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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 1, 1876)
THE WEST SIIOIIE. Ja -nary. G She mtst Shmt, A Twalrt Pag Monthly 1 dimmed Paper, publiihed at POHTL.AND, Uuuun, by L. SAMUFX, j Washington-. TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION, (Including Pottage to any part of the United Statet:) One copy, on year, ft 50 Single Numbers, centi. Printed by Gio, H. HtMtt, cor. Front & Waihington Mi. KAMBLING NOTES ON TIMES. OLDEN IIY W. I ADAMS, . D., A. M., D. Many of us in younger days read an account of the excdition of Lewis and Clark across the Continent in 1803, with the most intense interest. We can even now, almost see their camp fires, all along up the Missouri River, feel the intensely bitter frosts that sent their spirit ther mometers down to thirty degrees below Farcnheit zero, and follow them wend ing; their way among savages till they drank on the same day waters tint ran into both oceans. Our interest in the narrative was increased as they descend ed the hitherto unexplored wilds that lined the banks of the Columbia, and became doubly so as they ncarcd the end of their journey, and gradually drew back the curtain that had as yet concealed from Christendom the cream perhaps of the New World a land where for aught we knew, would yet be realised by some of us, the fond anti cipation of Queen Isabella and her protege, who saw towards the setting sun a land of plenty rivers of crystal purity, mountains white with crcnnlal snows, rich in golden ore, and washed at their base by an ocean of peace. Their rapid journey down the Colum bia, their gloomy winter among the fogs ami storms near Astoria, and their hasty trip homewards by the same mule in the Spring ; were unsatisfactory to us who ih'sired a more extended look at the country; Tom Jefferson had sent them so far to, re veal, nevertheless, we believe the country was there. We spent hours in gazing at thai part ol North America as hid down on lbs map, wondered what kind of a country it was, believed in it, fancied we might some day see it, and felt siiive that an empire in population, -another New England would ere long rest on the Columbia and its tributaries. We saw it imaged on the brain, in the dim distance, far beyond the western cloud banks, just under the brilliant colors that shot up from lite selling sun , with no path leading to it, mv a narrow trail through almost impene trable forests bristling with scalping knives, cross roaring rivers, and through rocky defiles, thai none but savages and daring adventurers would ever essay to pass. Long years alterwards our trip across Hit Continent embracing six months of ox learn travel changed our views of the route, but more than realised our fondest autici- Mlionso( the country. How well we remember hailing our learn near thirty years ago on the head waters of the Coloradu, and after gasing Kick long the road behind us, leading through narrow defiles, and overcount less rugged mountain spurs we exclaim ed: "the man who thinks railroad can ever be built through this country is a fool." Time has shown thai scientific en gineering was able to open up wavs that we who followed Indian trails knew not of. The Willamette Valley, was then but sparsely settled, but llic cordial welcome extended to new comers, the anxiety manifested by all thai we should settle in their immediate neighborhood, the unlimited range for our skeleton cattle, over grass covered IwtiriM, the fertile character of the soil, the exhaustless forests everywhere adja cent to the valleys, the purity of the Uuoks and rivers, fed by mountain firings, its mild and healthy climate, and iu beautiful scenery, nude us'all feel as though we were more than paid for the hardshi of the trip. We realized the wish of him who, tired, and disgusted with the hollow pageantry, selfish avarice, and fawning sycophancy of a society where de ception, falsehood, trickery and dishonor, were fast becoming respectable as a part of legitimate " business" cried out " Oh for r lodge in sumo vast wildernMi." We never expected to live to see a rail road, and did'nt care much if we didnt'. We hardly dared to hope ever to see a steamboat, but rather wished we could, even if it were no faster than the one Ful ton first propelled about as fast as a man could walk, to the astonishment of all the engineers of the world. To see our rivers lined with steamboats. tear up the old " puncheon" and lay down a lumber floor, to have a good gristmill in the neighborhood, with an honest mil ler to live on a piece of land with a title to it, to know thai the products of our labor on it were our own and then hungry and wearied with toil to sit down to a smok ing hot dinner, prepared on a cook stove with puddings and coffee, with sugar on the table. We said Good Lord give us but these and we'll ask for no more, for our cup of bliss will surely be full. This wc hoped for some day but were not sanguine about seeing it, unless we happened to live to a good old age which, of course, we came here to do. The greatest need of that time seemed to be tobacco, which we loved passionately, but if. ,7MW1 H hif.:V?M..-,;.':'l.W,tWdhWj-ir H rttniw a.