Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/401

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BURR OSBORN, SURVIVOR HOWISON EXHIBITION, 1846 359

The big pine tree was located' about as indicated on the sketch.

Again thanking you for your recent favors, I beg to remain,

Respectfully,

BURR OSBORN.

Union City, Michigan, March 5th, 1913.

J. Q. A. Bowlby, Esq., Astoria, Oregon,

Dear Sir : Your kind favors of the 25th inst. at hand, and find them very interesting, although it will perhaps be difficult for me to repay you for your kindness. The two letters, chart, postcards and pamphlets, etc., all arrived in good condition.

If you can locate the place where the wreck of the sloop-of- war Peacock drifted ashore on Clatsop Beach, on the south side of the river, you will find where the schooner Shark's crew landed after being wrecked on the breakers, on the south side of the channel. Nearby this landing there was an old shanty, about 12x25 feet, without any floor, where the Shark's crew stopped for two nights. Half of the ship's crew were in their hammocks when she went on the breakers, on the flood tide, which proved that they were thinly clad. All I had on was an undershirt and a pair of drawers. The weather was rainy, so we were soaked with water from nine o'clock on the tenth night of September until the morning of the twelfth, when two Indians put in an appearance and informed the Gap- tain that there was a white man's 5 ranch located inland twenty miles, and that they had cattle. So the captain dis- patched the Indians to the ranch with orders to bring in a couple of oxen, for we were in a starving condition. In the evening of September 12th, the oxen arrived, and they were soon slaughtered and laid on some driftwood, and everybody helped himself, and soon about eighty half-starved men, each with a chunk of beef, were roasting it over about as many fires (for there was plenty of wood) ; some of the men merely warmed their meat, for it had been about fifty-two hours since we had broken our fast.

5 Probably Solomon Howard Smith, he being the first white settler in Clatsop County in 1840.