Shively, J. M. (John M.)

John M. Shively was a native of Kentucky. He came overland to Oregon in 1843 and laid out the a town site at Astoria in 1844. Forced from the area by the Hudson's Bay Company, he eventually went to Washington, D.C. and participated in the negotiations between the U.S. and Great Britain over the status of the Oregon Territory. He was appointed postmaster at Astoria, Oregon, by President Polk, and later he promoted an unsuccessful scheme to inaugurate steamship service between Oregon and New York via Panama. His son was Charles W. Shively who served as Superintendent of Public Instruction for Clatsop County, Oregon in the 1890s.

A native of Shelbyville, Kentucky, John M. Shively was born April 2, 1804. After teaching school in the early 1830s, he went into the dry goods business and married Martha Meade Johnson in 1836. After his wife died in 1842, Shively crossed the plains to Oregon the following year. In 1844 he settled on half of the land claim of Bennett O'Neil at the mouth of the Columbia River at Astoria, where he began to lay out a town site. He eventually took over O'Neil's claim but came into conflict with other claimants, including Jesse Applegate. The Hudson's Bay Company forced Shively from the area, and eventually he went to Washington, D.C. to advise the U.S. Congress on matters relating to the rivalry with Great Britain over the Oregon Territory. In Washington he married his second wife, Susan Elliott, and there he aided in the negotiations between the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the British minister Sir Richard Pakenham. He was then appointed by President James K. Polk as postmaster in Astoria, Oregon -- the first U.S. postmaster west of the Rocky Mountains. In 1846 he published Route and Distances to Oregon and California; with a description of watering-places, crossings, dangerous Indians, etc., etc., in which he shared with travelers the experience he had gained from his overland crossings. By 1847 he was back in Astoria and serving as both postmaster and justice of the peace from his house at what is now the corner of 15th and Exchange Streets. He went to California in 1849, and there he gathered funds (possibly through gold prospecting) and developed a scheme to establish steamship service between New York and Oregon via Panama. He purchased a steam engine and brought it back to Oregon by schooner, but the ship was wrecked at the mouth of the Rogue River and the plan was abandoned. He returned to Astoria where he administered his extensive land holdings and remained until his death in 1893.

Charles W. Shively was born in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1839, the son of John M. Shively and his first wife, Martha Meade Shively. Coming to Oregon with his father around 1847, he grew up in Astoria and held various positions throughout the area. He studied dentistry in San Francisco in 1860 and wrote articles for the Alta Californian . He worked at many different occupations, serving for a time as purser and freight clerk on the steamer Active between Portland and Victoria, British Columbia. Settling finally in Astoria in 1876, he was elected Superintendent of Public Instruction of Clatsop County in 1889. His wife was Annie M. Dielschneider, a native of Prussia, whom he married in 1869.