Gaston, Joseph.  "Portland, Oregon, Its History and Builders."  Vol. 2.  Chicago
- Portland: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1911. p. 687.
 
JOSEPH PAQUET

     From the pioneer epoch to the present day the record of Joseph Paquet has
been closely interwoven with the history of Portland and this section of the
country.  As a contractor he has been connected with much public work.  Not by
leaps and bounds has he attained the goal of prosperity, but by the steady
progress which indicates the wise and careful improvement of every opportunity
that has come to him.
     He was born in St. Louis, Missouri, March 19, 1841, a son of Francis Xavier
and Mary Louisa Lanadier (De Langdeau) Paquet.  The father was born in Canada in
1811 and in his youth was associated with the Hudson Bay Company.  He served as
a volunteer in the Black Hawk war in 1832 and in his young manhood learned the
ship carpenter's trade.  In 1835, in St. Louis, he wedded Mary Louisa Lanadier
De Langdeau, who was born in that city in 1818, her ancestors living there at
the time of the Louisiana purchase.  They were among the first French families
that settled in America.  Her grandfather was a resident of St. Vincennes,
Indiana, where he lived until driven out by the Indians.  The family were then
taken to St. Louis in a bateau.  The grandfather of Mrs. Paquet remained behind
in order to attend to the shipping of his goods and was to follow in a canoe but
was never heard from afterward.  The canoe however, was found floating in the
river and it is supposed that he was killed by Indians.  The parents of Mrs.
Mary L. Paquet both died in St. Louis.  Her father's death being occasioned by
cholera when he was fifty-four years of age.  His widow survived him for many
years and died at a very advanced age.
     Following their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Francis X. Paquet lived in St. Louis
until 1852, when they started across the plains to Oregon, leaving St. Louis on
the 1st of May and arriving in this state on the 15th of October.  They had four
wagons, fourteen yoke of cattle and two horses.  Nothing unusual happened on the
road.  At Salmon Falls on the Snake river, they were told they could proceed the
rest of the way to Portland in boats and Francis Paquet, therefore, converted
the wagons into boats, burned the running gears for wood and sent the cattle on
to Fort Boise in charge of David Monastes with instructions to remain there
until the family arrived.  As they proceeded, the family encountered all kinds
of difficulties.  The river was strewn with rocks, the current swift and they
came upon thirteen rapids and one fall.  They had to drag the wagon beds
overland three times, and it was while on this part of the journey that they met
the most unfriendly Indians whom they had encountered.  At length they reached
Fort Boise where they found the man and cattle awaiting them.  There Francis
Paquet was informed that he could go only a short distance farther by water for
there were some high falls below Fort Boise and the river was very rough.  He
then purchased two wagons and proceeded on the journey to The Dalles, where he
again made boats of wagon boxes and started down the Columbia river but
encountered head winds and took passage on a bateau to the Cascades.  They made
the portage and then continued on their way to Portland as passengers on a small
side-wheel steamboat.  Before leaving The Dalles, Mr. Paquet sent his cattle to
what is now Hood river to winter.  The family spent the season in Portland in a
miserable shack.  The winter was very severe, the lakes were all frozen solid,
and the snow was about eighteen inches deep.  Wood was the only thing that was
cheap, flour selling at five dollars per sack, beef at fifty cents per pound,
and everything else in proportion.  When the river opened so that Mr. Paquet
could go to Dog river, where his cattle had been left, he found only four head
of them alive.  The death of Mr. Paquet occurred when he had reached the
advanced age of eighty-seven years and his wife passed away at the age of
seventy-eight.  In their family were eight sons and four daughters, but only
three are now living.
     Joseph Paquet, whose name introduces this record had attended school in St.
Louis for about six years, beginning his education there when a little lad of
five.  He attended school in Oregon City under Judge Shattuck, and in 1854 the
family removed to a ranch four miles from Oregon City, after which he spent
about four months in a school taught by Charles Cartwright.  This completed his
education.  He was then about fifteen years of age, and from that time forward
his life has been devoted to business pursuits, and unfaltering energy and
intelligently directed labor have constituted the basis  of his success.
