Some ambitious persons attempted to get a county organization for the country east of the Cascade Mountains in the winter of 1852–3, to which the leg-
stopping of the steamers below that town, and successive fires destroyed the company's improvements at St Helen, compelling their vessels to go to the former place.
Milton, another candidate for favor, was situated on Scappoose Bay, an arm of the Willamette, just above St Helen. It was founded by sea captains Nathan Crosby and Thomas H. Smith, who purchased the Hunsaker mills on Milton Creek, where they made lumber to load the bark Louisiana, which they owned. They also opened a store there, and assisted in building the road to the Tualatin plains. Several sea-going men invested in lots, and business for a time was brisk. But all their brilliant hopes were destined to destruction, for there came a summer flood which swept the town away. Captains Drew, Menzies, Pope, and Williams were interested in Milton. Crawford's Nar., MS., 223. Among the settlers in the vicinity of St Helen and Milton was Capt. F. A. Lemont, of Bath, Maine, who as a sailor accompanied Capt. Dominis when he entered the Columbia in 1829–30. He was afterward on Wyeth's vessel, the May Dacre, which was in the river in 1834. Returning to Oregon after having been master of several vessels, he settled at St Helen in 1850, where he still resides. Of the early residents Lemont has furnished me the following list from memory: Benjamin Durell, Witherell, W. H. Tappan, Joseph Trutch, John Trutch, L. C. Gray, Aaron Broyles, James G. Hunter, Dr Adlum, Hiram Field, Seth Pope, John Dodge, George Thing, William English, William Hazard, Benjamin Teal, B. Conley, William Meeker, Charles H. Reed, Joseph Caples, Joseph Cunningham, A. E. Clark, Robert Germain, G. W. Veasie, C. Carpenter, J. Carpenter, Lockwood, Little, Tripp, Berry, Dunn, Burrows, Fiske, Layton, Kearns, Holly, Maybee, Archilles, Cortland, and Atwood, with others. Knighton, the owner of St Helen, is pronounced by Crawford a 'presumptuous man,' because while knowing nothing about navigation, as Crawford affirms, he undertook to pilot the Silvie de Grasse to Astoria, running her upon the rock where she was spitted. He subsequently sailed a vessel to China, and finally engaged as a captain on the Willamette. Knighton died at The Dalles about 1864. His wife was Elizabeth Martin of Yamhill county. He left several children in Washington.
Westport, on the Columbia, thirty miles above Astoria, was settled by John West in 1851; and Rainier, opposite the Cowlitz, by Charles E. Fox in the same year. It served for several years as a distributing point for mail and passengers to and from Puget Sound. Frank Warren, A. Harper and brother, and William C. Moody were among the residents at Rainier. Crawford's Nar., MS., 260. At or near The Dalles there had been a solitary settler ever since the close of the Cayuse war; and also a settler named Tomlinson, and two Frenchmen on farms in Tygh Valley, fifty miles or more south of The Dalles. These pioneers of eastern Oregon, after the missionaries, made money as well as a good living, by trading in cattle and horses with emigrants and Indians, which they sold to the miners in California. After the establishment of a military post at The Dalles, it required a government license, issued by the sup. of Indian affairs, to trade anywhere above the Cascades, and a special permission from the commander of the post to trade at this point. John C. Bell of Salem was the first trader at The Dalles, as he was sutler for the army at The Dalles in 1850. When the rifle regiment were ordered away, Bell sold to William Gibson, who then became sutler. In 1851 A. McKinlay & Co., of Oregon City, obtained permission to establish a trading post at The Dalles, and building a cabin they placed it in charge of Perrin Whitman. In 1852, they erected a frame building west of the present Umatilla House, which they used as a store, but sold the following year to Simms and Humason. W. C. Laughlin took a land claim this
