Lewis & Clark map, 1814

Many think Astoria is the first U.S. settlement west of the Rockies, established in 1811 by John Jacob Astor’s employees. More accurately, it’s the first permanent one.

According to the Oregon Encyclopedia, Bostonian Capt. Nathan Winship, who came up the Columbia River in the ship Albatross, got here first, in May 1810. He soon started building a log house at Oak Point, few miles northeast of Clatskanie in a flat spot surrounded by oak trees. (http://tinyurl.com/capwinship).

Winship was in business with his two brothers, Jonathan and Abiel. Their objective was the same as Astor’s — to harvest fur — but they also wanted to set up an agricultural base and pump up the coastal trade.

Jonathan’s personal wish was to plant “a Garden of Eden on these shores of the Pacific and (make) that wilderness to blossom like the rose.” Fun factoid: It is said that slips from the settlement’s rose garden mysteriously turned up in Portland’s gardens when the city was established in 1851.

By June 1810, the house timbers at the outpost were 10 feet high, and the Albatross crew started unloading livestock and planting seeds. Unfortunately, a heavy rain caused a spring flood, and soon there was two feet of water running over the settlement and uprooting the timbers. Time to move.

The ship’s officers started building a new outpost at a higher site a quarter of a mile downstream. Sadly, their location was mightily displeasing to their neighbors. The Chinook and Chehalis Indians let the settlers know in no uncertain terms (musket fire is quite effective) how upset they were that their presence might cause any potential interference with their centuries-old — and lucrative — trade business.

Wisdom being the better part of valor, Capt. Winship and his crew retreated. He headed the Albatross back downstream and off to other pursuits, abandoning his West Coast goal — and the true first settlement west of the Rockies.

— Elleda Wilson