Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 11.djvu/47

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History of the Counties of Oregon 4i 142, where she says: "In June, 1855, a treaty was held out on Three Mile [Creek] by General Joel Palmer with the Wasco, Deschutes and John Day Indians." On page 16 of the preface to< "Notice sur le Territoire et sur la Mission de l'Oregon," what is now called The Dalles is called "les Grande Dalles ou Wascopom." Concerning the meaning of the word dalles, Rev. P. J. De Smet, S. J., in a letter to the Father Provincial, dated at St. Paul's Station, near Colville, May 29, 1846, wrote: "Dalle is an old French word, meaning a trough, and the name is given by the Canadian Voyageurs to all contracted running waters, hemmed in by walls of rock" (De Smet's "Oregon Missions," page 214). J. G. Swan in his "Three Years' Residence in Washington Territory" (1857), page 123, speaks of his visit to The Dalles and says that the word dalles is "a corruption of the French d'aller, a term, as I am informed, applied by the Canadian French to the raceway of a mill, which this part of the river resembles. The Dalles are rapids formed by the passage of the water between vast masses of rock." Wasco County is now bounded : on the north by the Colum- bia River; on the east by the Deschutes River, Sherman County, and John Day River, the latter being the boundary between Wasco County and Wheeler County ; on the south by Crook County; and on the west by Hood River County and portions of Clackamas and Marion Counties. Its county seat is Dalles City. Columbia County. Columbia County was created January 16, 1854, by the Ter- ritorial Legislature. (Special Laws of 1853-4, page 32). It comprised the northeast part of Washington [Twality] County as it was after Clatsop County had been created. It is named for the Columbia River, which is its eastern and northern boundary. Columbia County is now bounded: on the north and east by the Columbia River; on the south by Multnomah and