notforsale

Astoria’s 1811 settlement isn’t actually the first one west of the Rockies. More accurately, it’s the first permanent settlement built by non-natives. According to the Oregon Encyclopedia, Bostonian Capt. Nathan Winship, who came up the Columbia River in the ship Albatross, reached the lower Columbia first, in May 1810. He soon started building a log house at Oak Point, a few miles northeast of Clatskanie in a flat spot surrounded by oak trees (http://tinyurl.com/capwinship).

Winship and his two brothers, Jonathan and Abiel, planned the settlement while still in Massachusetts. While they wanted to harvest fur, as Astor did, they also had a higher goal: The trio wanted to set up an agricultural base, pump up the coastal trade and, believe it or not (even back then) beat the Russians, who were also interested in the Columbia’s possibilites. 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.”

By June 1810, the house timbers at the outpost were 10 feet high, and the Albatross crew started unloading livestock and planting seeds. But it was bad timing. A heavy rain caused a flood, and soon 2 feet of water was 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 the settlers’ presence might interfere with their centuries-old — and lucrative — trade business.

Wisdom being the better part of valor, Capt. Winship and his crew retreated to pursue other ventures, abandoning the settlement and the West Coast. However, he did leave something behind to remember him by. It is said that slips from the settlement’s rose garden mysteriously turned up in Portland’s gardens when the Rose City was established in 1851.

— Elleda Wilson