APPENDIX, 477 
Oregon until within avery brief period, for it was only in 
1860 that their trading-post at Fort Vancouver on the Col- 
umbia, nearly opposite the mouth of the Willamette, was 
abandoned. The Hudson’s Bay Company employed many 
Canadians among its trappers, and these formed for a long 
time the main body of the white population. Most of them 
took Indian wives and were the fathers of numerous half- 
breed children. Great Britain claimed all of Oregon until 
1846, when the boundary treaty was made with the United 
States. In 1839 the emigrations of Americans commenced 
overland by way of the South Pass, and there were a few emi- 
grants every year until 1845, when several hundred went, and 
the next’ year there were several thousand ; in 1847 and 1848 
there were a few hundred, and in 1849 perhaps one thousand 
again. In 1848, °49, and 750, however, Oregon lost many of her 
citizens by the gold excitement in California; but in the last- 
named year she gained again from California in consequence of 
the passage of the “donation law” by Congress, giving, without 
cost, three hundred and twenty acres of public land to every 
person settled on such land before Deecember 1, of that 
year, and three hundred and twenty acres more to his wife; 
and to those persons who should settle between December 1, 
1850, and December 1, 1853, one hundred and sixty acres to each 
man, and oue hundred and sixty acres to his wife. Under this 
law 8,000 claims were registered in Oregon. It was a condition 
of these grants that the settler should reside on the land for 
four years. The donation induced nearly all the inhabitants of 
Oregon to remain, and led many of the young men to marry. 
As the men much exceeded the women in number, girls even 
as young as fourteen years were in great demand; and for 
several years after the ‘donation law” went into effect the 
Territory had a wonderfully large proportion of very juve- 
nile wives and mothers. Oregon was formally organized as 
a Territory on August 14, 1848, previous to which time there 
had been a provisional government, with the capital at Oregon 
City. On March 2, 1853, the Territory of Washington was 
