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,^[10] 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.^[11] She set sail from New York on the long voyage through the Straits of Magellan around Cape Horn up the Pacific Coast to Portland.^[12]

Corbett arrived on March 5, 1851, in Portland, a city of little over 821 souls^[13] 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.^[14]

He had embarked on the steamship Empire City from New York and crossed the Isthmus of Panama on the "hurricane deck of a mule" (there was no Panama Canal until 1914 over ten years after his death). 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 to 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.^[14]

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".^[15]

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 the 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".^[16] 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.^[17]

Front St. in Portland in 1852. H.W. Corbett, third from right in stove pipe hat, in year after he arrived.
(Oregon Historical Society)

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.^[18] 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.^[18] 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.^[19] Instead he bought out their share in the partnership on August 28, 1852, for $1750.^[20]

Corbett had renamed the store Corbett & McLarens, and became an independent buyer.^[18] 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.^[18] He also offered credit to his customers, which increased his sales against competitors.^[18]

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.^[21]

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.^[22]

H. W. Corbett & Co.

Soon after his return to Portland, Corbett, dissolved the partnership with the McLaren brothers,^[23] 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.^[24]

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.^[25]

The Atlantic shipping terminal was in Colon, Panama.^[26] 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.^[27] Corbett was later instrumental in getting the transcontinental railway connection built direct to Portland in 1883 (see Railways and river transportation below).

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 (arrived April 8, 1851), Josiah Failing (also referred to as Jushua),^[28] and his son Henry Failing and C. H. Lewis (on same boat, June 9, 1851) "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."^[29]

Corbett, Failing and Co.

Henry Failing (1834 – 1898)
Corbett's brother-in-law and a leading Portland businessman
Corbett partnered with him in many business and charitable endeavours

With the acquisition of the First National Bank in 1869 with his brother-in-law Henry Failing (who became President of the bank. Corbett was vice-president) and with Corbett serving as the US Senator in Washington from 1867 to 1873, the combination of their other duties, business acumen and constant drive in recognising new opportunities, meant that their interests went beyond the wholesale merchandise and farm machinery market. In February 1871, Corbett's (previously H.W. Corbett & Co.) and Failing's (originally J. Failing and Co. and then Failing and Hatt) dry goods and hardware businesses were amalgamated into a new major partnership, Corbett, Failing and Co., which became the largest wholesale hardware business in the Pacific Northwest.^[36]

The new partnership agreement stipulated the less demanding role of the two main partners in article six: "Henry Corbett and Henry Failing are not required to give their formal attention to the business of said firm, except as they shall find it convenient so to do – but they and each of them, are not withstanding, entitled to direct and counsel in any and all of the affairs of the firm in the same manner, and like effect as the other partners or either of them."^[37]

In addition to Corbett and Failing, the partners from Oregon were Marshall Millard and Henry's younger brother Edward Failing who came into the partnership from H.W. Corbett & Co. where they were one-sixth partners. James F. Failing came into the new company from Henry Failing's business. (James had initially stayed back in New York with his mother and two sisters in a house on Washington Square when Josiah Failing and his two eldest sons, seventeen-year-old Henry and ten-year-old Edward, had come to Portland on June 9, 1851, just three months after Corbett.^[18] Also included as a partner was Failing's former New York agent John A. Hatt.^[38] Hatt later left the partnership when the arrival of telegraph and train connections with the East made a New York office no longer necessary.^[39] Corbett, Failing and Co were using the Northern Pacific Railroad (Northern Pacific Railroad Fast Freight Line) from New York by April 3, 1884^[40] (see Corbett's involvement in railways below).

