Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/179

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Letters of Charles Stevens
153

to look for himself. He has since returned and I saw him since in Portland, he said that he liked the country better than he expected and made him a claim about ¾ of a mile from Olimpa. But there was a man in the shop yesterday (today is the 28th) from Wisconsin by the name of Fox that came through this year for the purpos of looking at the country. He arived in Oregon Citty the 15th of August, and has been traveling over the country ever since. He says that he does not like the country as well as he expected, but he says if there was not a claim in the Willamette vally now, he should go to Pugets Sound, in prefferance to this vally, or if he could get the falls on this river for milling, and that is the thing that he is after. He said that on the Chehalee river which is 30 miles south of the south point of the sound that there is a plenty of claims to be had with timber prairia and water, and if he wanted a farm he should go there.

Vessels can run up this river some 30 or 40 miles, and flat boats something over 50. The timber he sais is good, there being more Cedar than about here. He said that a man offered to show him 50 prairias betwene him and the mouth of the river with from one to ten sections in them. But he is intending to settle on the Island in the Sound and to put him up a mill there, some 120 miles north of Olimpa to run by the tide water. He sais that the Sound has a plenty of Clams Oisters, Codfish Mackerell, and we know that all these waters are full of Salmon. He said an old Main fisherman showed him a place where he could go and earn $20 every day fishing, that there is five sea captains from the State of Main settled in there this fall to go into the business, and that one man has paid out a number of thousands of Dollars, $4200 to be ready in the spring for the business and that there was some 4 or 5 vessels loaded with fish sailed from there this last fall, that there was ten vessels in there when he was there, and in his opinion, (and I have heard a great many others say the saim) that it would be the greatest business place in Oregon. He sais if he mooves his family out here, there will be some 10 or 12 families come besides. If they come, he thinks they will leave the old road at the Agency on the Umatilla, cross the Cascades near Mount Ranier to the sound, the dis-