Willamette Valley and on the Cowlitz River. Demers was located at Cowlitz.

In

54. Emigrants Crossing the Plains in Wagons. 1838 the first emigrants to cross the continent in wagons arrived in Oregon. Others followed, and in 1842 a tide of emigrants with their ox-teams, herds, household goods and farming implements began to pour over the Rocky Mountains and down the valley of the Columbia into Oregon. From the Missouri to the Columbia the plains were dotted with the "white schooners of the prairie" during this and subsequent years. The British began to realize that "Joint Occupancy" was not what they wanted after all. Yankee enterprise was too much for them.

55. Formation of Provisional Government. Early in 1843 the "citizens of the colony," as they styled themselves, began to hold meetings to devise ways and means to protect their stock from the wolves and other wild animals. These meetings led to the formation of the Provisional Government. This was consummated by electing a Supreme Judge and other officers, and a committee to prepare a code of laws to be adopted by a vote of the people. The report of this committee was adopted by the people, and thus began a government for Oregon "for the people and by the people." This form of government was purely American and was completed at Champoeg on July 5th, 1843, and the dominant power of the British fur company ceased in Oregon.

56. The Immigration of 1843-44-45. The immigration to Oregon in 1843 was about nine hundred, who came in wagons to Walla Walla and the Dalles, passing down the Columbia in boats. The immigration of 1844 was about eight hundred. The immigration of 1845 was much larger, containing about three thousand five hundred people. These settlers were a hardy race of honest, intelligent and energetic people, and thoroughly loyal to the government of the United States.

57. Settlers in Washington in 1844. In 1844 the only settler between the mouth of the Willamette and Cowlitz rivers was a man named White, who occupied a claim on the south side of the Columbia, near the site of the present town of St. Helens. James Birnie, an employé of the Hudson's Bay Company, lived at Cathlamet, the present county seat of Wahkiakum County. Captain Scarborough lived near the mouth of the Cowlitz River, on the Washington side of the Columbia.

Anton Gobain, a herder of the Hudson's Bay Company, occupied a small prairie on the east side of the Cowlitz, near the site of the present town of Monticello. These, with Fort Nisqually and the Cowlitz farm and mission and Fort Vancouver, were all the white settlements in western Washington at that date. The First Settlement on Puget Sound. The first settlement on Puget Sound, and the first permanent settlement in Washington, was made at the falls of the Des Chutes River, now called Tumwater. The

58.