the sidewheel steamer Lot Whitcomb was launched amid a huge celebration
on Christmas Day, 1850. The festivities turned tragic when a canon--fired in
celebration from aboard the schooner Merchantman-- exploded and killed
Capt. Frederick Morse. Piloted by Captain Ainsworth, the Whitcomb
made its maiden voyage to Oregon City but later worked as a tug between Milwaukie and Astoria
on the coast.
Between 1851 and 1853, some 30 ships were
constructed at the yard in Canemah. Robert Newell added the ship Great Western
to help in his competition with the Klikitat Indian crews of James D. Miller.
The steamers Canemah, Washington,
and Hoosier also plied the upper Willamette
River. Captain George A.
Pease commanded the Spokane Indian crews of Hudson's Bay Company bateaux while
Sam Barlow (owner with Beers of the Canemah shipyard) competed with Medorum
Crawford for the portage trade around the Falls.
The second session of the Territorial Legislature
met at the Cliff House in Oregon City.
The two branches (a 9-member council and an 18-member house) passed the Location
Bill which drastically changed the power and prospects of Oregon City.
The bill moved Oregon's capital to Salem, sited a state penitentiary in Portland, and the state university in Corvalis.
Oregon City was deliberately slighted due to business
and political rivalries. The re-location bill, eventually upheld by the US Congress, was struck down immediately by Oregon's Supreme Court.
For a while, the location of Oregon's government was
in limbo. Governor Gaines and three of the 22 Legislators remained in Oregon City.
One Legislator, who lived north of the Columbia River,
"met" all by himself. The rest of government moved immediately to
Salem. Until the post-Civil
War boom in industry, Oregon
City lost population.
Dr. John McLoughlin, formerly head of the
Hudson's Bay Company in the Northwest, was elected mayor of Oregon City.
Around this time he refunded money for some of the townsites purchased from
him (his land claim was still in litigation). Because McLoughlin encouraged
settlement, he had sold many of these sites for a nominal sum in the first place.
Statesman, a relatively long-lived newspaper, began publication in Oregon City
in 1851 under J.W. Nesmith, M.P. Deady, and Joseph C. Avery. Its editor, Asahel
Bush, was a militant Democrat. The newspaper moved to Salem with the Capital in 1853.
The Rev. St.Michael Frackler held the first
Anglican (Episcopal) service in Clackamas
County at Milwaukie.
In November 1851 Indian Treaties: The Clackamas
people ceded all their lands (including the town sites of Milwaukie and Oregon
City) for an annuity of
$2500 for the next ten years. Clackamas men who signed the treaty were allowed
to occupy their traditional homes during the remainder of their lifetimes but
their children retained no land rights.
government dispatched John B. Preston to formally survey Oregon Territory
for divisions based on true north-south and true east-west. A boulder in Portland's West Hills, called the Willamette Stone, set the
Drawn through central Hillsboro and Portland, "Baseline"
became the east-west divider. All future surveys would be based upon these two
imaginary lines. Clackamas County's
western border then became Meridian rather than the meandering Willamette River.
Oswego, formerly a part of Tuality County, became a part of Clackamas County
Clackamas's neighboring counties got new
names; Tuality became Washington County and Champoeg became Marion County
For the first time, a photographer advertised
daguerreotype portraits at Oregon City.
Pettygrove ended all business in Portland,
Oregon City, and Eagle Creek and moved to Port Townsend, Washington Territory.
Discovery of gold in the Rogue River region brought hoards of miners and settlers.
An Indian War soon followed and continued until 1856.
Anson Dart had been appointed in 1851 as
US Indian Superintendent for Oregon.
Dart suggested the idea of a reservation system, Indian-owned land which in
Dart's plan would be small reservations on traditional homeland close to white
settlements. Previously, Indians had been simply forced ever westward by American
settlement. Oregon's Territorial Representative, Samuel Thursten, wanted to
Indians to the east. Dart recognized that the frontier had moved all the way
across the Continent and that Indians now required protected homelands.
The Treaty of Table Rock established the
first such reservation for the Rogues and the Cow Creek Umpquas of southern
With the help of former missionaries H.H.
