ST. HELENS
History of Columbia County
Told in University of Oregon Bulletin
by Adolph Chapples in Commonwealth Review
Not until the arrival in 1845 of Captain H. M. Knighton does the
history of the county, hitherto largely a record of explorations
and somewhat abortive attempts at settlement, become an account of
definite land developments and commercial enterprise. In 1845 the
section was still a rugged wilderness. The heavily timbered slopes
of the Coast Range, which cuts diagonally north and west across the
area, had not yet heard the ring of the axe; the Nehalem Valley on
the western side was inhabited only by trappers and Indians; the
bottom lands along the Columbia had been only briefly scarred by
the plow. About March 1847, Knighton located a preemption claim in
this almost completely unexploited region, on a site at the
confluence of the Columbia, the Willamette, and the Lewis rivers,
at a point where the terrain rises in a series of benches. It is
believed that Knighton here set up a knockdown house imported from
Bath, Maine.
CASENOU
On May 22, 1850, Knighton and L. C. Grey deeded one undivided
quarter of a section of land to George H. Ensign of San Francisco,
"to lay out a town thereon to be known and styled Casenou."
WYETH'S ROCK AND PLYMOUTH
There is evidence that Captain Wyeth had earlier selected this
identical spot on which to locate a town; from him it had
originally obtained the name "Wyeth's Rock" (later changed to
Plymouth Rock). Under the name, Plymouth, the St. Helens post
office was established on April 9, 1850, while the district was
still a part of Washington County. The county court "ordered that
a new precinct be established at Plymouth at the house of H. M.
Knighton, and Joseph Caples and William Weatherby are hereby
appointed as Judges of Election of said precinct."
ST. HELENS
However on April 9 of the following year the court, in appointing
judges of election, called the precinct St. Helens. It appears
likely, therefore, that the use of the name St. Helens, in lieu of
the earlier Plymouth, became established at some time between May
1850 and April 1851. The town was name after the cone shaped
mountain across the Columbia, which Captain Vancouver had named in
honor of Baron St. Helens, British ambassador to Spain.
MILTON
About the time Knighton settled at St. Helens, probably in 1846,
Captain Nathaniel Crosby and Captain Thomas Smith founded Milton
about a mile and half away at the mouth of Milton Creek. Not long
after, Francis Perry re-arrived in a homemade prairie schooner,
accompanied by his wife and George Perry, his son. At Milton,
according to the son, the Perrys built a home and a sawmill,
probably the first in the county.
Milton for a time was promoted with even greater vigor than was St.
Helens. Smith and Crosby, who bought a mill built earlier by
Hunsaker, manufactured lumber to load on their bark, the
"Louisiana." During the California gold rush their lumber sold for
the almost unheard of price of $150 per thousand. The sawmills,
stimulated by the gold fever, boomed and the river was alive with
vessels awaiting cargoes. "The town of Milton ... is fast
improving.. fast settling and it is proposed to build a railroad to
Lafayette in the interior of Oregon," said the "Oregon Spectator"
in 1850.
Milton was first laid out in 1851. In September of that
year the opening of the district school was advertised in the
"Weekly Oregonian." Nathan Pearcy was superintendent, and subjects
taught included mathematics, chemistry, natural history,
philosophy, botany, astronomy, Latin and Greek. The advertisement
was signed by Thomas A. Smith, Squire Bennett, and Francis Perry,
school directors. To attract new settlers, the founders offered
free lots to the men who would erect houses and make their homes in
Milton.
COUNTY SEAT
On January 16, 1854, when Columbia County was created by act of the
Legislature, the measure located the county seat at Milton on the
land claim of Thomas Smith. ..The same act created election
precincts "at St. Helens, Milton, Rainier, Scappoose and John
Bonser's." The measure gave the county commissioners the power to
change precinct boundary lines, or establish others. On January 15,
1855, the western boundary of the county was redefined as
"Commencing at a point in the main channel of the Columbia river,
twelve miles below Oak Point mountain, thence south to the north
line of Washington county."
COUNTY SEAT MOVED
The doom of Milton was sealed when, after less than a decade, the
county seat was moved on June 7, 1857 to St. Helens schoolhouse on
September 7 of that year. The transfer of the county seat was but
the last step of several in the dissolution of the town of Milton.
An early flood had already all but washed the community away. Not
long after the flood, according to George Perry, his father,
Francis Perry, moved his mill about a mile up Milton Creek. The
town was sold in 1851 and again in 1854. In 1857 Milton precinct
was ordered to be combined with that of St. Helens, and in 1861 the
town's water rights were sold to Knighton for running factories,
mills, etc. Today, what once was Milton is scarcely even a ghost
town; for not a vestige of the community survives. Whatever
remnants have escaped time and flood have been absorbed by St.
Helens.