Corbett and Henry Failing remained investors, and the new partnership divisions were "Henry W. Corbett and Henry Failing four twentieths each. And John Hatt, Marshall Millard, Edward Failing and James Failing three twentieths each."^[41]

In 1891 Corbett retired from the business, bestowing his share on his eldest son Henry Jagger Corbett. His longtime right hand and partner, who was by then managing the business, wrote:

Dear Sir, … In your letter, you make an allusion to the long time (40 years) you have been engaged in this business and it brings strongly to my mind that these forty years I have been nearly thirty four years with you. This period of over a third of a century covers my entire business life. I need not tell you how much I regret your withdrawal from the firm,... I owe much to your kindness, careful training and good example, and at this moment it is some comfort to me to reflect that I have been faithful to your interests and useful to you for many years. That it may please God to restore you to health and grant you many happy years of life is my hope and prayer.
Yours very truly,
Edward Failing^[42]

Corbett apparently thought so highly of Edward Failing, his former junior partner in his wholesale hardware, merchandise and farm machinery business, that he was later named as one of Corbett's executors in his will ^[43] and was bequeathed by him in his will a financial bequest as well as shares in the First National Bank, but in the event Edward had died before him.^[44]

Oregon Telegraph Company

Corbett formed (with W.S. Ladd and S.G. Reed) the Oregon Telegraph Company in 1862, connecting Portland to the East by telegraph communications.^[45] This meant that Portland could get news and place orders with the eastern US without delays. On March 8, 1964, the mayors of Portland, Maine, and Portland, Oregon, used it to exchange greetings.^[46]

Oregon Stage Line

Posters H.W.Corbett & Co., Proprietor's Oregon Stage Line
(Dale Forster)

Corbett became proprietor in 1865 of the Oregon Stage Line.^[47] This four and six horse stage coach line ran overland daily between Portland, Oregon, and Sacramento, California, and points in between. It appears Corbett used both four and six horse coaches depending on the weight of documents carried, the terrain and weather conditions.^[48] The route ran between Portland and Sacramento going south (and the reverse going north) stopping at Oregon City, Salem, Albany, Corvallis, Eugene, Oakland, Winchester, Roseburg, Canyonville and Jacksonville in Oregon and Yreka, Trinity Centre,^[49] Shasta, Red Bluff, Tehama, Chico, Oroville, Marysville and Sacramento in California. Through ticket holders could stop over at any of these stops going either way.

The stage company provided seven-day daily runs from April–December and twelve-day runs during other months. Later Corbett cut the seven-day run to a six-day run. The steamships to and from San Francisco took five days but only went fortnightly so the stage usually provided a faster means of transport for both mail and passengers.^[50]

There were connecting stage lines running from Sacramento to where the track had reached linking east on to Missouri. These connecting stages were first contracted by Ben Holladay in 1862,^[51] who later sold his stage line to Wells Fargo in 1866.^[52] As the Central Pacific Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad tracks were approaching each other this overland stage-line got shorter.^[53]

Corbett held the contract to carry the mails to Lincoln, California^[54] and San Francisco, only giving up that 640-mile route when it conflicted with his responsibilities as a U.S. senator.^[55]

Railways and river transportation

Corbett was involved in the completion of the transcontinental railway to Portland in 1883. He was one of the original incorporators of the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1864^[56] (and he was a director of Columbia River and Northern Railway Company^[57] ) and had been an early promoter, a principal investor and director of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company (OR&N).^[57] Corbett and Failing were elected as directors of Oregon Railway and Navigation Company (OR&N) in June 1888, along with Henry Villard, Christopher Meyer, John Hubert Hall, Sidney Dillon, Charles S. Colby, Colgate Hoyt, C. H. Lewis, W. S. Ladd, Cyrus A. Dolph, W. H. Holcomb, and S. B. Wiley.^[58] Contemporaneous elections for the Oregon and Transcontinental and the Northern Pacific Terminal Company installed many of the same men on the boards of those companies as well.^[58] The Northern Pacific Terminal Company was to build Portland Union Station. The elections were understood to signal no change at ORNC, underscoring their intent to extend the Farmington Line to the Coeur D'Alene Mines, and were viewed as a defeat of Villard and his initiative to jointly lease property of the Northern Pacific and the Union Pacific.^[58] Corbett took a lead in the reorganisation and completion of the line after it had run into financial trouble in 1873.^[59] The completion of the OR&N line ultimately linked Portland along the Columbia River Gorge through to St. Paul, Minnesota with connections east to the Union Pacific Railroad. The Northern Pacific using this OR&N line was the first transcontinental train to arrive in Portland on September 11, 1883, and was greeted with great celebrations. Thereafter the OR&N and the Northern Pacific jointly operated the eastbound Atlantic Express and the Westbound Pacific Express .^[60] The OR&N later became part of Union Pacific after it bought a controlling interest in 1898.^[61] (From 1936 the railroad operated under the Union Pacific name.)

