BURR OSBORN, SURVIVOR HOWISON EXHIBITION, 1846 361
thirty rods back of the store near the forest. There was a strip of cleared 1 land, or had been cleared, but grown up to black- berry bushes and brush more or less, about thirty rods wide, beginning about forty rods east of the store and running down to Ft. George.
There was no sign of there ever being any fort anywhere on this strip of land, not even a stockade. 7
The Shark was 'fore an' aft schooner of about three hundred tons burden. She carried ten carronades and two "Long Toms" all thirty-two pounders. When she struck the breakers, we threw overboard some of the guns and shot and cut away the masts, to lighten her.
It was told to us that we were sent up there to offset a British mano'-war. The two governments were trying to set- tle the boundary line between Washington and the British possessions. At that time it was the cry, "54-40 or fight." But they fought it out in Washington, D. C.
No, I never heard of Concomly's grave, back of the mis- sionary house. There was a monstrous fir pine that had been blown up by the roots, and it looked as if it had been down for many years. Some of the boys measured it and reported that it was twelve feet in diameter at the butt and three hundred and thirty feet in length to where it had been sawed off to make a roadway. It was eighteen inches in diameter where it had been sawed off ; so the boys concluded that it must have been about four hundred feet high.
About all the names of places we heard about was Cape Disappointment, Baker's Bay, Clatsop Beach, Astoria, Fort George and the Columbia River. We might have heard of some Indian names, but have forgotten them. The Indians claimed about three hundred "bucks," but us boys were never allowed to mingle with them. Their main settlement was back from the coast; as you know they were the Flathead tribe. Their way of making a flat head was to place the papoose in a box and lash a board over the forehead in a slanting position and keep the papoose there for twelve months. The forehead
7 The original Fort Astor was destroyed by fire in 1818.
