. Helens, October 7th, 1852.

Dear Brother: Come as soon as you can. Have rented
a house, sixty boarders. This is going to be the
place. Shall I send you money?

OLIVER P. MEEKER.

The mate importuned me to stay until the cargo was on board. I did stay
until the last stick of lumber was stowed, the last pig in the pen, and
the ship swinging off, bound on her outward voyage. I felt as if I had
an interest in her.

Sure enough, I found St. Helens to be the place. Here was to be the
terminus of the steamship line from San Francisco. "Wasn't the company
building this wharf?" "They wouldn't set sixty men to work on the dock
unless they meant business." "Ships can't get up the Willamette--that's
nothing but a creek. The big city is going to be here."

This was the talk that greeted my ears as I went looking about. We had
carried my wife, this time in a chair, to our hotel--yes, our
hotel!--and there we had placed her, and the baby too, of course, in the
best room the house afforded.

One January morning in 1853, our sixty men boarders did not go to work
at the dock building as usual. Orders had come to suspend work. Nobody
knew why, or for how long. We soon learned that the steamship company
had given up the fight against Portland and would thenceforward run its
steamers to that port. The dock was never finished and was allowed to
fall into decay. With our boarders scattered, our occupation was gone,
and our supplies were in great part rendered worthless to us by the
change.

Meantime, snow had fallen to a great depth. The price of forage for
cattle rose by leaps and bounds, and we found that we must part with
half of our stock to save the rest. It might be necessary to provide
feed for a month, or for three months; we could not tell. The last cow
was given up that we might keep one yoke of oxen, so necessary for the
work on a new place.

The search for a claim began at once. After one day's struggle against
the current of the Lewis River, and a night standing in a snow and sleet
storm around a camp fire of green wood, Oliver and I found our ardor
cooled a little. Two hours sufficed to take us back home next morning.

Claims we must have, though. That was what we had come to Oregon for. We
were going to be farmers; wife and I had made that bargain before we
closed the other more important contract. We were still of one mind as
to both con