The Coin Toss That Named Portland — and the Man Who Founded Port Townsend
A.M. Pettygrove comes back to the town he laid out in 1851, and the Argus retells how a flipped coin gave Portland its name, how a claim was sold for $5,000 in cash and leather, and how a Puget Sound bluff became a city.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Some difference now arose between the partners as to what the new town should be called, and they finally decided to toss up a piece of money. Mr. Pettygrove winning the toss, named it after the capital of his native State, and thus the log cabin on the banks of the Willamette received the name Portland. That same year Mr. Lovejoy sold his claim to Mr. Stark.
In looking over files of the Oregon Spectator of 1846, we find Mr. Pettygrove to have been the leading merchant and heaviest advertiser in those days. In the Spectator of February 5, 1846, he announces: "At the Red House, Oregon City, and at Portland, 12 miles below this city," on consignment, 20 cases wooden clocks, 3 small mills, 450 bags sugar, 5,000 cigars, 200 dozen cotton handkerchiefs, 10 bales sheeting, 10 dozen linen duck pants, &c.
In 1848 the discovery of gold in California attracted Mr. Pettygrove, and he sold his claim of Portland for $5,000, part cash and part leather. After a time, becoming dissatisfied with California, and hearing from Commodore Wilkes about the rich soil and salubrious climate of Puget Sound, Mr. Pettygrove located a farm, and being convinced from its superior location that some day a large seaport town must spring up there, he, in 1851, laid out and named the present town of Port Townsend, now numbering about 1,000 inhabitants.
Although Mr. Pettygrove is now 64 years old, he is still active and hearty, and on his recent visit to this city, the first in 23 years, he expressed himself well pleased with the way his town has been added to during his absence. He now spends life quietly on a farm adjoining Port Townsend, and we hope he may live to see his wish realised, namely, that Port Townsend should be a city of 50,000 inhabitants, and Portland at least double that.
“"They finally decided to toss up a piece of money. Mr. Pettygrove winning the toss, named it after the capital of his native State."”
Port Townsend never became the 50,000-person seaport its founder imagined; the 1880s boom that followed this wish collapsed within a decade, leaving the Victorian uptown that tourists walk today. The booster's gamble on geography — a deep-water harbor that would surely draw the ships — is the same bet small towns on the Sound keep making. And the coin toss that named Portland is still retold in Oregon as if it happened yesterday.
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