The O.R.&N.'s "Chicago Special"
(Benjamin Gifford 1901)
(Oregon Historical Society)

Prior to the building of the transcontinental railway, Portland's contact with the outside world – California or the eastern US – was largely by sea. These journeys took a long time: they were made for business; to replenish stocks; visits to family; education in the East; or to see the world. Even the inland routes were largely along rivers.

In May 1869, it became possible to travel by steamboat from Portland up the Columbia River to Umatilla, Oregon, then by stagecoach via Boise, Idaho Territory to the Union Pacific railhead at Kelton, Utah, then a Territory and from there on to localities in the east. This route could save time, but was difficult and hard going as described when teenage W.M.Ladd went with his father's partner C.E.Tilton to the East and Europe.^[62]

Corbett was also involved in building the street railways as an investor and director in the City & Suburban Railway.^[45]

At his death he held substantial holdings in the City & Suburban Railway Company and the Union Pacific Railway.^[18][63]

The First National Bank

In 1869, ten years after the formation of the Ladd and Tilton Bank, Corbett and his brother-in-law Henry Failing (with his father Josiah Failing) purchased almost all the shares of the First National Bank. Corbett held 500 shares, Henry Failing 250 and his father Josiah 50 and they immediately increased the bank's capitalization from $100,000 to $250,000.^[64]

Henry Failing became President of the bank, Corbett the vice-president. Failing held the position until his unexpected death in 1898 when Corbett assumed the President's role until his own death in 1903.

The First National was the only bank in Portland and for a long time the only one West of the Rocky Mountains that was chartered under the National Banking Act.

This 1863 act required nationally chartered banks to hold one third of the capital of the bank in US Treasury bonds. It allowed them in return to issue a uniform bank note backed by the bonds. The amount of the notes not to exceed 90 percent of the value of the bonds. It was intended to make banking safer and guarantee the value of bank notes to in effect create a nationwide currency. In 1865 the U.S. Congress enacted a 10 percent tax on any bank or individual using state bank notes. As a result, a number of banks converted to national charters, but many simply stopped issuing notes. Instead, they began to issue demand deposit money—checking accounts. There was no state-banking act in Oregon until 1907 so other banks at the time (like the Ladd and Tilton) were strictly private proprietorships, without a board, taking deposits and lending money without regulation. The First National Bank in Portland was the exception.^[65]

The First National Bank moved into the first Corbett Building on completion 1870
(Oregon Historical Society)

Shortly after Corbett and the Failings acquired the bank it moved into the Corbett Building, completed in 1870. The Corbett Building on SW 1st Avenue between Alder and Washington was the first fully cast-iron fronted building in the city.

The three-storey building had floor to ceiling windows, an advanced innovation. Its cast-iron frontispieces where manufactured in Baltimore and shipped around Cape Horn.^[66] (The bank subsequently moved into a new bank building built by H.W. Corbett. The present First National Bank Building at 401–409 SW 5th Avenue, designed by Coolidge and Shattuck of Boston, resembling some of the Lincoln memorial classicism, was built in 1916 when the bank outgrew those later quarters and when it was subsequently under the ownership of H.W.Corbett's grandsons).

Corbett and his brother-in-law, Henry Failing proved to be astute bankers. Corbett was a keen investor and trader and the only real politician ^[67] – in the broadest sense – among the merchants of 1851. Corbett was at various times City treasurer of Portland, member of the city council, and chairman of the Republican State central committee.^[65] Elected as a Republican to the United States Senate, he served from March 4, 1867, to March 3, 1873, although Josiah Failing was an Oregon delegate at the second convention that re-nominated Abraham Lincoln and the following one that chose Grant (and he also served as a Republican state chairman).

