agents in. every county had from the beginning strained
every nerve to collect arms, ammunition, and clothing, for
which they paid in government bonds or loan commisson-
ers scrip. As there was very little actual cash in circula
tion, 3 and as the common currency of Oregon had been
wheat, it had come to pass that "wheat notes" had been
received in place of cash as contributions to the war funds.
The wheat thus collected could be sold for cash or its
equivalent at Vancouver, and thus, after passing through
the circumlocution office, this awkward currency, which
had to be gathered up, stored in warehouses, hauled to boat
landings, set adrift upon the Wallamet, hauled around the
falls at Oregon City, and there reloaded for Vancouver, was
there at length exchanged for real money or goods.
The collection of provisions for the consumption of the army was another matter, and not less burdensome. The agents could refuse no lot of provisions because it was small or miscellaneous, nor reject any articles of use to soldiers because they were not of the best. 4 Lead was purchased in any quantities from one to several pounds, and was hard to find, 5 all that was in the country being that which was brought across the plains by the immi grations for use upon the road. Powder and percussion caps were obtained in the same way, or purchased with
! When the commissioners were making collections in Yamhill county, Dr. James McBride was the only contributor of money, to the amount of two and a half dollars.
4 James Force, commissary agent at Salem, in a letter to Palmer in January, says he has succeeded in purchasing but six saddles. "The tree and rigging without stirrups is eight dollars ; with stirrups and leathers, nine dollars ; trail-ropes, three dollars." He bought four hundred and eighty-nine pounds of pork at eight cents ; two hundred pounds at ten cents per pound ; five hundred and seventy-two pounds or bacon at twelve and a half cents ; ninety-nine pounds cheese at twenty cents ; seventy-four bushels of wheat at one dollar per bushel ; five bushels of wheat at one dollar per bushel ; one pack-saddle, four dollars ; two parflaches, five dollars ; six pairs saddle-bags, six dollars. He paid four dollars per day for teams to haul four hundred and fifty pounds each to Butteville, where the goods were transferred to boats : Oregon Archives, MS. 883. In another letter he complains that the only cooper at Salem refused to sell barrels for any funds but cash, and he had no means of getting even the sixty bushels of wheat purchased for flouring, to the mill, as the farmers had no sacks. "I think," he says, "I can raise at this point one hundred pounds of flour, and some pork." Oregon Archives, MS. 884.
5 Oregon Archives
