Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/263

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
History of Willamette Woolen Factory.
253

extend our credit for a time. Having arranged everything as satisfactory as I could, I then turned my attention to introducing the goods, going the length and breadth of the valley to every responsible merchant, making an arrangement to exchange factory goods for wool, taking orders to be paid in wool. It was useless to propose to sell to them, but to exchange for wool suited them as well as myself. Almost without exception they readily agreed to that proposition. This was the first successful movement towards introducing the goods.

About the first of August I proposed to the secretary, J. G. Wilson, that there should be duebills issued by the company in value from 50 cents to $10, to the amount at that time of $1,000, to be issued to the employees to pay for their purchases in town, it being more convenient than giving orders and safer for the merchants than standing accounts with them. Seeing the advantage he recommended the plan to the directors and they consented to the plan, and the duebills, or as they were called "Factory Scrip," was issued and used as paper money. The advantage gained by this issue of factory scrip in different ways, and more particularly in introducing the goods, was almost incredible. In fact, for a time it was a current circulating medium. In about one year from the time it was first issued it accompanied the orders for goods from Victoria and the Sound to Roseburg, Oregon; and when greenbacks were first in circulation here, in most cases factory scrip was preferred. I then felt that the company was safe when the credit of the company was as good as that of the United States.

During the month of August ('59) I made arrangements with a firm in Portland dealing most entirely in groceries for the exchange of goods, which they did to quite an extent. Soon after, as the goods became known, a wholesale house made to me a more advantageous prop-