     When the family removed to the ranch they had no team and Joseph Paquet and
his brother two years older than himself carried groceries on their backs from
Oregon City to the farm.  The next year a pony, cow and chickens were purchased.
The father, a ship carpenter by trade, worked in Canemah in the summer and fall
repairing boats and getting them ready for the winter run, the Willamette river
above the falls being navigable only during the winter months.  When Joseph
Paquet was old enough he worked with his father, and thus learned the use of
tools.  He studied the business until he was able to build complete any kind of
a boat and also draw the plans for the same.  As a youth he was very fond of
hunting wild game and his first experience at killing deer came during the first
winter that the family occupied the ranch.  The deer would come nearly every
night within thirty or forty yards of the house and eat cabbage and turnips
which were growing in the field, his eldest brother killing several by shooting
from the windows.  Joseph Paquet afterward became one of the most successful
deer hunters in the state and when a boy was regarded as one of the best rifle
shots in Oregon.  Even yet he displays much skill in hunting.  In 1885 he won
the championship in live pigeon shooting in the three days' tournament held in
Portland, and in the winter of 1910-11 made an excellent record in shooting
ducks.
     After leaving the ranch, Mr. Paquet followed steamboat building and built
the first steam ferry that ran across the river at Salem in 1866.  He also built
the first snag boat the government had built in Oregon in 1871; the first dams
built by the government on the Willamette in 1872; the first dikes built on the
lower Willamette, including the dam across Willamette slough in 1880.  He worked
for two years, in 1868 and 1869, for the Oregon Steamship Navigation Company,
building and repairing boats, and in 1870 was superintendent of construction for
the People's Transportation Company.
     On Christmas day of that year Mr. Paquet was married and established his
home at Canemah, where he lived until 1879, when he removed to Portland.
Throughout all the intervening years, Mr. Paquet has followed contracting of
every kind, his work including the building of boats of every description, the
largest sewers of Portland, including the Brooklyn sewer.  He also took
contracts for building a number of steamboats, including the fastest stern-wheel
boat in the world -- the steamer Telephone, now running in California.  He has
built bridges, wharves, railroads, stone work, concrete work and , in fact, has
contracted for work in almost every description.  He has maintained a prominent
position in business circles, and is now president of the St. John Shipbuilding
Company, president of the Portland Sand Company, and a member of the firm of
Paquet, Giebisch & Joplin Company, contractors.  He has two pile drivers which
he uses in contract work, two fish wheels at the foot of the Cascade rapids, and
an eight hundred acre ranch thirteen miles from Portland, and considerable
property in Portland, all of which interests he continues to manage and still
has time for occasional hunting and fishing trips, which constitute his chief
source of rest and recreation. His life has, indeed, been a busy and useful one,
and he occupies a prominent position among the contractors and business men of
Portland.
     On the 25th of December, 1870, in Oregon City, Mr. Paquet married Miss Mary
Elizabeth Blottenberger, whose parents were of American birth, although the name
is undoubtedly of German origin.  In 1865 they became residents of Oregon.  Mr.
and Mrs. Paquet have three children:  Mary, the wife of Albert E. Gebhardt;
Joseph David, who married Clara Washburne and Francis Gilbert, sixteen years of
age.  They also reared a daughter of Mr. Paquet's sister, now twenty years of
age.
     While leading a very busy life, Mr. Paquet has found time to devote to
public interests.  He served as school director in East Portland for nearly six
years and was chairman of the board when the cities were consolidated in 1891.
He served as school clerk in Portland for a year and was a member of the port of
Portland commission for about a year.  He usually supports the republican party
but does not hesitate to scratch from the ticket the name of a man whom he does
not regard as well qualified for office.  He is a strongly temperate man, never
using liquor or tobacco in any form, and the many sterling qualities which he
has displayed throughout his entire life have gained for him the confidence,
good will and high regard of those with whom he has been associated.

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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in April 2006 by Diana Smith.  Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.