By Rick Steber (www.ricksteber.com) | Posted: Wednesday, March 11, 2009 12:00 am
February 2 - On February 1, 1844, Oregon City became the first incorporated city west of the Rocky Mountains. The community got its start in 1829 when Doctor John McLoughlin, Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver, laid out a two-square mile claim at Willamette Falls and began construction of three houses. The houses were burned by Indians but rebuilt and soon a small fur-trading center was established. The community, originally known as Willamette Falls, was renamed Oregon City and in the 1840s became the final destination for many of the early wagon immigrants and was known as the "End of the Oregon Trail."
February 4 - The winter of 1861 a Chinook blew in from the tropics and for three warm days it rained in Western Oregon, melting the snow and causing the Great Flood of '61. At Oregon City, where the Willamette River crested at 57 feet above the average low water mark, floodwaters ran four-feet deep through the streets of the business district. On the west side Linn City disappeared under the floodwaters. Upriver, the buildings in Champoeg were swept away and throughout the Willamette Valley there was severe loss of livestock and property, and a number of lives were lost in the Great Flood of '61.
February 5 - William Packwood was born in Illinois in 1832 and was a friend to Abraham Lincoln. When Packwood turned 16 he enlisted in the U.S. Army and his company was sent west to the newly created Oregon Territory. After his discharge Packwood turned to gold mining and served in several Indian wars before representing Curry County at the Oregon Constitutional Conven-tion. In 1862 he moved to Eastern Oregon and returned to mining. He was the last living member of the Oregon Constitutional Convention and died in 1917. He was the great-grandfather of four-term United States Senator Bob Packwood.
February 6 - An eight-year-old orphan boy was sent west to live with his uncle in Newberg, Oregon. After graduating from high school in Newberg, and attending Pacific Academy, the young man went to Stanford University and graduated in the pioneer class of 1895. After an international career as an engineer and mining expert he returned to the United States and became Secretary of Commerce. In 1929 this man, who had grown up in Newberg and attended school there, became the 33rd president of the United States. His name was Herbert Clark Hoover. He served only one term, and unable to deal with the Great Depression, he suffered a crushing defeat by F. D. Roosevelt in the 1932 election.
February 9 - Traditional belief holds that the Appaloosa breed originates from horses introduced by Coronado to North America in the 1500s. The Lewis & Clark journals made note of the spotted horses owned by the Nez Perce Indians and early day settlers claimed to have seen thousands of horses grazing in the Wallowa Valley of Northeastern Oregon. The Nez Perce selectively bred the spotted horses and their strength, stamina and sureness of foot allowed the Indians to travel great distances through rugged terrain. After the Nez Perce War in 1877, the government ordered the annihilation of the tribe's beloved horses. Only a few horses survived to become the foundation of today's Appaloosa breed.
February 10 - James Marshall came west by wagon train, and although the main body of the wagon train turned south to California, Marshall came to Oregon and spent time in the Willamette Valley before journeying to California. At Sutter's Fort, on January 23, 1848, Marshall discovered gold and set in motion one of the greatest migrations in history. As miners rushed in they drove Marshall away and he moved into a small cabin on the American River near where he had made his original discovery. He never returned to Oregon and died penniless in 1885.
February 12 - John Jacob Astor, the namesake of Astoria, was born in Germany and came to New York City in 1784 where he established a business buying and selling furs. He worked out an arrangement with the North West Company that allowed him to expand his fur buying operation into the interior regions, and when the United States obtained the Louisiana Purchase, Astor expanded into the Pacific Northwest. His employees established Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River but the enterprise was never successful and was sold. At the time of his death in 1848 John Jacob Astor was reputed to be the richest man in America.
February 14 - On February 14, 1859 Oregon gained statehood. The path to becoming a state involved a two-year long battle centered on the question of slavery in Oregon. Pro-slavery Democrats were eventually voted down and Oregon was admitted as a free state. More than a month after the official proclamation, the Brother Jonathon, a pioneer steamboat operating between Portland and San Francisco, arrived in Portland with the first news of Oregon's admission as the 33rd state to the Union.
February 18 - From the snowfields on the north face of Mt. Hood, a river runs cold and swift, emptying into the Columbia. At first the river was given the unromantic name of Dog River because the members of an early wagon train had become stranded here, and to subsist, were forced to eat dog meat. Nathaniel and Mary Coe built a house along the river in 1853 and Mary refused to honor Dog River as the family's mailing address. As a result of her refusal the name was changed, and since 1856, has been known as Hood River.
February 20 - Daniel Matheny came west by covered wagon with the Great Migration of 1843. He settled in the Willamette Valley and acquired a ferryboat that he began operating across the Willamette River north of Salem. It was the first ferry on the Willamette capable of carrying a team and wagon. The Wheatland ferry crosses approximately 600 feet of river and is still in use, only one of three ferries presently operating in Oregon. Over the years there have been a number of replacement ferries and all have been named the Daniel Matheny, followed by a roman numeral. The current ferry, the Daniel Matheny V, was launched in 2002.
