When Astoria was pointed out as we reached the point below, I confess to a feeling of disappointment. Astoria, the oldest and most famous town in Oregon, we had expected to find a larger place. We saw before us a straggling hamlet, consisting of a dozen or so of small houses irregularly planted along the river bank shut in by the dense forest. We became reconciled and indeed somewhat elated in our feelings when we visited the shore and by its enterprising proprietors were shown the beauties of the place. There were avenues and streets, squares and public parks, wharves and warehouses, churches and theaters and an immense population--all upon the map. Astoria at that time was a small place or rather two places--the upper and the lower town--between which there was great rivalry. The upper town was known to the people of lower Astoria as Adairville. The lower town was designated by its rival as "Old Fort George or McClure's Astoria." A road between the two places would have weakened the differences of both, isolation being the protection of either. In the upper town was the customhouse; in the lower town two companies of United States engineers, under command of Major J. S. Hathaway. There were not, excepting the military and those attached to them and the customhouse officials, to exceed twenty-five men in both towns. At the time of our arrival in the country there was considerable commerce carried on, principally in sailing vessels, between the Columbia River and San Francisco. The exports were chiefly lumber, the imports merchandise. The United States census of 1850 gives Astoria a population of two hundred and fifty-two, which number included the two companies of United States engineers stationed here and probably a number of transients. I have before me a photograph of a painting copied from a daguerreotype picture of Astoria taken in 1856. This picture was taken from a spot near where the Parker House now stands and shows a wharf and a dozen houses. The wharf was known as the Parker wharf and extended from the Parker mill in a northeasterly direction to a point just north of the Occident Hotel. This was the first wharf erected in Astoria and was built in the early fifties. The picture also shows the old Methodist Church which was built in 1853-54, a cooper shop, the Shively house, the present residence of Judge F. J. Taylor, and the buildings occupied by the United States troops during their stay here. A few houses were not shown in the picture, those in the then western part of the town and those in upper town. Astoria was now assuming the proportions of a town and in 1856 was incorporated by the territorial legislature. The town included the Shively claim and a part of the McClure claim.