Corbett's holding in the First National Bank passed to his three grandsons at his death. Abbot Mills was appointed president and subsequently directed the First National Bank's operation for nearly 25 years. The Corbett grandsons Henry Ladd Corbett, Elliott Ruggles Corbett, and Hamilton Forbush Corbett then controlled it with over 60% of the stock while the Failing and C.S. Lewis heirs held most of the rest.^[68] After over sixty years of Corbett family majority involvement, the Corbett brothers sold the bank in 1930^[69] (along with minority shareholders) to Transamerica Corp, which also owned Bank of America and Bancitaly, to concentrate on their real-estate and other investments.^[70] During those years the bank had been regarded as "typifying the extreme conservatism for which Portland had been celebrated for half a century".^[71]

The Oregonian newspaper

The Oregonian newspaper became an influential voice in the development of Portland and the state. It had been founded as a weekly on December 4, 1850. It became a daily in 1861.

Corbett was its proprietor from 1872 to 1877 when he bought control with others after its publisher Henry Pittock had run into financial difficulties. He subsequently sold it back to him when these were resolved.

For a while he used the paper to support his political interests in the state and nationally. When Rutherford B. Hayes was nominated as the Republican presidential standard bearer in 1876 Corbett wrote to him from Washington "…[I] have written to the "Oregonian", which I control, to give to you its most hearty and enthusiastic support".^[72]

Portland downtown development

Worcester Block built by Corbett in 1889 at Third and Oak to Pine St.

Corbett was a leading early developer of downtown Portland and ultimately owned over twenty-seven buildings.^[18] Among them were:

The Corbett & Co. Building he bought in 1853 for his dry goods, hardware and farm implement business (N.E. Corner of Front and Oak).
Corbett & Co expansion in 1858 was the first building he had actually commissioned to be built.^[73]
The Corbett Building. The original Corbett Building was built in 1870 at First Avenue midway on the west side of the block between Alder and Washington (pictured above).^[74]
The Corbett (or Burrell) Block, was built in 1874 at SW Front and Alder.^[75]
The Union Block built in 1879 at First and Stark, which he built with his brother-in-law Henry Failing. (pictured below) ^[76]
The First National Bank Building. The original bank building was built in 1882 at the southeast corner of First and Washington Streets.^[77] which was later replaced as the First National Bank's main building by the present First National Bank Building built in 1916 at 5th Avenue and Stark (when his grandsons controlled the bank).
The Multnomah Building at Fifth and Morrison.^[78]
The Cambridge Block built in 1884 at Third and Morrison.^[79]
The Worcester Block in 1889 at Third and Oak to Pine Sts. (Photo above in this section)
The Marquam Block in 1889 (of which he was part owner).^[80]
The Fifth & Stark Building in 1890.^[81]
The Neustadter Building c. 1892 at Fifth and Ankeny.^[82]
The Hamilton Building in 1893. The six-story building at 529 SW 3rd Ave ^[83] was named in memory Corbett's younger son Hamilton who predeceased him.^[84]

Portland Hotel built by Corbett. (Now site of Pioneer Courthouse Square)
(Oregon Historical Society)

The Portland Hotel, opened in 1890, designed by McKim Mead & White (pictured on right in this section). On eight floors and with 326 bedrooms, the hotel cost over a million dollars and took eight years to build. Corbett completed the building, which had been started and abandoned by railroad magnate Henry Villard on Villard's bankruptcy. Corbett became principal owner and president.^[85] It was then one of the two most luxurious hotels in the West,^[86] second only in size to the Palace Hotel of San Francisco (it occupied the block which is now Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square).

At his death in 1903 Corbett's estate of 27 downtown Portland buildings would increase in value by over 500% within seven years, much of the appreciation due to the financial boom and population growth stimulated by the Lewis and Clark Exposition, which he had chaired.^[18]

Corbett also owned 169 West 45th Street in New York City (just west of what is now known as Times Square), which he instructed be sold in his will to part fund his Portland charitable benefactions.^[87]

Finance, insurance, iron, steel and other

Corbett was president of the Willamette Iron Works, founded in 1865.^[88] The company cast some of the iron fronts for buildings in Portland such as the three storey iron fronted Corbett and Henry Failing built Union Block built in stages between 1879 and 1881 using the city block at 1st and Stark and covering approximately two hundred square feet.^[89] Designed by the architect W. H. Williams. It is stamped with company logo at the time Corbett was its president.^[90]

The Oregon Iron Company was established in 1865 and in 1867 and became the first company in the US to smelt iron on the US West Coast at Oswego, Oregon. The company was incorporated by William S. Ladd and John Green and Henry D. Green.^[91] The smelter operated until April 8, 1869. In early 1872 a group of Eastern and San Francisco capitalists leased the furnace with the option of buying it at the end of two years. Henry W. Corbett, Henry Failing, and W. S. Ladd served on the board of directors during this reorganisation.^[92]

Corbett founded and was president of the Security Savings & Trust Company, one of the leading financing institutions on the West coast.

