The quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, Vol. 4, March, 1903-December, 1903Oregon Historical Society
History
The quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, Vol. 4, March, 1903-December, 1903
Oregon Historical Society
Oregon -- History -- Periodicals
In the vicinity of Fort Vancouver there is much fine farming
land. The company has fine farms, and many thousand head of
cattle. Fifty or sixty miles above are the Cascades; it is
where the river crosses the Cascade Mountains, a range
running north and south. East of these mountains is a
country extending many hundred miles in each direction, and
most particularly adapted to grazing. Stock of all kinds can
live here winter and summer without the least care. This is
as far as I have seen the country, though it is said there
is much fine country in the south of the territory, but no
settlements in that section.
Our stock keeps fat through the winter without care; we had
no snow last winter nor this. Buds are now swelling, and
some flowers in bloom. You wished to know where we get saws
to saw our big timber. I brought two, of the longest kind,
with me, and we have since had two from the Hudson Bay Co.,
and three from the States. We have timber of all sizes, so
we take our choice; we have some 16 feet in diameter and 300
feet in length; no mistake. I have measured such. We have
shipped three cargoes of lumber to the Sandwich Islands, for
which we received $20 per thousand feet, clear of freight.
Lumber is, and will be, a great source of wealth to this
country. The Columbia, and its tributaries, are alive with
salmon during the summer months; the Indians take them in
great numbers with spears, nets, and seines; there are many
packed and sent to foreign markets annually.
I am now improving me a farm on Clatsop Plains. I have a
splendid claim of six hundred and forty acres of land, about
fifty acres timber, the rest prairie--laying immediately on
the Pacific. We are all very anxious to hear the result of
the treaty (if one is made) between the _U. S._ and John
Bull. We are very much afraid Uncle will fool away the north
of the Columbia; if he does we shall be _Silux_. We are very
anxious the U. S. should extend her jurisdiction over our
valuable country, and we are nearly out of patience with the
delay. We are not all thieves and runaways, as represented
by the Hon Mr. Mc----, nor our country a booty. Boy, if it
is, it's inferior to none in point of beauty, pleasant
climate, natural resources, and advantages of wealth; and if
the settlers were ever thieves they have wholly reformed,
for it is generally believed that no other colony has ever
equaled this in point of bravery, enterprise, hospitality,
honesty, and morality. There are men who arrived here in
October last who have at this time one hundred acres fenced
and sown to wheat. Now, all we want is a little of Uncle
Sam's care, that capitalists may be safe in investing their
money.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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