which I have been offered an advance of more than one hundred dollars.”
Autumn rains failed to dampen Grant’s speculative spirits. “About pecuniary matters, dear Julia,” he wrote in early December, “I am better off than ever before, if I collect all that is due me, and there is about eighteen hundred dollars that there is but little doubt about.… I havegot a farm of about one hundred acres, all cleared and enclosed, about one mile from here which I am going to cultivate in company with Captains Brent Wallen & McConnell.… We expect to raise some thirty acres of potatoes which may safely be put down at one dollar and fifty cents per bushel, and may be twice that, and the yield in this country is tremendous.”
The week before Christmas brought the frigid winds that blast down the Columbia in winter. “The snow is now some ten inches in depth, and still snowing more, with a strong probability of much more falling,” Grant wrote. “The thermometer has been from eighteen to twenty-two degrees for several days. Ice has formed in the river to such an extent that it is extremely doubtful whether the mail steamer can get back here to take off the mail by which I have been hoping to send this.” He could scarcely leave his quarters. Yet he remained as enthusiastic as ever about the promise of the Oregon country. “So far as I have seen it, it opens the richest chances for poor persons who are willing and able to work, either in cutting wood, sawing logs, raising vegetables, poultry or stock of any kind, of any place I have ever seen. Timber stands close to the banks of the river free for all. Wood is worth five dollars a cord for steamers. The soil produces almost double it does in any place I have been before, with the finest market in the world for it after it is raised.”
The cold persisted unusually, freezing the Columbia from bank to bank. “Captain Ingalls and myself were the first to cross,” Grant wrote Julia on the third day of the new year. But a wind shift to the west brought warm rain that caused the ice to vanish—“so you need not feel any alarm about my falling through.” Grant assured his wife he was keeping snug. “I am situated quite as comfortable as any body here, or in the Territory. The house I am living in is probably the best one in Oregon.” He shared the place with two other officers, their two clerks and a civilian. A cook fed them and a hired man did the chores. “Everyone says they are the best servants in the whole Territory.”
The country continued to amaze. “The climate of Oregon is evidently delightful,” Grant wrote in late January. “Here we are north of 45 degrees, and though the oldest inhabitants say it has been about the most severe winter they have ever known here, yet it would surprise persons even as far south as St. Louis to be here now and witness our pleasant days. Farmers are ploughing and some sorts of vegetables have been growing all winter, and will continue to grow.” His neighbors were picturesof health. “I believe the usual effect of an Oregon climate is to make a person grow stout; at least I should judge so from the appearance of every body that I see here.”
He joined the general activity and shared the positive effect. “I am farming extensively and I work myself as hard as any body,” he wrote in early March. “I have just finished putting in barley, and I am glad to say that I put in every grain with my own hands. By the end of the coming week myself and partners will have planted twenty acres of potatoes and an acre of onions. In a week or two more we will plant a few acres of corn.” The exercise was building his muscles. “I have grown out of my clothes entirely and am still getting larger.”
Oregon was ideal in all respects but one. “I have my health perfectly and could enjoy myself here as well as at any place I have ever been stationed at, if only you were here,” he wrote Julia. “If you, Fred, and Ulys”—the second
Autumn rains failed to dampen Grant’s speculative spirits. “About pecuniary matters, dear Julia,” he wrote in early December, “I am better off than ever before, if I collect all that is due me, and there is about eighteen hundred dollars that there is but little doubt about.… I havegot a farm of about one hundred acres, all cleared and enclosed, about one mile from here which I am going to cultivate in company with Captains Brent Wallen & McConnell.… We expect to raise some thirty acres of potatoes which may safely be put down at one dollar and fifty cents per bushel, and may be twice that, and the yield in this country is tremendous.”
The week before Christmas brought the frigid winds that blast down the Columbia in winter. “The snow is now some ten inches in depth, and still snowing more, with a strong probability of much more falling,” Grant wrote. “The thermometer has been from eighteen to twenty-two degrees for several days. Ice has formed in the river to such an extent that it is extremely doubtful whether the mail steamer can get back here to take off the mail by which I have been hoping to send this.” He could scarcely leave his quarters. Yet he remained as enthusiastic as ever about the promise of the Oregon country. “So far as I have seen it, it opens the richest chances for poor persons who are willing and able to work, either in cutting wood, sawing logs, raising vegetables, poultry or stock of any kind, of any place I have ever seen. Timber stands close to the banks of the river free for all. Wood is worth five dollars a cord for steamers. The soil produces almost double it does in any place I have been before, with the finest market in the world for it after it is raised.”
The cold persisted unusually, freezing the Columbia from bank to bank. “Captain Ingalls and myself were the first to cross,” Grant wrote Julia on the third day of the new year. But a wind shift to the west brought warm rain that caused the ice to vanish—“so you need not feel any alarm about my falling through.” Grant assured his wife he was keeping snug. “I am situated quite as comfortable as any body here, or in the Territory. The house I am living in is probably the best one in Oregon.” He shared the place with two other officers, their two clerks and a civilian. A cook fed them and a hired man did the chores. “Everyone says they are the best servants in the whole Territory.”
The country continued to amaze. “The climate of Oregon is evidently delightful,” Grant wrote in late January. “Here we are north of 45 degrees, and though the oldest inhabitants say it has been about the most severe winter they have ever known here, yet it would surprise persons even as far south as St. Louis to be here now and witness our pleasant days. Farmers are ploughing and some sorts of vegetables have been growing all winter, and will continue to grow.” His neighbors were picturesof health. “I believe the usual effect of an Oregon climate is to make a person grow stout; at least I should judge so from the appearance of every body that I see here.”
He joined the general activity and shared the positive effect. “I am farming extensively and I work myself as hard as any body,” he wrote in early March. “I have just finished putting in barley, and I am glad to say that I put in every grain with my own hands. By the end of the coming week myself and partners will have planted twenty acres of potatoes and an acre of onions. In a week or two more we will plant a few acres of corn.” The exercise was building his muscles. “I have grown out of my clothes entirely and am still getting larger.”
Oregon was ideal in all respects but one. “I have my health perfectly and could enjoy myself here as well as at any place I have ever been stationed at, if only you were here,” he wrote Julia. “If you, Fred, and Ulys”—the second
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