DIFFERENT SETTLEMENTS. 223 



In addition to the different stations above alluded to, the Catholics have 

 several agents and teachers in this territory, who labor with great zeal and 

 earnestness to make proselytes to their own peculiar notions. The number 

 and locality of these agents I have not the necessary information to state. 

 They were, not long since, under the superintendance of one Father De 

 Smit, a Jesuit priest, and have exerted considerable influence among the 

 Indian tribes. 



Nearly the entire trade of Oregon, at the present time, is in the hands of 

 the Hudson Bay Company, from whom dry goods and groceries may be ob- 

 tained by the settlers at less than the common price in the United States ; 

 this, as a necessary consequence, precludes all opposition. The principal 

 exports (raised at the stations or received by way of barter) are flour, fish, 

 butter, cheese, lumber, masts, spars, furs, and skins. 



The Forts, or trading establishments, are eighteen in all, and have a large 

 number of hands employed about them, in conducting the fur trade and 

 laboring upon the farms and in the workshops and mills. 



Each of these posts presents a miniature town by itself, whose busy pop- 

 ulace pursue most of the varied avocations incident to the more densely 

 inhabited localities of civilized countries. 



We will not occupy the reader's time in an extended description of them 

 severally, but rest content by simply giving their names. The first post 

 belonging to this company, upon the route to the mouth of the Columbia, is 

 Fort Hall ; the next, Fort Wallawalla ; then, Fort Vancouvre, and Fort 

 George. 



The others are situated at different points, and are known as follows : 

 Colville, Okanagan, Alexandria, Barbine, Klamloops, St. James, Chilcothin, 

 Simpson, McLaughlin, Langley, Nisqually, Cawlitz, and Umpqua; of which 

 eight are located in or above lat. 49"^ north. 



The principal settlements, disconnected from the trading establishments 

 and different missionary stations, at present, are upon the Umpqua and 

 Wallammette rivers, on the Fualitine Plains, and near Fort Vancouvre. 

 These settlements are represented as being in a very flourishing condition, 

 and rapidly increasing in population and wealth. 



At the Wallammette Falls, a town has been regularly laid out' called 

 Oregon City, which, in the year 1844, numbered a hundred or more 

 houses ; among them was a church, with several stores and mills. 



At this place the temporary legislature, already instituted by the set- 

 tlers for mutual benefit in the absence of all other legitimate jurisdiction, 

 holds its regular sessions. A mayor was elected in the spring of 1845; 

 and recently a printing press and materials have been procured from New 

 York for the purpose of publishing the territorial laws, with such other 

 documents and papers as the interests of the community may require. 



This embryo city, situated as it is in a place so admirable in regard to 

 agriculture, commerce, and manufactures, possesses many superior advan- 

 tages in point of locality. 



The falls of the Wallammette are thirty feet perpendicular, and afford 

 abundant water privileges for mills and factories, — two important rivers, 

 the Klackamus and FuaUtine, find their discharge near it, while below is 

 presented an uninterrupted navigation to the Ocean, and above it boats may 