He was a founder and vice-president of the Oregon Fire and Marine Insurance Company. It was founded by Corbett and William S. Ladd in 1883 and was Portland's first home-based fire insurance company. (Other firms were agents for large national and foreign insurance companies).^[93]

Union Block, cast iron fronted building built by Corbett & Henry Failing from 1879 to 1881
1st and Stark, Portland
The West Shore, June 1, 1882
(Enhanced image courtesy of Susanna Campbell Kuo)

The businesses that he was involved in other than merchandise, banking, railways, telegraph, river transport, stage lines, buildings and newspaper covered in separate sections above also included finance, insurance, iron, steel and others such as:

• The Willamette Iron Works
• The Oregon Fire and Marine Insurance Company
• The Oregon Iron Company
• The Portland Cordage Co.
• The Portland Linseed Oil Co.
• The Portland Rope Works
• The Oregon Transfer Co.
• The Portland Gas Company
• The Trinidad Asphalt Company
• The Macadamized Road Company (built a macadamised toll road where Macadam road is now, running almost parallel with Corbett Ave.).^[88]

Portland public school system

In 1854, apart from the educational institutions H. W. Corbett later helped found and endow, he and Josiah Failing (the immediate past mayor and Henry's father) and William S. Ladd, the then mayor, were responsible for the establishment of a tax funded Portland public school system. Together they paid for a notice in the Oregonian, then the new city's weekly newspaper. The notice called for a public meeting on December 7, 1854, to seek agreement from the taxpayers for the founding of a public school. Josiah Failing reflected their views when he stated that it made much more sense to pay taxes to build schools than to build jails. The citizens agreed.

The first public school building built as such, known as Central School was erected at cost of $7,000 (including $1000 for the land). It opened on May 17, 1858, with Mr. L.L. Terwilliger as principal. By that Summer 280 pupils had been enrolled. It was located on the block where the Portland Hotel was later built and after its demolition is now Pioneer Courthouse Square.

Portland Water Committee

William Sargent Ladd, a business & philanthropic associate of Corbett's, whose eldest daughter Helen K. Ladd married Corbett's eldest son Henry J. Corbett.

Corbett was involved in developing Portland's Municipal water works.^[57] Henry Failing chaired the Water Committee from 1883 to 1898 and Henry Corbett succeeded him in that position from 1998 to 1903.^[18] The 15-member committee also included such civic leaders as C. H. Lewis, Simeon G. Reed and William S. Ladd. The Bull Run reservoir, which they built below Mt. Hood, some 50 miles from Portland, brought gravity-fed mountain water to Portland along cast iron pipes, manufactured at Oswego, Oregon. The superbly designed system and its reservoirs was an enormous undertaking and still today supplies water to the city. The system was built in spite of opposition (water then came out of the Willamette River largely by private contractors) but both Ladd, as one of its leading proponents, along with Failing and Corbett were vindicated when it provided Portland with the cheapest water in the US after Niagara Falls, N.Y.^[18]

Business organizations

Corbett was a charter member of the Arlington Club in Portland; he was instrumental in organising the Portland Board of Trade and was for some years its president; he served on the United States Board of Trade Standing Committee of National Finance and Currency after its foundation in 1868; chaired the Committee of One Hundred, which proposed improvements to Portland's infrastructure. He was also a commissioner of immigration.

Portland Library Association

The Portland Library Building, built in 1893 to house library on ground floor & Portland Art Museum on the second floor
(Oregon Historical Society)

In order to make books easily accessible, Portland merchants began to raise funds for a library and reading room in 1863. US District Court Judge Matthew P. Deady, with William S. Ladd, Henry Failing and others, formed the Portland Mercantile Library Association. In 1864, the association's name was changed to The Library Association of Portland and its constitution and bylaws were adopted. Corbett was one of the founding board members and a trustee.^[105] (Later the Portland Library Association became the Portland Central Library and is now the Multnomah County Central Library.)

