American Falls on Snake River and Burnt River, just east of the Blue Mountains. You ask if Oregon is anything near as good as Illinois or Iowa, but dont ask in what particular. But there is not one tenth part as much farming land, or plough land here as there is in Illinois, perhaps, for as I have said before, so I say now, the country is divided up by low ranges of mountains, or high hills, so far as I have seen, though I am told that up about Salem there is a plenty of good level prairies, and still better up on the Chehaly and also on the Tualatin Plains. The country is new even to the old settlers, for there has not been one half of it explored yet by the whites. But the soil where I have been is splended it is far ahead of New England, and has not one quarter of the stone in it, perhaps there will be though when it comes to be tilled but I think not.
I know of no reason why a man cannot live as easy in Oregon as he can in Illinois, there is business enough. A man can farm it, and not lift his finger to work if he chooses. A man can make money and just rais stock, for the market, make butter cheese and furnish the market with eggs and chickens. A Saw Mill will keep a man very well, Shipping lumber or timber, Fishing is as good business as any in the country, Steam Boating. A man can make an independent fortune with just a flat boat on Pugets Sound, so I have been told, for they have no way of getting about there only in Indian Canoes. Mercantile business is as good here as anything else, but loaning money at fifty pr cent I think would not shine very well. ...
It is said that the Indians in the country of the Blue mountains are intending to stop the emegrants this year, and have commenced blocking up the road.[1]
While I was at Vancouver the other day there was about 75 of Uncle Sams men went up to the Cascades on the steamer
Multnomah, to go with the soldiers from that place, and the
- ↑ In the following letter he says that this was a false report. There seems to have been some reason for the rumor, however, as in the Oregon Statesman, May 28, 1853, and in the Oregonian, May 14, 1853, is an order from Major Alvord warning immigrants not to settle in the Indian country east of the Cascades until permitted by treaty with the tribes there. An advertisement for the steamer Allan in the Oregonian, June 11, 1853, and later issues, is headed "Indian Difficulty Settled, Cascades and Dalles."
