government vouchers for transportation the firm had rendered, under the agreement that when they had settled with their creditors Holladay should return to them the $600,000. Holladay took the vouchers, collected the money, and when requested to return it to the confiding firm he repudiated not only the agreement to do so, but all knowledge of the transaction. As it was an unlawful act of the failing debtor he could not recover, and so, not only Russell, Majors & Waddle lost the vast sum of money but their creditors had been beaten by both the debtors and their deceiver, Ben Holladay. On this plunder Holladay came to the Pacific Coast, bought the line of ships to Oregon and got into the Oregon railroad. He was a man of splendid physique, fine address, and knew well how to manage the average human nature. He was energetic, untiring, unconscionable, unscrupulous, and wholly destitute of fixed principles of honesty, morality, or common decency.
THE WEST SIDE ROAD.
Returning now to the Oregon Central Company we find it in 1869 robbed of the land grant which it was justly entitled to, but not wholly driven out of the field. The citizens of Portland, Washington, Yamhill, and Polk counties stood loyally by the old company, and not only gave financial aid to the extent of grading and bridging the first twenty miles of its roadbed, but also threw into the scale the weight of their political influence, declaring that no man should represent Oregon in Congress who would not labor to secure another grant of land in aid of their road. With this support I spent the winter of 1869 and '70 at Washington City and secured from Congress a grant of twenty sections of land per mile in aid of the construction of a railroad from Portland to McMinnville, with a branch from the line at Forest Grove through the Nehalem