The library gave access to books of reference to the citizens of Portland and was housed initially on the second floor of Benjamin Stark's building at First and Stark and then, courtesy of William S. Ladd, at one dollar a year, above the Ladd and Tilton Bank, where it moved to in 1869 and remained for 24 years.

It later moved, as a result of Judge Matthew Deady's leadership, to a purpose-built Romanesque stone building of its own in 1893 on the South side of Stark Street between Seventh (now Broadway) and Park with the Portland Art Museum occupying the second floor. The architect was William M. Whidden of Boston (formerly of McKim, Mead and White, later to found Portland's Whidden & Lewis). It was opened in 1893 under the Presidency of Henry Failing after a generous financial contribution from him to cover the fundraising shortfall.^[106] On Deady's death Failing had succeeded him as president. The present successor building designed by A. E. Doyle (on 10th Street between Taylor, Yamhill and 11th Streets) was opened in 1913 (where portraits of the founders, Judge Matthew Deady, Henry Failing, H. W . Corbett and W. S. Ladd hang on the staircase).^[106]

Portland Art Museum

Corbett conceived the idea of starting an art museum in Portland. The Portland Art Association was founded in 1892 "to make a collection of works of art and to erect and maintain a suitable building in which the same may be studied and exhibited." This institution was one of the first seven art museums to be established in the United States.^[107]

The first trustees were: Henry Failing,^[108] president; H.W. Corbett, vice-president; William M. Ladd (William S. Ladd's eldest son), treasurer; with four others: Holt C. Wilson, Thomas L. Eliot, W. B. Ayer and C. E. S. Wood. All these original trustees and their families later made donations of important artwork to the museum.^[109]

The original museum was located on the upper floor of the Library Association Building, and opened to the public in 1895 in an imposing Romanesque stone building on the South side of Stark Street between Seventh (now Broadway) and Park with the Portland Art Museum occupying the second floor.^[110] Greek casts commissioned by Corbett from the originals in the British Museum and from other important international collections went on display there.

Later Corbett donated in his will the property for the site of the first standalone Portland Art Museum Building together with an endowment for it.^[111] He and Caroline Elliott Ladd (Mrs. William S. Ladd), the widow of his former business associate and mother-in-law of his late eldest son (Henry Jagger Corbett), donated the additional funds for the construction of the building at SW Fifth and Taylor ^[112] and the collection was moved from the second floor of the old Library Building and installed there in 1905.^[113]

First Portland Museum of Art Building (with horse-drawn fire wagon passing). Opened 1905
Purpose-built building gift of Henry Corbett & Caroline Elliott Ladd (Mrs. William S. Ladd)
(City of Portland (OR) Archives. Photo circa 1910)

In 1932, the Portland Art Museum moved to its present location ^[114][115] at 1219 S.W. Park Avenue ^[116] since expanded to take up a second adjoining Park block.^[117] H. W. Corbett and all the founding trustees' families made donations of art to the museum,^[118] which they added to over the decades ^[119] and through following generations.^[109]

Since 1932, when the museum was given more than 750 traditional woodblock Japanese prints from the collection of Mary Andrews Ladd (and her husband William M. Ladd), the museum's Japanese print collection has grown to more than 2,500 works including remarkable works dating from late 17th century up to the present day. Some are unique to the Portland Art Museum, others extremely rare.^[120]

This was the beginning of the Portland Art Museum's pre-eminence ^[121] as one of the most significant Japanese print repositories.^[122] The museum collection also ranges from important French and American Impressionists, Ancient Greek to modern American, African, pre-Columbian and Native American, sculpture, prints and silver.^[109]

