Background
George Abernethy was born on October 7, 1807 in New York City, New York, United States; he was of Scottish descent. He was probably the son of William Abernethy, a shoemaker listed in the New York Directory of 1807.
George Abernethy was born on October 7, 1807 in New York City, New York, United States; he was of Scottish descent. He was probably the son of William Abernethy, a shoemaker listed in the New York Directory of 1807.
Abernethy was trained for commercial pursuits, which he followed from an early age. He received his education in New York as well as learning the commercial trade.
In 1839, Reverend Jason Lee, superintendent of the Methodist mission of Oregon, while in the east to recruit the mission's funds and also its personnel, arranged with Abernethy to go to Oregon and assume the financial management of the mission's affairs. With his family, Abernethy sailed around the Horn on the Lausanne, which arrived in Oregon June 1, 1840, bringing also Mr. Lee and a strong reinforcement. This included farmers and craftsmen as well as mission workers. The Lausanne party may be said to have begun the American colonization of Oregon. They cultivated land to a considerable extent, opened an academy, built a mill, and started commercial activity in competition with the Hudson's Bay Company. In all of these enterprises Abernethy bore a leading part and remained for some years the outstanding American business man of the Pacific Northwest.
Some of his projects proved financially disastrous, and an unprecedented freshet in 1861 destroyed the bulk of his physical property, reducing him to very limited circumstances. Until after the middle of the century, however, Abernethy, to most Oregonians, represented, on a smaller scale and under American auspices, what Doctor John McLoughlin and James Douglas represented, as agents of the British Fur Company, at Fort Vancouver. Yet, such was his address, courtesy, and business fairness that these magnates regarded him more in the light of a friend than a rival. Similarly, his conspicuous position with the mission failed to alienate from him the good will of those Americans, whose numbers rose with the successive annual overland immigrations, who were distrustful of the missionary influence in public affairs.
His conciliatory disposition, his quiet dignity and ability to keep his own counsel, made him the natural compromise candidate for governor when, in 1845, the provisional government, begun in 1843, was reorganized with a single executive in place of the former executive committee. The election, though taking place during Abernethy's absence in Hawaii, resulted in giving him a majority of 98 out of a total of 504 votes cast. No adequate analysis of that vote is possible. At the election in 1847, however, when he was again a candidate, it was the votes from the district north of the Columbia, dominated by the Hudson's Bay influence, which secured him his small majority and enabled him to continue in the office until the provisional government was supplanted by the territorial government under General Joseph Lane.
In November 1847 occurred the Whitman massacre, followed by the war against its perpetrators, the Cayuses, and the determined efforts to overcome the apathy of Congress in its attitude toward the Oregon region. The governor's responsibilities were thereby greatly increased, but he met them in a manner to win from his contemporaries, almost universally, the fame of being a just, wise, and capable public officer.
Abernethy was a familiar figure in Portland, where he spent his declining years. His letters and public papers disclose not only a good command of English but some skill in composition--as well as sound judgment in practical matters, and high motives.
Abernethy was a member of the Methodist church.
Quotations: "This is destined to be a very wealthy portion of the United States, and, if to this we can add the most temperate, nothing will prevent our rising, and becoming a valuable acquisition to the union. Much power now lies in your hands, and, I sincerely hope, we may commence our new career with a law in our statute books, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of ardent spirits in Oregon territory. "
In appearance Abernethy was at once unimpressive and decidedly pleasant. Short of stature, with kindly eyes, "soft brown hair, " prominent sloping forehead, smooth upper lip and Quaker beard, he passed among western men for a Yankee and he had many of the traits which are common to Yankee and Scotchman alike.
Quotes from others about the person
"Faithful, gentle, and obliging, devoted always to duty, and recognized as the impersonation of uprightness and honor, no man could be his enemy. " - Harvey W. Scott.
On January 21, 1830, Abernethy was married to Anne Pope. They had two children.