Page 18
January 2014
The Charbonneau Villager
Every Town Has a Tale Behind It
Looking Back . . .
A Series of Historical Vignettes
on Charbonneau and the Area
MICK SCOTT
Whether or not to tell
this tale . . . well the decision finally came down to
the flip of a coin.
Maybe you've heard the
story but, perhaps, many
have not - especially anyone who might be new to
the area. So, here goes.
Oregon's major city got
its name after Francis
W. Pettygrove and Asa L.
Lovejoy settled the area
in the early 1840s. Pettygrove came from Maine
with a stock of merchandise, building a warehouse
in Champoeg and opening
a store near the riverfront
of present-day Portland.
Lovejoy was a lawyer and,
in 1845, with Pettygrove,
laid out a 16-block town
site along the Willamette
River. But, what to name
it?
Pettygrove wanted to
name the harbor city for
his hometown of Portland,
Maine. Lovejoy had the
same idea in mind - except he wanted to name
the town site for his hometown of Boston, Mass. So,
standing along the west
bank of the Willamette
River, they flipped a copper penny to determine the
name. Pettygrove won, so
the name Boston was out
and Portland was in.
Twenty miles south of
the town that could well
have been named Boston, Alphonso Boone,
the grandson of legendary frontiersman Daniel
Boone, settled in 1846 in
what is now Wilsonville.
Alphonso and his family
were part of the “Great Migration” across the Oregon
Trail. They were among
the first to complete the
final leg of the journey by
taking the Scott-Applegate
Trail west from Fort Hall
in present-day Idaho into
what is now southern
Oregon, then north up the
Willamette Valley.
Boone started a ferry
service across the Wil-
lamette
River in
1847. The
settlement
was called
Boones
Landing,
and the
ferry service
would be a
critical link
for travel to
and from
the fertile
Willamette
Valley. Al- A 1949 service station map charts Portland
phonso then and the Upper Willamette Valley. Boones
left for the
Ferry Road runs north-south from the ferry
California
crossing in Wilsonville. Interstate 5,
gold fields,
initially named the Baldock Freeway for
and his son state highway engineer R.H. Baldock, would
Jesse took
be added to road maps when the Boone
Bridge was completed and the new highway
over the
opened five years later.
operation,
bolstering
munity was named for the
the business by blazing a
landmark hill that French
trail north to Portland and
Prairie settlers named
south to Salem. It's known
La Butte. The Butteville
today as Boones Ferry
Store, opened in 1863, just
Road, a route paralleled
celebrated its 150th year of
in many places by today's
operation.
Interstate 5. Jesse's DonaMaj. Gen. Edward Canby
tion Land Claim was on
never set foot in the town
the south side of the river,
just east of Wilsonville that
near the western border of
is his namesake. The town
what is now Charbonneau.
name was a tribute to the
But, the settlement that
Civil War hero who was
sprang up near the ferry
killed in 1873 during the
landing lost its name conModoc Indian war in lava
nection with descendants
fields south of Klamath
of Daniel Boone in 1880
Falls.
when it was renamed WilBetween Charbonneau
sonville for the town's first
and Canby is Barlow,
postmaster, Charles Wilnamed for William Barson. The name change
low. William was the son
was proposed by Robert
of Samuel Barlow who,
V. Short, a local landin 1846, blazed the Barowner, Oregon legislator
low Trail across the south
and a friend of Wilson. It
face of Mt. Hood. Samuel
sometimes helps to have a
purchased the land that is
friend in high places.
Barlow in 1850 and later
Donald, seven miles
sold it to his son. William's
away, was the first stop
mansion faces 99E today.
south of Wilsonville when
It was built in 1885 and is
the railroad was completed
now on the National Regisin 1908. The rail stop was
try of Historic Places.
named for R.L. Donald,
Aurora, five miles south
an official of the company
of Charbonneau, was
that built the railroad. To
founded by Dr. William Keil
the west is Butteville, a
in 1857 and named for his
thriving port beginning
daughter. Keil and 250 his
in the 1850s. The comfollowers came west from
www.charbonneaucountryclub.com
Missouri and established
the communal colony.
The Aurora colonists also
built a large log building
near their Willamette River
dock. The house once
stood on land that is now
part of Charbonneau.
Hubbard, farther south,
was named for Charles
Hubbard, who came to
Oregon in 1847. When the
railroad was built through
that part of the Willamette
Valley in 1870, Hubbard
donated the land for a station and laid out a town
site.
Champoeg, a name derived from a Kalapuya word
for edible root, is one of
the most historic places in
the state. In 1833, Champoeg became the site of
the first American farm in
the Northwest. The town
became an important commercial center and a major
shipping point for Willamette Valley wheat. And,
it was here that meetings
in 1843 led to the development of a provisional
government in Oregon,
eventually leading to statehood. The town was virtually wiped off the map by
a flood in December 1861,
but the area has been preserved as a state park.