The Territory of Oregon was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 14, 1848, until February 14, 1859, when the southwestern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Oregon. Originally claimed by several countries, the region was divided between the UK and the US in 1846. When established, the territory encompassed an area that included the current states of Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, as well as parts of Wyoming and Montana. The capital of the territory was first Oregon City, then Salem, followed briefly by Corvallis, then back to Salem, which became the state capital upon Oregon's admission to the Union.
Champoeg is a former town in the U.S. state of Oregon. Now a ghost town, it was an important settlement in the Willamette Valley in the early 1840s. Located halfway between Oregon City and Salem, it was the site of the first provisional government of the Oregon Country.
Fort Winnebago was a 19th-century fortification of the United States Army located on a hill overlooking the eastern end of the portage between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers east of present-day Portage, Wisconsin. It was the middle one of three fortifications along the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway that also included Fort Howard in Green Bay, Wisconsin and Fort Crawford in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin. Fort Winnebago was constructed in 1828 as part of an effort to maintain peace between white settlers and the region's Native American tribes following the Winnebago War of 1827. The fort's location was chosen not only because of its proximity to the site of Red Bird's surrender in the Winnebago War, but also because of the strategic importance of the portage on the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway, a heavily traveled connection between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River. Fort Winnebago's location near the portage allowed it to regulate transportation between the lakes and the Mississippi.
Molson is a ghost town in Okanogan County, Washington, United States. The population was 19 at the 2000 census.
The Champoeg Meetings were the first attempts at formal governance by European-American and French Canadian pioneers in the Oregon Country on the Pacific Northwest coast of North America. Between 1841 and 1843, a series of public councils was held at Champoeg, a settlement on the French Prairie of the Willamette River valley in present-day Marion County, Oregon, and at surrounding settlements. The meetings were organized by newly arrived settlers as well as Protestant missionaries from the Methodist Mission and Catholic Jesuit priests from Canada.
Fort William was a fur trading outpost built in 1834 by the American Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth, a Boston merchant, backed by American investors. It was located on the Columbia River on Wappatoo Island near the future Portland, Oregon. After a few years, in 1837 Wyeth sold the post to the British Hudson’s Bay Company, which had much more power in the region from its base at Fort Vancouver on the north side of the Columbia River near Fort William.
Boones Ferry was a cable ferry which crossed the Willamette River near present-day Wilsonville, Oregon, United States, from 1847 to 1954. It was part of a major land-based thoroughfare in pioneer times linking fledgling Portland with the pre-territorial government at Champoeg, and later Salem. It was eventually made obsolete by the Boone Bridge on Interstate 5.
William J. Bailey was a British-born physician who immigrated to the United States, where he became a pioneer and politician in the Oregon Country, particularly the Willamette Valley. Bailey participated in the Champoeg Meetings that led to the creation of a provisional government in Oregon. Bailey was selected as a member of that government, first on the Executive Committee and later in the Provisional Legislature of Oregon.
François "Francis" Xavier Matthieu was a French Canadian pioneer settler of the Oregon Country. He was educated in American values by a radical schoolteacher. Matthieu became involved in the 1837-1838 armed rebellion against British rule in Canada, for which he was forced to flee his native Quebec for safety in the United States, where he worked as a carpenter and a fur trader.
The Provisional Government of Oregon was a popularly elected settler government created in the Oregon Country, in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Its formation had been advanced at the Champoeg Meetings since February 17, 1841 and it existed from May 2, 1843 until March 3, 1849, and provided a legal system and a common defense amongst the mostly American pioneers settling an area then inhabited only by the many Indigenous Nations. Much of the region's geography and many of the Natives were not known by people of European descent until several exploratory tours were authorized at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The Organic Laws of Oregon were adopted in 1843 with its preamble stating that settlers only agreed to the laws "until such time as the United States of America extend their jurisdiction over us." According to a message from the government in 1844, the rising settler population was beginning to flourish among the "savages", who were "the chief obstruction to the entrance of civilization" in a land of "ignorance and idolatry."
French Prairie is a prairie located in Marion County, Oregon, United States, in the Willamette Valley between the Willamette River and the Pudding River, north of Salem. It was named for some of the earliest settlers of that part of the Oregon Country, French Canadian/Métis people who were mostly former employees of the Hudson's Bay Company. French Prairie is also known as an early Métis settlement in the Pacific Northwest history.
The Organic Laws of Oregon were two sets of legislation passed in the 1840s by a group of primarily American settlers based in the Willamette Valley. These laws were drafted after the Champoeg Meetings and created the structure of a government in the Oregon Country. At the last Champoeg Meeting in May 1843, the majority voted to create what became the Provisional Government of Oregon. Laws were drafted by the committee and accepted by a popular vote in July. These laws were reformed by a second version in 1845.
Robert "Doc" Newell, was an American politician and fur trapper in the Oregon Country. He was a frontier doctor in what would become the U.S. state of Oregon. A native of Ohio, he served in the Provisional Government of Oregon and later was a member of the Oregon State Legislature. The Newell House Museum, his reconstructed former home on the French Prairie in Champoeg, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Samuel Parker (1806–1886) was an American pioneer of the Oregon Country, in what was to become the state of Oregon. Parker would later participate in the legislatures of the provisional, territorial, and state governments of Oregon.
George Wood "Squire" Ebbert (1810–1890) was a mountain man and early settler in the Oregon Country. Born in Kentucky, he settled on the Tualatin Plains in what would become Oregon and participated in the Champoeg Meetings that created a government prior to the formation of the Oregon Territory. During the Cayuse War he traveled with Joseph Meek across the Rocky Mountains to ask Congress for assistance with the war.
Albert E. "A.E." Wilson was an American pioneer and merchant in Oregon Country. Raised in the United States, he moved to what would become the U.S. state of Oregon where he operated stores, was involved in politics, and was elected as the first judge of the Provisional Government of Oregon.
George Kirby Gay was an English sailor and later settler in the Oregon Country. He was a member of the Willamette Cattle Company that brought livestock to Oregon and built the first brick house in the United States west of the Rocky Mountains. Gay also participated in the Champoeg Meetings that created a provisional government in what would become the U.S. state of Oregon.
Mill Hill Historic Park in Norwalk, Connecticut is a living history museum composed of three buildings: the circa 1740 Governor Thomas Fitch IV "law office", the circa 1826 Downtown District Schoolhouse, and the 1835 Norwalk Town Hall; as well as a historic cemetery also called the Town House Hill Cemetery. The museum is also known as the Mill Hill Historical Complex in some references and the sign at the parking lot reads Norwalk Mill Hill Museum.
Alvin Thompson Smith was an American missionary and politician in what became the state of Oregon. A native of Connecticut, he lived in Illinois before moving to the Oregon Country to preach to the Native Americans in the Tualatin Valley. There he served in both the Provisional Government of Oregon and the government of the Oregon Territory, as well as helping to establish Tualatin Academy, later becoming Pacific University. Smith’s former home, the Alvin T. Smith House in Forest Grove, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Pioneer Mothers Memorial Cabin Museum is located six miles from St. Paul, Oregon, United States within the Champoeg State Heritage Area. The cabin was built by the Oregon State Society, Daughters of the American Revolution and opened in 1931 to honor early pioneer mothers.