Spalding and John Parrish, Dart negotiated the surrender of 6 million more acres
from the Willamette Valley Indians. A small site was reserved for each Indian
band/extended family on the ceded lands. The Congress condemned this treaty
and replaced Dart.
Indian Superintendent Dart was replaced
by Joel Palmer. Palmer rejected Dart's plan for Indian preserves near white
settlements but adopted the notion of small, western reservations. (Palmer did
not arrive in Oregon until March 1853).
On May 4, 1852, the US Congress upheld the Location Bill, which had
passed the previous year in Oregon's Territorial
Legislature and was invalidated by Oregon courts. This bill, promptly signed into
law by President Millard Filmore, relocated Oregon's
capital from Oregon City to Salem.
Regular stagecoach service between Oregon City
and Champoeg was established by Edward Dupuis this year.
The town of Boone
(later renamed Clackamas) received a US post office this year.
William Orlando and Louisa (Graham) Mack
founded Macksburg this year by building a house and school. (The Macks relocated
to Canby in 1878).
Francis Jackson, who arrived by ship in
1852, chose a land claim near the future site of Liberal specifically for the
high quality of the area's oaks and maples. He married the widow Sarah Ann Morris
who owned the adjacent claim and began a successful furniture manufacturing
Beginning this year, a spur off the old
Barlow Road, the Barlow-Foster
Trail, connected Eagle Creek and Portland. A half-dozen families had claims along
this road in what would later be the Damascus area. The Barlow-Foster Trail
approached Portland at (what would later be)
Sunnyside Road and
then went west toward Sycamore (Pleasant
Valley) and Johnson Creek.
By this year, Philip Foster had recovered
all the costs of building the Barlow
L.D. Cross, Lucius A. Seely and Wesley Joslyn
settled in Canby near the Molalla
River this year. In 1861,
the great flood persuaded them to sell their land to businessman William Knight
was created from land north of the Columbia River.
post office opened in Oswego.
Almond and Nancy Holcomb, who arrived in Oregon four years earlier, built a
large farmhouse in Oregon City.
and other western gold rushes which had depleted Oregon's
male population now began to bring wealth to Oregon's economy. This year, 1853, Oregon exported its first fresh fruit to California. Winter apples
sold for a dollar each at Portland
or $75 per box. A mere four bushels sold for $500 in California. Flour sold for $100 per barrel
and an egg brought a dollar.
In 1853, Benjamin Brown built and operated
the Standard Flour Mill at Milwaukie
for the partnership of Joseph Kellogg, W.J. Bradbury, and H.W. Eddy. Standard
Mill's Red Cross Brand was produced at the rate of 100 barrels per day. This
same year, the Oregon Milling Company (later named the Imperial) opened at the
Willamette Falls. By 1867, eight major mills operated
in Clackamas County.
A flood at Oregon City
washed away the bridge built (in 1845) to McLoughlin's island sawmill.
The flood also destroyed the Oregon Milling Company's bridge.
Francis Revenue and family staked a claim
in 1853 near the present day site of Sandy, the first permanent white settlers
in the area. The year before, 1852, Revenue bought the rights to collect tolls
on the Barlow Road
from Philip Foster. The Barlow
Road tollgate moved to Revenue's Place between 1853
and 1865. The original settlement in this area was called "Revenue"
but later changed to "Sandy" after
the nearby Sandy
(originally Quicksand) River.
With the creation of Wasco County
in January, Clackamas
County lost nearly 450
miles of territory to the east. The County's eastern border was moved by the
Territorial Legislature to the summit of the Cascade Mountains rather than the
crest of the Rocky Mountains.
Maps of County
At the end of the year, December 1854, the
Legislature also removed a considerable portion of Clackamas
County to create Multnomah
County, a district centered on Oregon City's
For a time, residents of Portland had refused
to do business--or legal filing--in Oregon
City, preferring to journey to Hillsboro for legal work
and to draw trade along more northerly routes. They drew up a petition--with
five feet worth of signatures--to request a new county of nearly a thousand
square miles, all the land between the Columbia
and Clackamas rivers. Because Philip Foster's horse Bill became lame, the petition
was not delivered in time to the Legislature. The Legislature's "bill"
gave all the land along the Columbia River to Multnomah County and set its southern border along
a parallel of latitude that made for a quite narrow territory. Clackamas retained
most of its farm lands and mountain country, including Mt. Hood.