February 22 - What has become known as the Gold Beach Massacre, took place on February 22, 1856. The deadly campaign was lead by Enos, a Plains Indian who had come to Oregon as a guide with Captain John C. Fremont in 1843. Enos joined the Rogue River Indians and was one of the instigators of the Rogue River Indian War. During the Gold Beach Massacre one of the first to die was Ben Wright, the Indian Agent. After that killing, Enos and his Rogue companions attacked Gold Beach and killed 25 other settlers. The survivors were besieged for 35 days before finally being rescued by a detachment of military men from Fort Humboldt, California.
March 2 - Joseph Lane was a decorated war hero and a legislator from Indiana when President Polk appointed him the Governor of Oregon Territory. He arrived at Oregon City on March 2, 1849 and served as Governor until 1850. He enjoyed a long career in politics; was elected as Oregon's first state senator and ran for vice-president on the Democratic ticket in 1860. But after the Civil War, Lane's pro-slavery stance and strong Southern sympathy, ruined his political ambitions. He moved to the Umpqua Valley and died in 1881. Lane County is named in his honor.
March 4 - Oregon fever and the promise of free land was running high, and in 1847 Henderson Luelling planted an assortment of fruit tree rootings in earth-filled boxes and loaded them into a wagon. With his valuable cargo, plus his wife and their 10 children, Luelling crossed the Plains to Oregon. On the way west Luelling insisted his trees have water even if his family went without. They settled near Milwaukie and started the first nursery in the Oregon Country. When the orchard came into bearing the first apples were sold for $5 each. Many homesteaders purchased seedlings from Luelling and as a result apple orchards were common on Oregon homesteads.
March 9 - Astoria, founded in 1811 by members of the Pacific Fur Company, was the first permanent settlement by Americans on the Pacific coast. Two years later, with reports that British war ships were on the way to take Fort Astoria, the post was quickly sold to the North West Company, a British-Canadian fur company. In 1821 the North West and Hudson's Bay companies were consolidated and the headquarters for the Columbia District was moved a hundred miles upriver to Fort Vancouver. The first wagon pioneers arrived in Astoria in 1844. The first post office west of the Rocky Mountains was established here on March 9, 1847.
March 11 - Jason Lee was a missionary who came west in 1834 and established a Methodist mission near later-day Salem. But the business of converting the native inhabitants to Christianity was a dismal failure and Lee turned his attention to helping form a Provisional Government and founding what would become Willamette University. After his wife died, Lee departed Oregon, but after his death on March 12, 1845 his body was returned to Oregon where it was interred at Lee Memorial Cemetery in Salem.
March 12 - The sternwheeler James Clinton was built near Willamette Falls and was the first steamboat to cruise up the Willamette River. It took three days to avoid the deadheads and sweepers in the high water near Corvallis, but on March 12, 1857 the James Clinton tied up at Eugene. The trip downriver, with a cargo of wheat, nearly paid her construction costs and led to the formation of the People's Transportation Company, owned by Oregon investors that, for nearly a decade, ferried passengers and goods to towns along the Willamette River.
March 17 - Connecticut born John Huntington caught the California gold rush fever and joined a company of 43 young men who purchased a ship on the East coast, loaded it with mining machinery and sailed around Cape Horn. They arrived in San Francisco in 1850. Huntington went directly to the gold fields but soon became discouraged and moved north to Oregon. He took a land claim in the Yoncalla country, became a farmer, worked as a schoolteacher and attorney, and was elected as a state legislator. In 1863 President Lincoln appointed Huntington as Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Oregon, a position he held until his death in 1869.
March 18 - Oregon was once occupied by twelve nations of Native people. These tribes spoke ten distinct languages and three tribes - the Coos, Yaquina and Calapooya - spoke a language that was used by no other tribe in America. With the coming of the white man, new diseases were introduced, diseases from which the Native people had no immunities. It is estimated that in coastal villages, and along the Columbia River, up to 95 percent of the Native people died within a few years of contact with Europeans. Those who survived were rounded up, confined to reservations and the land they had once occupied was thrown open to settlement.
March 19 - The Schooner Juliet wrecked along the Oregon coast the winter of 1852, and the survivors were stranded near Yaquina Bay for two months. When they finally reached the Willamette Valley they reported they had subsisted on an abundance of oysters. It was not until 1863 that two commercial oyster companies appeared at Yaquina Bay. At that time Yaquina Bay belonged to the Grand Ronde reservation and only one of the firms agreed to pay a tribute to the tribes and was granted the right to collect oysters. Over the years the oyster industry on the west coast has continued to grow and has now surpassed the East and Gulf coasts as the top producer of oysters in the nation.
Copyright 2009 - Rick Steber www.ricksteber.com
These are a few of 250 historical vignettes written by award-winning author Rick Steber, to highlight significant historical events and notable Oregonians from our past.
They were written to celebrate Oregon's sesquicentennial on Feb. 14, 2009, and our state's rich and colorful history.
The Lebanon Express will continue to publish excerpts from A Moment In Oregon History throughout the year.