Canemah Historic District

About this property

Canemah was an early settlement in the U.S. state of Oregon located near the Willamette River. Canemah was annexed to Oregon City in 1928. The district of Canemah is located on the east side of the Willamette River. At that time, Oregon City was a separate settlement, and was located below the Willamette Falls above which Canemah sits. The two towns were connected by a path, later upgraded to an ox track. Oregon was first inhabited by Native Americans, and was considered by the Calapooya tribe to be part of their territory. Native Americans traveled up and down the waterfall by canoes. Canemah is significant to this because it was the southern point of where Native Americans needed to go through to cross the waterfall. The name "Canemah" itself means "the canoe place". There was said to have been a dispute among the Native Americans as to which of their nations would control this area. The reason is that whoever controlled Canemah and its northern areas could toll anyone who crossed that area to cross the waterfall in their canoe. Many people were killed, apparently also called "Canemahs" who had occupied Canemah and claimed the right to charge tolls for use of the area. The first white settler at Canemah was Absalom F. Hedges (1817–1890). He arrived in Oregon City in 1844, and found all the good lots already taken. He then went south to Canemah, and staked out a Donation Land Claim close to the canoe landing place. Water travel above the falls was still mainly conducted by the Native Americans using canoes at this point, although they also paddled the flat boats, sometimes known as bateaux, that were starting to appear on the river. A few settlers had already established themselves in the Willamette Valley, and the boats and canoes brought their farm products to Canemah. At Canemah, they were loaded on ox-carts and carried around the falls to Oregon City. New emigrants to the Willamette Valley, and all of their goods, were then hauled back to Canemah up the track from Oregon City by the same ox-carts. By 1849, Hedges had opened up a tannery and laid out a townsite at Canemah, which he called "Falls City." With his brother-in-law William Barrow, Hedges set up a sawmill and opened a store. The name "Falls City" never caught on and the place continued to be called "Canemah." As river traffic increased, Hedges and some partners decided to put a steamboat on the Willamette above the falls. Hedges gathered up several thousand dollars in gold, and made a trip back east to buy the machinery for the vessel. He bought two engines which were shipped around Cape Horn to Oregon. Hedges and his partners returned overland.

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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