Oregon Territory

1848

    "On August 14, 1848, Congress passed a bill admitting Oregon as a territory and President James Polk appointed General Joseph Lane of Indiana, as Governor of Oregon and Joseph L. Meek as the United States Marshall.  It was Joseph Meek who had rallied the votes at Champoeg in favor of the United States.
    Mr. Meek was in Washington at the time of his appointment but together with General Lane, hurried to the Northwest reaching Oregon City by boat and proclaimed the Territorial Government on March 3, 1849, the day before President Polk went out of office.
    The new Territory of Oregon embraced all of the Oregon Country between the 42nd and 49th parallels from the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean.
    Three log homes were built on the site of Oregon City in the winter of 1829 - 30.  A flower mill and a saw mill were constructed by the falls in 1832.
    The first Protestant church in the Oregon Country was a Methodist Church erected at the SE corner of 7th  and Main Streets in 1844.  In that year, about eight hundred people were added to the population of Oregon City.
    The first capitol of Oregon Territory stood at the SE corner of 6th and Main Streets while the Oregon Mint operated for a time in 1849, on the river bank south of 5th Street.
    In 1850, the Legislature voted to make Salem the seat of government,  to locate the state penitentiary at Portland, and the state university at Corvallis.
    The population of Oregon in 1850, according to the US Census was 13,249."

These accounts and others following, were written by Harley Hallgren for the 1934, Temple's Golden Jubilee Celebration.