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The Role of the Merchant on the Oregon Frontier: The Early Business Career of Henry W. Corbett, 1851–1869
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 February 2011
Extract
A Figure common to all frontiers was the businessman who made the transition from pioneer merchant to financier. This paper is an examination of the early career of one such merchant on the remote underdeveloped Oregon frontier during the 1850's and 1860's.
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- Copyright © The Economic History Association 1956
References
1 Gilbert, James H., Trade and Currency in Early Oregon (New York: Columbia University Press, 1907), pp. 78–80.Google Scholar
2 For examples see the motivation of Ladd, W. S., Portland merchant and its first banker, in Bancroft, H. H., Chronicles of the Builders of the Commonwealth (San Francisco: The History Company, 1891), I, 602–603.Google Scholar
3 H. W. Corbett, Invoices; Williams, Bradford and Company to H. W. Corbett, January 7, 1852 and February 3, 1852. Corbett and Failing business records, Special Collections Library, University of Oregon. Corbett and Failing business records are also found in the library of the Oregon Historical Society and in the Grace D. and R. R. Stuart Collection of Western Americana, College of the Pacific. (Hereafter these records are distinguished as follows: CFUO, for those at the University of Oregon; CFOHS, for those at the Oregon Historical Society; and CFCOP, for those at the College of the Pacific.)
4 Corbett, Day Book. CFCOP. For New York costs see Juergens, C. H., “Movement of Wholesales Prices in New York City, 1825–1863,” American Statistics Association Publications, XII (1910–1911), 544Google Scholar, and Wholesale Prices, Wages, and Transportation, Senate Report No. 1394, Part 2, 52d Cong., 2d Sess.
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14 H. W. Corbett to Samuel Roosevelt and Co., January 3, 1859. CFCOP, and numerous letters to Abernethy, Clark and Company, 1856–1858, and to William Alvord and Company, 1858–1859. CFCOP and CFUO.
15 Rydell, Cape Horn, pp. 139–140.
16 Corbett letters to several San Francisco houses, 1857–1858, CFCOP.
17 H. W. Corbett to William W. Wright and Company, March 31, 1857, CFCOP.
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19 H. W. Corbett to Abernethy, Clark and Company, November 10, 1857, CFCOP, and to Abernethy, Clark and Company, November 24, 1857, CFUO. Abernethy, Clark and Company had disregarded Corbett's instructions and instead of sending this draft on Wells, Fargo and Company had sent it on a firm in which Corbett had no confidence.
20 H. W. Corbett to Ira Jagger, November 27, 1857, CFUO.
21 H. W. Corbett to Samuel Roosevelt and Company, January 20, 1858, CFUO.
22 H. W. Corbett to Hoyt, Tillinghast and Company, August 26, 1858. CFUO.
23 H. W. Corbett to Nourse Mason and Company, December 11, 1857, CFUO; H. W. Corbett to Croton Manufacturing Co., February 8, 1858, CFCOP.
24 H. W. Corbett to Lord, Warren, Evans and Company, November 28, 1857, CFUO, to Mason and Lawrence, April 19, 1858, and to E. P. Clark and Company, October 25, 1858, CFCOP.
25 Numerous produce accounts and letters to merchants in the Willamette Valley, 1855–1859. CFUO, CFCOP, CFOHS.
26 H. W. Corbett, Day Book, CFCOP.
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29 These statements are derived from a study of the files of The Oregonian, 1859–1861, and the correspondence of Failings and Hatt to John A. Hatt, 1859–1862, CFOHS. For contemporary analyses of the problem, see Governor John Whiteacre's message to the legislature, May 10, 1859, in The Oregonian, May 21, 1859, for Tne Oregonian, Nov. 5, 1859.
30 Gilbert, Trade and Currency, pp. 98–122.
31 Failings and Hatt to John A. Hatt, June I, 1863. CFOHS.
32 Letters of H. W. Corbett to Charles Pope and C. Holman, June 9, 1862; Letters of Failings and Hatt to John A. Hatt, February 25, April 1, June I, 12, 1863, CFOHS.
33 Johansen, Dorothy O., “Capitalism on the Far Western Frontier: The Oregon Steam Navigation Company” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Washington, 1941), pp. 117–120Google Scholar; 173–181.
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