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'lying North of the Columbia River. The Willamette Valley South of the Columbia, was comparatively well settled with white people, but from Cathlamet Northward for thousands of miles the wilderness lay unmarked by white men's hands.
A few hamlets on Puget Sound, a house at Cathlamet, another at Oak Point and a few others here and there, with Fort Vancouver, was all.
Cathlamet was one of the loneliest places on the earth. Into its loneliness in 1850 came a white pioneer and his wife, with two little babies. A trail through the woods was made to the point on the river about a quarter of a mile below Mr. Birnie's, and here a small log house was built and occupied.
It is hard to conceive of the impulse or in
