Henry W. Corbett
Henry Winslow Corbett was an American businessman, politician, civic benefactor, and philanthropist in the state of Oregon. A native of Massachusetts, he spent his early life in the East and New York before moving to the Oregon Territory. He was a prominent figure in the early development of Portland, Oregon, and was involved in numerous business ventures there, starting in general merchandise. His interests later included banking, finance, insurance, river shipping, stage lines, railways, telegraph, iron and steel and the erection of Portland downtown buildings among other enterprises. A Republican, he served as a United States senator from 1867 to 1873.
Early years
Corbett was born in Westborough, Massachusetts, on February 18, 1827. Of English descent, born into a family that had settled in Massachusetts in the seventeenth century, his parents were Elijah and Melinda Corbett. He was the youngest son, the fifth child, of a family of eight.His father became the first edge tool manufacturer in Westborough, Massachusetts, and later moved his business to Washington County, New York. When he retired, he moved his family to Cambridge, New York, where he had a hotel and farm. He died in 1845.
There were three sons Joel Hamilton Corbett, the eldest and ten years Henry's senior, Elijah Corbett III, who was slightly over two years older than Henry. Elijah was to follow his younger brother, Henry, to Portland in 1854 followed by his two surviving younger sisters Mary Freeland Corbett and Emily Phelps Corbett . H.W. Corbett and these three siblings lived in Portland until their deaths.
In 1831, Corbett moved with his parents to the town of White Creek, New York, in 1831. Corbett attended the local common schools and then engaged in mercantile pursuits in Cambridge, New York, in 1840. There he attended Cambridge Academy before he moved to New York City in 1843 where he worked at Williams Bradford & Co, dry goods merchants, for seven years.
Oregon territory
had become an undisputed US possession in June 1846. A treaty had been concluded with the British on June 15, 1846, and ratified by the Senate on June 18, 1846. So the land South of British Columbia to the California border and West of the Rocky Mountain Divide was no longer US/British joint occupancy but undisputed United States territory. Congress passed the Bill creating Oregon Territory on August 13, 1848.Business partnership
Corbett, foreseeing this new US territory's promise, then subject to US law, formed a three-year 50/50 partnership, signed October 12, 1850, with Williams Bradford & Co "for the purpose of selling goods, wares and merchandise and farming implements at Portland, Oregon Territory." Williams Bradford were to provide the goods, cash and credit. Corbett, aged twenty-three, was to go to Portland to run the business.He chartered a bark, the Frances and Louise, and loaded it with $25,000 worth of general merchandise, mainly assorted hardware; powder, shot, nails, brooms, implements and groceries; coffee, sugar, tobacco, drugs, medicine, millinery, silk goods and shoes. She set sail from New York on the long voyage through the Straits of Magellan around Cape Horn up the Pacific Coast to Portland.
Corbett then embarked on the steamship Empire City from New York and crossed the Isthmus of Panama on the "hurricane deck of a mule". At Panama City he boarded the S.S. Columbia, one of the ships of the Pacific Steamship Company. She was then on her maiden voyage en route from San Francisco. The Columbia was the first steamship built to ply the route between San Francisco and Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia River. He then embarked on the Little Columbia, sleeping on the open deck, for the overnight passage up the Columbia and the Willamette rivers to Portland, incorporated as a city a month before on February 8, 1851.
Corbett arrived on March 5, 1851, in Portland, a city of little over 821 souls on the Willamette River, with a few small stores and businesses, large tree stumps bordering its two streets, Front and First, and backed by virgin forest.
Arriving in Portland, he climbed the riverbank to the Warren House, the principal hotel, situated on the corner of Oak and Front streets, which would "accommodate, by judicious crowding, about a dozen people".
Before the arrival of the Frances and Louise with his merchandise, Corbett spent two months familiarizing himself with Oregon Territory and its main settlements. He visited Astoria, Oregon City, Salem, Santiam, Albany, Corvallis and Lafayette.
Corbett felt that tiny Portland with its strategic location would make a logical hub for commerce for the Territory and for shipping supplies of farm produce and timber to California.
He rented a building there that was being erected on the corner of Front and Oak streets, for $125 per month. His shipment arrived in May. He hoisted his goods into the upper story and "slept with his wares". As a Presbyterian, he was one of the first businessmen in Portland to invariably close on Sundays.
Corbett's business at that time dealt in general merchandise, hardware and farming implements - supplying the ranchers and farmers and the new settlers who were beginning to arrive by the Oregon Trail. Oregon Territory then included the large area now occupied by the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and part of Montana and Wyoming. Corbett was the first general merchant in Portland and probably in Oregon Territory.
