By H. S. Lyman.
Hugh Cosgrove, an Oregon pioneer of 1847, and a representative of the men of some means, who established the business interests of the state, is of Irish birth, having been born in County Cavan, North Ireland, in 1811. Although now in his ninetieth year, he is still of clear mind and memory, and recalls with perfect distinctness the many scenes of his active life. He is still living on the place which he purchased, in 1850, on French Prairie, near Saint Paul. He is a man of fine physical proportion, being in his prime, five feet, eleven inches tall, and full chested, broad shouldered, and erect, and weighing about one hundred and eighty pounds. He has the finely moulded Celtic features, and genial expression of the land of Ulster, and enjoys the fine wit and humor for which his race is famous. His father was a farmer, but learning much of the opportunities in Canada, concluded to cross the ocean to improve the conditions of himself and his family. It was about that period when assisted emigration from East Britain was in vogue, and mechanics of Glasgow, Scotland, were loaned 10£ sterling for each member of the family, to take up free homes in Canada; the loan to be returned after a certain time. The Cosgroves not being from that city, did not enjoy this loan, but determined to take advantage of the other opportunities offered all the immigrants, which were a concession of one hundred acres of land free, and an outfit of goods necessary to setting up a home in the new land.
Taking passage on a lumber ship, the Eliza, of Dublin, at a rate of 3£ each, and furnishing their own victualing, they made a speedy and prosperous voyage, some considerable glimpses of which remain in the memory of Mr. Cosgrove, after the lapse of eighty years. He remembers well, also, the breaking up of the old home, the auction of the family belongings, and the general sense of hope and abandon with which they cut loose from the shores of the old world. None of the family, probably, had any considerable appreciation of the vast race movement to which they as units of society were answering, but felt keenly the bracing effect of increased energy and enthusiasm which that movement imparted.
In Canada they hastened to secure their possessions, locating the one hundred-acre lot of their own, in the hard timber woods out on the boulder-sprinkled soil of lower Canada, in the Dalhousie township, within five miles of Lanark, and obtaining a free government outfit at the government store at Lanark. Here young Hugh spent the most of his boyhood, helping to clear the farm, becoming an expert axeman, burning the hard wood, from the ashes of which was leached the potash that paid for the clearing; and also getting his education at the free school. He recalls these as very happy years, and the pride and joy that all the family took in owning their own home did very much to form his character on a more liberal and progressive plan than could have been had in old world conditions. At the age of twenty-one he was married to Mary, a daughter of Richard Rositer,—“a glorious good man,” of Perth. Learning at length that land of a better quality, less stony, was vacant “out west,” a move was made to Chatham, in Canada West, as then known. Having a “birth-right claim,” as it was called, to one hundred acres, and finding that he could make a purchase adjoining of one hundred acres of “clerical land,” the young farmer laid out his two hundred-acre farm, and made buildings to improve it. But learning that land was still better the farther west one went, he proceeded as far as the Detroit River.
But just at this juncture all things were thrown in confusion by the uprising of the “Patriots,” the extent of whose organization was not known. There was great alarm felt, and the Canadian militia were likely to be called out. Now the Cosgroves had been duly taught that “the Yankees” were terrible people, almost ready to eat innocent people from the old country. But now that the Canadian side looked warlike, Mrs. Cosgrove said to her husband: “Very likely now you will be called out with the militia, and I will be left alone; why not cross over into the United States, and begin there?” She was acquainted, moreover, with a family in Detroit. Mr. Cosgrove acted upon the suggestion, and this led into a very much larger field of operations.
They found life on the American side much more intense and extensive, and discovered that the Yankees, instead of being a species of man-eaters, were royal good fellows.
Having saved some money for a new start, he prudently looked about how to invest it so as to make increase as he crossed the line. He found at the custom house that duty on cattle was low. He bought cows, selling at $10 each in Canada, which he disposed of in Michigan at as much as $40 each,—his first “good luck.” This gave him some ready money to begin business.
Fortunately in disposing of his cattle he made the acquaintance of a Mr. Saxon, a business man of very high character, recently from New Jersey. He was, indeed, not only a strict business man, but strictly religious, and a crank in habits of morality, taking pains to advise young men against bad habits. By this Mr. Saxon, Cosgrove was interested in taking work, just being begun on the railway line from Detroit to Chicago, Illinois, then a landing place on the marshy shores of Lake Michigan. “Why not take a contract?” asked Mr. Saxon, who had himself the work of locating a twenty-mile section of the road; and offered all assistance necessary in making bids, and was willing to guarantee Cosgrove’s responsibility. By this great service a paying contract was secured of grading a section of road. The contract was profitable, and the ins and outs of business were learned—especially the art of how to employ and work other men profitably,—Mr. Saxon, the ever ready friend, frequently giving the young immigrant helpful advice.
Having saved something like $5,000 from his operations, he was next visited by a coterie of eastern men who were coming west to mend their fortunes—to go to Chicago, and take a contract of excavating and filling on the great projected canal from Chicago to the Mississippi—a work only just completed at this day. It was then begun under state control. He soon discovered that he was the only capitalist in the number, and in order to save the job, bought out the main man, a Mr. Smith, who had a contract of $80,000. This was finished to advantage, although the state suspended operations. Prices were excellent, some of the rock excavating being done at fifty to seventy-five cents, and rock filling at $1.25 per square yard. Further contracts were taken, but in the course of time prices were forced down. In following up the railway development, a residence was made at Joliet, where he bought one hundred and sixty acres of land, on which much of the city now stands. But two things acted as a motive to make him look elsewhere. One was the malaria of the Illinois prairie; the other was the report of Oregon.
A newspaper man by the name of Hudson, of the Joliet Courier, who had come to Oregon, wrote back very favorable accounts of that then territory, especially praising the equable climate. A number of Joliet men, among whom were Lot Whitcomb and James McKay, read these articles with interest, and finally made up their minds to cross the country to Oregon, a name that was to the old west about what the new world was to the old. Lot Whitcomb, a man of affairs, who afterwards made himself famous in Oregon as a steamboat man, thought Oregon would be a great place for contractors and men able to carry on large undertakings, as he heard that there were few such there.