William M. Ladd and his wife also amassed a major collection of over 5000 etchings including over 150 Rembrandts and probably one of the world's three most important collections of Whistler etchings (all of which his sister Helen Ladd, Mrs Henry Jagger Corbett, was also separately collecting in concert with him). The other significant Whistler print collections are the S. P. Avery Collection at The New York Public Library and the one at Glasgow University Hunterian Museum and University Library. The greatest part of the William M. Ladd etching collection now forms the "William Mead Ladd: H. V. Jones Bequest Whistler collection" at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in the US Midwest (sold to them in 1917 for a significant amount). This sale was made after Ladd's decision to cover all the obligations on the failure of the Title Guarantee & Trust Company of which he held only a 30% stake at a cost to him of over $2.5 million, even though he was not legally liable to do so.^[123]

Others

Corbett was the founding President of the Portland Pioneer Association in 1872, the forerunner of the Oregon Historical Society, founded in 1892 (his grandson, Elliott R. Corbett, was a subsequent President of the OHS when he obtained the land where the Oregon Historical Society museum and building is now located on S.W. Park Avenue, opposite the Portland Art Museum. Prior to that, the Society had been housed in cramped space above the Portland Auditorium).

Corbett was a founder and trustee together with W. S. Ladd, Henry Failing and C. H. Lewis of the Portland Old Peoples' Home, Children's Home, Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA), City Board of Charities, Homeopathic Hospital.^[57] H.W.Corbett was also president of the Seamen's Friend Society, president of the Boys' and Girls' Aid Society (The home was built especially for children convicted of a first crime so they would not be thrown in prison among hardened criminals)^[124] and other charitable organizations set up to aid the less fortunate.

Education being one of Corbett's central interests, he founded the Portland Academy,^[125] a predecessor educational institution of the present Catlin Gable school,^[126] and was a long-time supporter (and on the board of trustees) of Tualatin Academy and Pacific University.^[127] He was also a trustee and one of the largest donors to Albany Collegiate Institute,^[128] now Lewis & Clark College.^[129] His philanthropy saved the fledgling college from closing in its early years.

He was also president of the board of trustees of the First Presbyterian Church of Portland, and he provided funds towards the erection of the church, built in basalt and sandstone with a spire.^[130] He also supported other Presbyterian churches throughout the Pacific Northwest and Trinity Episcopal Cathedral of Portland.

Corbett, Ladd and Failing bought the first 286 acres (later increased) to create the non-profit River View Cemetery on the Willamette River in 1879 (where they themselves were later buried at the top of the hill in their family plots next door to each other).^[131]

H.W. Corbett donated substantial amounts to charitable causes and institutions during his lifetime and bequeathed endowments of about a tenth of his estate to a number in his will,^[132] as had been his practise from his annual incomes when alive. These included the Portland Art Association (endowment, works of art and land for a new art museum building), The Children's Home, the Young Men's Christian Association, the Portland Academy (to endow a chair for a professor of penmanship and bookkeeping "to the end that penmanship might not become a lost art absolutely"), the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions, money for the building of a Home for Old Ladies (later known as the Anna Lewis Mann Old People's Home), the Boys and Girls Aid Society and the Presbyterian Board for Relief for Disabled Ministers, Widows and Orphans.^[133]

Oregon residences

H.W. Corbett and Henry Failing residences (centre & right) in their Portland city blocks
(Oregon Historical Society)

After his death, his widow Emma continued to live until her death in 1936, aged 89, in the Corbett residence in downtown Portland on Taylor Street (the property occupied the whole Portland city block fronted by S.W. Taylor between 5th and 6th Avenues and backed by S.W. Yamhill).^[139] H.W. Corbett had originally built a Greek Revival style house there in 1854 that was brought around the Horn in 1852 and described as "the first elegant residence to have been built" in Portland^[140] but it was replaced by a more imposing three-story Second Empire style structure in 1874.^[141] With its Corinthian style columns and porches with balustrades, this was the first time full Classical details were used in Portland. The layout was designed for entertaining.^[142]

(When President Grant's recently retired eight year Ambassador to France, visited in June 1874, he told Mrs Corbett that in Paris they would bestow the "Cordon Bleu" upon her cook."^[143] The Corbetts had first engaged their cook when Corbett was a US senator and they had bought a house in Washington, D.C. She had been Lincoln's cook and had come on to them after the President's death. Afterwards she continued to cook for the Corbetts in Oregon^[144] )