Corbett sold most of his initial stock of goods in fourteen months at a profit of $20,000. The cost of the entire original cargo had been $24,621.57. His total sales by then had been $83,000 with additional supplies of stock and his profit of about $20,000 was divided equally between his backers Williams, Bradford and Co. and himself. On the advice of his supplier who noted the downturn in the California Gold Rush, Corbett left for New York in July 1852, leaving his store with employees Finley McLaren and Robert McLaren. He first took them on as co-partners to continue the business while he was in New York.
Arriving in New York, he split this substantial profit with his partners Williams Bradford & Co, who tried to persuade him to stay in the East to be involved in their New York business. Instead he bought out their share in the partnership on August 28, 1852, for $1750.
Corbett had renamed the store Corbett & McLarens, and became an independent buyer. He began purchasing for his store and other merchants who wanted to buy directly from New York, rather than buying overpriced goods from San Francisco. He also offered credit to his customers, which increased his sales against competitors.
He continued to use Williams Bradford as one of his principle suppliers in the East. However he was now able to use his own resources and negotiate goods on advantageous terms of credit and he arranged for more shipments around the Horn.
He also became engaged at that time to Caroline E. Jagger of Albany, New York. She was to follow Corbett to Portland to be married there once she had seen where she was to be living. Corbett and she were married in Portland, Oregon, in February 1853.
H. W. Corbett & Co.
Soon after his return to Portland, Corbett, dissolved the partnership with the McLaren brothers, on June 17, 1854, and his business became a sole proprietorship as H.W. Corbett & Co. He also bought the freehold of the store. As an individualist, Corbett from then on controlled his business as single proprietorship from 1854 to 1871, rather than as a partnership, which was the norm for other Portland merchants at the time. It enabled Corbett to pour his profits back into his business each year.He continued shipping goods to Portland around Cape Horn, and after the railway was built in 1855 across the Isthmus of Panama, he also transhipped some goods by rail.
The Atlantic shipping terminal was in Colon, Panama. The Pacific terminal was in Panama City. The 48-mile double track railway was the first transcontinental railway and an engineering marvel of the era. Until the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914, the Panama Railway Company carried the heaviest volume of freight per unit length of any railroad in the world. H. W. Corbett and others from Portland would then use it to get back and forth to the connecting ships to and from the East, rather than crossing on mule back. When the transcontinental Union Pacific Railroad to San Francisco was completed on May 10, 1869, this more direct route was then used for shipping and travel connecting to Portland by boat or stage coach.
In 1869 Corbett was able to make his first transcontinental trip from the East to San Francisco. Prior to that he had crossed the Isthmus of Panama thirteen times on trips between the East and West. Corbett was later instrumental in getting the transcontinental railway connection built direct to Portland in 1883.
Corbett made lifelong friendships with his fellow merchants who had travelled out from the East in the months following his arrival in Portland on March 5, 1851: William S. Ladd, Josiah Failing, and his son Henry Failing and C. H. Lewis "All of these merchants were neighbourly, each commanding the others' fullest respect while practicing the rules of competitive business… With their Eastern backgrounds they helped impress upon the young community the distinct New England cultural tone which pervaded the town from its inception."
Oregon becomes a state
On February 14, 1859, eight years after Corbett's arrival there, Oregon became a state.In 1860 Corbett changed his business to a wholesale hardware and farm implement business. He became a leading dealer in various eight horse threshers and reapers and was one of the leading outlets for the McCormick reaper.
He instructed his agent in New York at Samuel Roosevelt and Co., Samuel House, that his orders marked "Steamer" he was to "send by Isthmus , the balance for first good clipper ". These fast sailing ships were more numerous to San Francisco: some clippers went there first and then transhipped to Portland.
Soon his business was growing so fast that Samuel House became his sole agent in New York. In 1867 he had taken two of his employees into partnership. Edward Failing, who in 1857 when he was sixteen had first started to work at H.W. Corbett and Co when he had finished school, and M.B. Millard. Each became a sixth interest partner in H.W. Corbett and Co. Edward had been only ten when he first came out to Portland with his father Josiah Failing and older brother Henry Failing, who was then seventeen and later became Corbett's brother-in-law. By September 1867 H.W. Corbett & Co. had its own office in New York City and was no longer employing an agent.
In 1869 John West and associates established the first salmon-canning factory on the Oregon side of the Columbia River and H.W.Corbett & Co. shipped the canned salmon to New York.