County's fortunes were falling. Ainsworth, Pease, and partners
had purchased the Barlow/Beers shipyard at Canemah and launched a new side-wheeler,
the Willamet, this year. But the rush for gold to the south had drawn off population
and trade. The Willamet was hawsered over the Falls to work the lower Willamette
River but finally found success as a steamer near the
California gold fields along the Sacramento River.
Twenty-four people died when the boiler
of the steamer Gazelle exploded shortly after leaving Linn City
The People's Transportation Company created
a breakwater on the east upper bank of the Willamette Falls
to form a deep pool for upriver boats to dock in while off-loading.
In 1854, Oregon City
imposed a one-dollar poll tax to finance public schools. The city also received
revenue from fares on the city-owned ferry across the Willamette River.
Indian Superintendent Joel Palmer, negotiated
a treaty with Willamette
Valley Indians for a reservation
at Grand Ronde--a land quite distant from their homeland. Relocation was delayed
for two years.
A unique wagon train arrived in Oregon this year; members of the Harmony (originally in
Pennsylvania) commune traveled the Oregon
Trail to begin a new colony in the Northwest. Their newest colony
at Bethel, Missouri, had thrived as outfitters and a repair
service for passing traffic on the Trail. In 1855, commune founder and leader,
Dr. William Keil, led a group from Bethel along
the Trail to the Pudding River area in Oregon.
The newest Harmony commune centered on the town of Aurora
Mills (Marion County) but the colony's 23,500 acres extended well
into southern Clackamas
County. The colony disbanded
in 1877 after the death of Dr. Keil.
Indian War began this year and lasted until 1858.
Treaties created the Umatilla Reservation
(for the Umatilla, Walla Walla, and Cayuse tribes)
and, at the western edge of Clackamas
County, the Warm Springs Reservation
(for the Wascoes and other Walla Walla
bands). The US
Congress did not ratify the Warm Springs treaty until 1859.
An Episcopal Church opened in Milwaukie.
The town of Needy
received a US
post office this year (discontinued in 1908).
In this year, Oregon
voters turned down a proposal to make Oregon
a State. Politics surrounding the "slavery question" complicated Oregon's achievement of statehood in the US Congress and
provoked hot debate in the Territory. Baptist preacher Hezekiah and son Cary
Johnson organized the new Republican (anti-slavery) party in Oregon City.
A new cherry variety developed in Milwaukie
was dubbed the Black Republican in the party's honor. The Argus newspaper, which
had succeeded the Spectator in Oregon
City, was staunchly Republican.
Portland's Oregonian remained Whig until the
late 1850's while the Statesman (which moved from Oregon City
to Salem when
the government did) supported the Democrats.
Clackamas County's southern border moved
to include the town of Molalla, the north bank of Butte
Creek, and the lower Pudding River area--this considerably reduced the size of Marion County.
After the end of the Rogue
River Indian War, Indian Agent Joel Palmer was fired. He blamed
the Rogue War on unruly miners and illegal settlers and angered the US Congress. The
next year, 1857, the Indian Agencies of Oregon
were combined under the leadership of J.W. Nesmith.
In the view of the US Congress, war
was the "natural result" of emigration and settlement since white
and red cannot co-exist. In 1856, the Rogues, Klamaths, and Coquilles were removed
from the reservation established by the Table Rock Treaty and added to the population
at Siletz Reservation.
Between this year and 1857, the previously
negotiated Grand Ronde and Siletz Reservations were founded. The Siletz Reservation
was to hold all coastal Indians and Grand Ronde was to receive the remnants
Valley and south Valley
Horace and Jane Baker built a substantial
cabin just off the Barlow Road
near the future site of Carver. Eventually the road leading by this home became
the Carver Railroad, a transport for logs from the Redland/Colton highlands
to Oregon City.
