Everything about Champoeg Oregon totally explained
Champoeg (
sham-POO-ee or historically as sham poo' eg) 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. It is positioned halfway between
Oregon City and
Salem and the site of the first provisional government of the
Oregon Country. The town site is on the south bank of the
Willamette River in northern
Marion County, approximately 5 mi (8 km) southeast of
Newberg. The town is now part of
Champoeg State Heritage Area, an
Oregon state park.
History
Champoeg is best known as the site of a
series of meetings held in the town during the 1840s. On
February 71841 Willamette Valley settlers convened there for the first time. They selected
Oregon missionary Jason Lee as their chairman and considered measures to deal with problem of
wolves menacing their settlements. It was to be the first in a series of "Wolf meetings" at the town site that would establish the basis of civil codes.
By the middle 1840s, the question of the possession of the disputed Oregon Country between the
United States and the
United Kingdom began to loom large. On
May 21843, a meeting was held at the town to determine whether a provisional government should be established. The measure passed by 52 to 50. A group of nine representatives was named to create a provisional government with Champoeg as its capital. A petition to the
United States Congress was drafted and sent to
Washington, D.C. with
William Gilpin, who had helped draft the petition and came to the Willamette Valley with the expedition of
John C. Frémont. On his journey eastward to deliver the petition, Gilpin evangelized for the settlement of the
Pacific Northwest, helping to spread "Oregon fever". He presented the petition to Congress in 1845. The question of possession of the Oregon Country was settled the following year in the 1846
Oregon Treaty. When the
Oregon Territory was
organized in 1848, however, Champoeg wasn't chosen as the capital.
Around 1852 the town had grown to include a
ferry across the Willamette, a warehouse owned by
Francis Pettygrove and
Alanson Beers, a steamboat landing, a granary owned by the
Hudson's Bay Company, and a stagecoach office. There were 10 north-south streets and six east-west streets laid out in the community. Champoeg was also the crossroads of the Champoeg-St. Paul Road, Champoeg-Salem Road, Champoeg-Oregon City Road, and the Champoeg-DeGuire’s Ferry Road.
Also located in the park is the Historic Butteville Store, which was founded in 1863. Considered the oldest operating store in Oregon, it's the last remaining commercial building of the community of
Butteville. One of the important archeological finds at the site is the only mostly intact early homesite found so far on
French Prairie. The evidence suggests that this was Robert Newell's first homesite.
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