attested scrip whether properly negotiated or not.[1] It was not engraved and was depreciating and so must have constituted a currency far from the ideal.[2] Yet it is not unhallowed in the memories of the pioneers[3] and though the volume outstanding when the territorial officials from the Government at Washington took hold of the reins of authority was never redeemed it did not furnish a new by-word for the utterly worthless.
The distribution of a barrel of silver dollars received at Vancouver, to be paid in monthly sums to the crew of the British man-of-war Modeste in the summer of 1846, was counted as an epoch in the early monetary history of Oregon. As such it only proves the exceeding scarcity of specie.[4] Conditions as to the supply of it were to suffer a more violent change in Oregon in the closing years of the first half of the nineteenth century than they did in the world at large in the last few years of the last half. The news of the discovery of gold in California reached Oregon in the summer months of 1848. During the next few months probably two-thirds of the young and middle-aged men of Oregon went to the mines.[5] A large proportion of these returned within a year well laden with gold dust. Those who had remained at home were doing almost if not quite as
- ↑ Oregon Archives, Laws, p. 64.
- ↑ The Spectator, September 2, 1846: Wm. Holmes, sheriff and ex-officio tax collector for Clackamas County, says: "There is much difficulty and vexation attending the collection of revenue none can for a moment doubt; business being transacted in Oregon principally upon the scrip and order currency." The Spectator, October 15, 1846, contains the following notice: "Whereas, several subscribers to the 'Oregon Spectator' have proffered pay for the paper in Oregon Scrip, which will not meet the liabilities of the Board, therefore, Resolved, that hereafter all persons subscribers to the 'Oregon Spectator,' be hereby informed that Oregon Scrip will not be received in payment for the paper."
- ↑ Bancroft's Oregon, Vol. I, p. 535, and Vol. II, p. 74. The Legislature of Oregon in 1862 provided for the auditing of the civil claims created under the Provisional Government for registering the claims of the scrip holders. A report made in 1864 show that claims to the amount of $4,574.02 only had been proven. The report includes claims of only five persons.
- ↑ Bancroft's Oregon, Vol. II, pp. 14-15.
- ↑ Bancroft's Oregon, Vol. II, pp. 42, et seq., and Burnett's Recollections of an Old Pioneer.