Their residence was the last of the great houses in Portland to be built in the Second Empire style (the fashion had been influenced by Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie's reconstruction of the Louvre).^[145] The Henry W. Corbett mansion differed radically from the earlier Portland residences built in the same style. At 825 SW Fifth Avenue the house reflected ideas from buildings that Corbett had seen on his European travels, when he had gathering sketches on architectural styles.^[146] It borrowed the giant pediment designs from the older buildings of the Louvre designed by Du Cerceau. He and his neighbour Henry Failing had returned from Europe with art to fill their homes, decorating their walls with stencilling and painting their ceilings with 'frescoes' in the most fashionable styles of the day.^[147]

However, a few years after Corbett's death it was not the house that became the center of attention. It was 'Mrs. Corbett's cow', which she grazed in the landscaped and tree shaded field adjoining the house located in the centre of Portland. After many years the elegant home, set in its own city block, was surrounded by office buildings, but Mrs. Corbett and the family cow seemingly refused to be intimidated by their new neighbors. This unusual sight was dubbed 'the Million Dollar Cow Pasture' and became one of Portland's sights for visitors and locals alike.

The site on which house, garden and coachhouse stood is now the location of The Duniway Portland, a Hilton Hotel, formerly Portland Hilton Hotel Executive Tower. The hotel's entrance at 545 SW Taylor is almost exactly where the entrance to the coach house had been. The house was situated a bit further East on Taylor nearer 5th Avenue. The cow pasture was located on the other half of the block (at the back of the house) opposite the Pioneer Court House. The cow pasture half block is where her grandsons Henry L. Corbett, Elliott R. Corbett and Hamilton F. Corbett later built the present Pacific Building overlooking the Pioneer Court House.^[148]

Corbett had a farm, the Highlands, that he used as a summer retreat, which he had purchased in 1885 high up on the Columbia River Gorge on the bluff with a panoramic view overlooking the river at the point where it bends somewhat northward. A little over ninety years before, in 1792, the river below had first been seen by a white man when it was charted by one of Captain George Vancouver's ships.^[149] Ten years later, this bluff had first been gazed upon by the first Americans to come overland to the West when Lewis and Clark passed by on the river below.^[149] And around 1812 David Thompson had been the first to map its wilderness for the Hudson's Bay Company.^[149] The farm gave the name to the town of Corbett, later established nearby (the house no longer stands but a gazebo and the great barn remain). The farm was reached by one of Corbett's rail cars after the ORNC railway had been built along the gorge. Visitors disembarked at the Corbett stop (before the road was built) so there was already a Corbett station of sorts when the town was incorporated.

H. W. Corbett's eldest son Henry Jagger Corbett (circa 1887) sometime after his marriage to Helen Kendall Ladd

In 1892 Corbett and his wife built a seaside home The Pines in Seaview, Washington, north of the Columbia River, which still stands there (now run as a resort inn).^[150]

Named after H.W. Corbett

Corbett Avenue in SW Portland is named in his honour.

The town of Corbett, Oregon, on the Columbia Gorge where he had a farm is named after him.

Henry W. Corbett had a World War II 'Liberty' ship named after him (as did other Portland pioneers Henry Failing and William S. Ladd). They were built by the Kaiser's Oregon Shipbuilding Corporation in their new shipyards in Portland.

The SS Henry W. Corbett (#1616) was launched on March 29, 1943, by Mrs. Henry Ladd Corbett. The keel had been laid only twenty days earlier on March 9, 1943. This ship was afterwards lent to the Russian war effort. A portrait of Stalin was found hanging alongside the one of H. W. Corbett in a Russian port when a younger relation went on board.^[151] The SS Henry W. Corbett was never returned and was later renamed by the Russians the Alexander Nevsky after their thirteenth century warrior prince and saint. It was scrapped in 1978.

The SS Henry Failing (#1621) was launched on April 7, 1943, and sailed as a US navy ship and troop transport. It was scrapped in Everett, Washington in 1961.

The SS William S. Ladd (#2084) was launched on September 13, 1943, and was sunk by Kamikaze attack on December 10, 1944, 11 miles south of Dulag, Leyte, Pacific Islands.

Among his descendants are Gretchen Corbett and Winslow Corbett, television and stage actresses.