Ernest Burghardt built the Barton Roller
Mill on Deep Creek.
Unlike the previous year, Oregon voters opted for
Statehood in 1857. By November, a new Oregon
constitution had been referred by the Legislature and passed by the voters.
Ratification in the US
Senate was delayed for almost two years.
The death of Dr. John McLoughlin ended an
era in Oregon
history. Dispute over his Oregon
City land claim continued
for five more years, with much of the property eventually restored to his heirs.
The founder of Linn
City had died just the
day before McLoughlin; Robert Moore died September 2, 1857.
House opened at the corner of 3rd and Water streets in Oregon City,
just opposite the ferry landing. Like other hotels of the era (the Veranda Hotel
in Milwaukie, 1856, and McLoughlin's Canemah
Hotel, 1858), the Oregon
House became a social center for the community.
The first steam-powered vessel reached Eugene from Oregon
Francis Pettygrove imported 1000 fruit trees
from Foster's Farm in Eagle Creek for the new settlement at Port Townsend (future)
Washington. Pettygrove would be considered one of the founders of Port Townsend
and here he stayed put. During his career, Pettygrove had gone from New England
to Galvin (Galveston, TX) Mexico (prior to 1842), back to Maine and on to Oregon
(1843), founded Portland (1845), left his store in Oregon City to go to the
California goldfields (1848), took a claim in Eagle Creek (1849) and finally
Seth Luelling, famed cherry orchardist,
introduced Italian prune trees to Oregon
in 1858. The prunes grown at the Luelling farm (now Waverly Golf and Country
Club in Milwaukie)
sparked a successful industry that thrived throughout the county. During the
industry's heyday, from 1890-1900, the largest prune farm was at Clarks and
an industrial-size dryer was at Dover.
The sheriff sold 49 of the late Robert Moore's
Linn City lots to pay back taxes. The firm of
Abernethy, Clark, and Company now operated Moore's
Linn City Works under the name Oregon Milling
and Transportation Company.
Between this year and 1863, a macadam road--the
first--was constructed along the route of MacAdam Avenue from Portland
to Milwaukie on the west bank of the Willamette River.
Rock Creek Church was established this year.
On February 14, 1859 the United States
Congress admitted Oregon
as the 33rd State. News flashed by telegraph to St.
Louis and then made way overland by stagecoach to San Francisco. By March 10, the official statehood
announcement was sailing north on the ship Brother Johnathan. The news reached
Salem on March 15, 1859, a mere 13 hours after
the ship had docked in Portland.
A bridge at the mouth of Eagle Creek improved
the old Barlow Road.
Twelve nuns of the Holy Names of Jesus and
Mary came from Montreal to Oregon City
in 1859. They expected to found a school in an unfinished building at Market
and 4th streets but an orphanage was more urgently needed. (This same order
in 1906 created Villa Marie and the Christie School on the Bullock and Walling
land claims near Oswego--the foundation of Marylhurst College).
Responding to a petition by 76 Oregon City
ladies, Governor Whiteaker declared December 29 Thanksgiving Day in Oregon.
By the late 1850's, Matthew Patton had purchased
the Collard's Original Donation Land Claim near Sucker Lake (Oswego) specifically
for the land's high iron content. The $5000 that Patton brought back from the
California gold fields allowed him to establish
his mine on Iron
Mountain. Jack Boyland
, an older man who lived in Rosemont, hauled the ore by ox-team to Moore's mill and smithy on the Tualatin
River (about 2 1/2 miles from the Tualatin's
mouth at the Willamette). In 1862, six tons
of the brown hematite ore reached California where it was tested and found to
be 40 to 75 percent pure.
This year, Horace and Julia Hattan (Sturges)
Dibble built a fine cedar and fir home at Molalla, the first in the area. (This
New England saltbox style home has been preserved
as a museum. The 1868 Vonder Ahe House in the same museum complex was moved
from Carus--a district between Molalla and Oregon City--where
it served as an inn on the Portland-Salem stage route).
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