In 1821 the Hudson Bay Company and the Northwest Fur Company were consolidated, and in 1824 Dr. John McLoughlin was placed in charge of Fort George. At this time the fur trade was carried on chiefly with the tribes of the interior, and it was the custom for the agents of the company to carry the goods to the Indians. Under the circumstances Doctor McLoughlin saw that the chief trading post should be farther inland, near the head of navigation, and moved to Vancouver, Washington, leaving a trader in charge of the company's property at Astoria, whose duty it was to watch for the company's vessels, and to send the pilot, Indian George, out to meet them and to pilot them to Vancouver.
With the departure of the fur company, Astoria became a lookout station and a trading post of very little importance. Mofras describes it in 1841 as "a miserable squatter's place, invested by the rival American and English factions, with the pompous name of Fort George and town of Astoria, the fort being represented by a bald spot, from which the vestige of buildings had long since disappeared, and the town by a cabin and a shed."
This condition was soon to be changed, for the trains of immigrants were beginning to arrive in the Willamette Valley, and some were to push on to the extreme western limit of the continent. In 1843 J. M. Shively came to Astoria and took up a claim in what is now the heart of the city, and known as Shively's Astoria. He was followed by Col. John McClure, who took the claim joining the Shively claim on the west, and now known as McClure's Astoria, and A. E. Wilson, who located on the claim to the east of Shively's claim, and now known as Adair's Astoria. These three men and James Birnie, the trader, in charge of the Hudson Bay Company's station, were the only white men in Astoria in 1844. Soon after this Robert Shortess located on the land now known as Alderbrook, and a Mr. Smith located at what is now known as Smith's Point. Mr. Birnie lived in the company's building, situated near the present site of Saint Mary's Hospital, Colonel McClure lived in a small cabin just to the south and east of where the Baptist Church now stands, and Mr. Shively, "who didn't believe in joint occupancy, which disturbed the social relations between Mr. Birnie and himself," lived at "Lime Kiln Hall," on the ridge near the eastern limit of his claim. Mr. Wilson lived in a cabin in Upper Astoria. There were several settlers on Clatsop Plains at this time, among the number being D. Summers, Mr. Hobson and family, Rev. J. L. Parrish, Messrs. Solomon Smith, Tibbets, Trask, and Perry. Ben Wood, N. Eberman, and other young men held claims on the plains, but lived elsewhere.
Astoria the fur-trading post now ceased to exist; Astoria, the town, was started. Astoria's real beginning, from which resulted a city, dates back, then, only to the early forties when the homeseekers first settled here. In 1846 James Welch and family and David Ingalls arrived. Mr. Welch took possession of the Shively claim during Mr. Shively's absence in the East and divided the claim into city lots as Mr. Shively had previously done. This led to a dispute over the ownership of the claim which was finally settled by an equal division of the claim between the two interested parties.
When J. M. Shively returned from the East in 1847 he brought with him his commission as postmaster and opened the first post office west of the Rocky Mountains in the Shively building, still standing on the east side of Fourteenth Street, between Exchange Street and Franklin Avenue. The next year S. T. McKean, wife, and six children arrived and took up their residence here. In this year also the news of the discovery of gold in California led to a stampede to the mines and while some of the inhabitants of Astoria went, their places were soon filled by people brought here by the great increase in the amount of shipping done from Columbia River. A great demand for lumber and provisions arose and mills were started to supply this demand. Hunt's mill, just below Westport, had commenced operations in 1846, and when the gold excitement started, had one hundred thousand feet of lumber on hand which was eagerly purchased at $100 per thousand. The Milwaukie mill and Abernethy's mill at Oak Point supplied the greater part of the lumber for the California trade. In 1849 Marland's mill, just above Tongue Point, was started. This mill was later destroyed by fire. In 1851-52 James Welch and others built the first mill in the city proper. It was located in the block bounded by Commercial, Bond, Ninth, and Tenth streets. It was afterward owned by W. W. Parker and known as the Parker mill.
The increase in the amount of shipping led to the establishment of the customhouse at Astoria in 1849. The same year Captains White and Hustler arrived and brought the first pilot boat to operate on the Columbia-river bar, the Mary Taylor. The pilots had their headquarters at Astoria, and this led to increased trade for Astoria and the establishment of boarding houses for the accommodation of the shipping men and the passengers of vessels that stopped here either to await favorable wind to proceed to up-river points or to cross the bar or to complete their cargoes of lumber or increase their cargoes of provisions with a few barrels of salt salmon.
When Col. John Adair, the first collector of customs, arrived at Astoria he occupied the McClure house and tried to secure land from the different owners of the town on which to build the customhouse. The owners refused to donate the land and fixed the price at a figure which Colonel Adair considered too high. The result of this disagreement was the establishing of the United States customhouse at Upper Astoria and the beginning of the rivalry between the upper and lower towns, which lasted for many years, and led to the building up of two towns mutually jealous of each other yet having every interest in common. Judge Strong, who passed through Astoria in 1850, says:
When Astoria was pointed out as we reached the point below, I confess to a feeling of disappointment. Astoria, the oldest and most famous town in Oregon, we had expected to find a larger place. We saw before us a straggling hamlet, consisting of a dozen or so of small houses irregularly planted along the river bank shut in by the dense forest. We became reconciled and indeed somewhat elated in our feelings when we visited the shore and by its enterprising proprietors were shown the beauties of the place. There were avenues and streets, squares and public parks, wharves and warehouses, churches and theaters and an immense population—all upon the map. Astoria at that time was a small place or rather two places—the upper and the lower town—between which there was great rivalry. The upper town was known to the people of lower Astoria as Adairville. The lower town was designated by its rival as "Old Fort George or McClure's Astoria." A road between the two places would have weakened the differences of both, isolation being the protection of either. In the upper town was the customhouse; in the lower town two companies of United States engineers, under command of Major J. S. Hathaway. There were not, excepting the military and those attached to them and the customhouse officials, to exceed twenty-five men in both towns. At the time of our arrival in the country there was considerable commerce carried on, principally in sailing vessels, between the Columbia River and San Francisco. The exports were chiefly lumber, the imports merchandise.
The United States census of 1850 gives Astoria a population of two hundred and fifty-two, which number included the two companies of United States engineers stationed here and probably a number of transients.
I have before me a photograph of a painting copied from a daguerreotype picture of Astoria taken in 1856. This picture was taken from a spot near where the Parker House now stands and shows a wharf and a dozen houses. The wharf was known as the Parker wharf and extended from the Parker mill in a northeasterly direction to a point just north of the Occident Hotel. This was the first wharf erected in Astoria and was built in the early fifties. The picture also shows the old Methodist Church which was built in 1853-54, a cooper shop, the Shively house, the present residence of Judge F. J. Taylor, and the buildings occupied by the United States troops during their stay here. A few houses were not shown in the picture, those in the then western part of the town and those in upper town.