-MarAi'AiC T. A VIEW NE.VB DAYTON, W. td ride on a railroad in Orcg ui, to pass some how, conscience or something else, through Ihc loc!;s at "Turn Chuck," to made us ashamed to include the thing in witness a city spring up on ihe banks of our prevent. Wc trusted the women w ho the Willamette (liver, daily paperx JWUnwW,fortliat, as thev generally raised a with dispatches every morning from New , fittje and kepi a "few hands" hanging up in York and London, a first class illustrated the. smoke house, which, woman like, thev nio:uhly, and wholesaleslures crammed with all kinds of machinery, fancy articles and yaukee notions, with even a decent wagon road leading to it, was more than we ex pected to see. To be sure we exiected that lustcrity would see all this ami more; but ihe most we dared to ask for in our daily prayers was lo be able to exchange our tin dishes for earthen, to swap oil' our ox team for a pair of horses and set of harness, to sling our old wooden mould board plow into the lencc corner and hitch to a Med plow; to hear the hum of a threshing ma chine in harvest, lo exchange our moua sius for a pair of cowhide Ikxiis, to see wheat worth fifty cents a bushel instead of thirty, to gel our mail once a mouth in stead of once a year across the plains, or, around Caw Horn, to have a hisi ollice nearer than thirty-live miles distant ; to into a coal black cone, and pinned to gether with wooden pegs, which the mer chant sold by the yard. We soon, filled our pocket with tea, and exhaused our funds paying for a yard of trail rope, which we deposited in the other pocket, and started for home thinking that Oregon waa coming out, and that Portland was its com mercial emporium. We now saw plainly why Oregon City was jealous of her rival twelve miles below. Coming events ra pidly cast their shadows before after this, for it was not long till standing one day on the banks of the Yamhill near where Dayton now is, we saw a man gliding up the river in a skiff with a cook stove, or, what had been one, for the burnt, broken, and dis torted fragments were patched together so as to enable a close observer, to see what the thing had been before it was worn out and thrown away, to be picked up by somedrayman, who having several tons of similar old iron stowed away in his stable in New York, shipped it as ballast, worked his passage round the Horn, and set up in Oregon City as a hardware merchant. The stove cost nine dollars and the lucky owner of it Iiiiimcuiaiciy look rauH among us com mon folks, who hadn't nine dollars as an aristocrat, outranking us in society as much as the hardware merchant and his family in Oregon City outranked mechanics and common merchants who only had a few rusty augers and Sand wich Island salt, dirt and lime mixed, to sell by the bushel measured. That stove put the dcvilof jealousy into the whole neighborhood. Let some snob who has money build a fifty thousand dollar house, and all flunkeydom feels an inferiority in his presence. Mrs. Jones with a five hundred dollar shawl drives devotion from the hearts of a majority of women in church, and fills them with envy and a burning desire lo have a live hundred dollar shawl too. We despise such Weakness while .we perhaps have symptoms of the same disorder or, had then at least for wc concluded to take a load of wheat to Oregon City, and by- were always willing to "divide," as long as it lasted. It was in the Spring of '49 that i s0"le great purchase become an aris the kind matron on whom we most de- locral too. The result of our trip was a pended told us as she tore open a twist and F'r ' heavy corduroy pants, which we gave us a liberal half, it was the last " hand" she had on hand. It was green and mouldy but precious. It wasn't over three days afterwards, that we started to hunt a cabin thirty-five miles distant, sur rounded by fir trees on the west bank of the Willamette, which they called a "Port land Store." We found the trail that led through the woods, and footed it through the limber leaving pieces of an old nigged green blanket coat with a huge pocket on either side on the bushes through which we craw led. We found a shanty which though rather uninviting on the outside was magnificent within, for there our glad etled eves saw several Itoxes of black-tea and a coil of " trail roie" to'ucco wound li nil Tit ' n i"'V?" " ' - r-raiii 1 oougiitat Dr. Jlcl.oughlin's store. The pants were all of one size a good fit for a six-footer, weighing two hundred and twenty-live pounds. As wc weighed just a hundred inunds less we cut a sorry figure in those corduroys as an aristocrat, at a select party, for the women all laughed, and said we had got on Dr. McLaughlin's breeches. We stoutly denied the soft im peachment and honestly narrated the pur chase at the store. "Well," they said, "the doctor had all his clothes made in England and sent back his own pattern to make by." The olium cum Jignilalt we hoped for in society we didn't exactly find. So we donned the cordurovs the next morn ing and repaired to the potato patch tnrotigli a dreary rain, which lasted all day, and carried barrels of water down our humbled back, and made us feel thai at last we had seen the ocean come in diggin a taty. If we had been weighed at night, as we dragged our weary feet homewards, we would no doubt have weighed, breeches, water, mud and what would-be aristocracy" there was inside of the corduroy's fully two hundred and twenty-five pounds. Ax Oreuox Wi.viE.-The Roseburg (Douglas County) PUnJukr of Jan uary 15th, says: Oats headed out, peas in bloom raspberry and blackberry bushes blos sonungand bearing, young potatoes on Ihe vines, and the green grass growing all around, are a few things that Douglas county can boast of just at the present lime ; and we might add, a foot or more, of as good stickv black mud as any teamster could wish to cart through. BISHOP SCO IT QBAUMAR AND PtVtNITT SCHOOU POBTLAXI). Clams in the shell are being barreled at Seattle and shipped to San Francisco.
