saw the great value and importance of the property of the Oregon Steam Navigation Company, and he made up his mind to capture the valuable prize if possible.
Some time in the fall of 1879 the press telegrams in the Portland papers announced in the most plausible matter of fact way that Jay Gould, who was then in the zenith of his financial glory, was preparing to extend his railroad system west, to the navigable waters of the Columbia, and was going to put a line of steamboats on that river to operate in conjunction with his road until it could be extended to the seaboard. Those telegrams seemed so reasonable and businesslike that many really believed that Mr. Gould was going to put this project into operation. Not long after, and before the talk produced by them had died out, it was announced that the Oregon Steam Navigation Company had sold its entire property, with all its privileges and appurtenances, to Henry Villard. Whether Mr. Villard had any hand in setting up the Gould scare crow, I know not, nor do I know whether it had any influence in causing the company to make the sale, but a prominent physician of this city informed me that after the sale was consummated, the papers all signed, and it had become known the Gould story was all a hoax, the president of the company was so chagrined and disappointed that he fell ill and was confined to his bed for many days. The doctor might have been mistaken. but he believed it himself, as he was a man who never told anything he did not believe to be true.
That valuable property was sold for $5,000,000, a small sum for property possessing such wonderful advantages, and that was then paying 15 per cent on the purchase price, with the most flattering prospect of a rapid and constant increase.
For the year ending November 30, 1879, which was the last year the Oregon Steam Navigation Company owned and operated their property, the income of the company was $1,600,000, while the expense, repairs, etc., amounted to $850,000, leaving a profit of $750,000. At that rate it would, in about six and a half years, make enough to pay the purchase price.
