that there is many pond holds all over it. One branch of this river joins the Columbia about 20 miles below the other, at a little town called St. Hellen.[1] This place is founded upon a rock, on the south side of the river, and perhaps will some day make a place of some importance. It is in sight of the ever snow covered mountain of the same name. From this point the banks of the river rise much higher and in many places with a steep rockey wall, gradually increasing in hight as we approach the mouth of the river. These rocky bluffs, only show themselves in now and then a place, until we get near its mouth, where both sides are more or less bound by them. We found no places on the river that was vacant that we felt like taking up, and but very few below this river that are occupied, that we would be obliged to live upon. The land is all covered with heavy timber, and thick bushes, so that it is with the greatest dificulty that any person is able to go more than two or three rods among them, or from the shore. We saw many places that appeared very pleasant from the river & in fact were, or would make very handsom situations, but on going back a few rods we found the ground very low & wet, and in some places we found ponds and deep marshes. In a most every instance, or with but one on two exceptions there bottoms were very narrow, few of them fernishing more than from ten to twenty or thirty acres at most for cultivation. There is a large number of islands in the river, some of them for cultivation. There is a large number of islands in the river, some of them very large, but there is but few of them that is high enough for cultivation. We arived at Astoria late saturday night, the 12th and camped on the beach. We might have been in Bakers Bay, had they done as I wish them for we got into Grays bay, and they would have that Bakers Bay, and had it not been for this difference of opinions, we should not have run over to town. The river here is about
6 miles wide, Astoria is built on a side hill with very heavy timber back without roads or streets, and with only about a dozen
- ↑ Saint Helens was competing for the advantage of being the seaport of Oregon. It was on the land claim of H. M. Knighton, an immigrant of 1845. Gray, a Dane, was the chief founder. Bancroft, Oregon, II, 251.
