After marrying Amos Short in 1829, Esther (Clark) Short, who was 1/2 Algonquin Indian and originally from Tioga County, Pennsylvania, traveled west with her husband and 10 children to Linton, Oregon, in 1845 and moved again to the present site of downtown Vancouver in 1847. At that time the area was under the Treaty of Occupation, under which England and America shared rights to the territory from 1818 to 1846. The Shorts' claim included most of Vancouver west of the Witness Tree on the banks of the Columbia River, later becoming Main Street to what is now Fourth Plain Blvd. Hudson’s Bay Company officials at the fort resented the family and tried hard to evict Amos and Esther by destroying their fences and by other means. On one occasion while Amos was away, they loaded Esther and her children into a boat and set them adrift on the Columbia, but they somehow made their way back to shore. After that Amos kept a gun and used it, once killing two men; a court found that he had acted in self defense. To further his income, Amos took a load of potatoes to San Francisco, but he drowned in 1853 when the Vandalia, the ship he was on, sank at the mouth of the Columbia River on his return trip. After his death, Esther continued helping to build Vancouver, then known as Columbia City, and in 1855 donated 5.4 acres for a public square. It is the oldest park in the state of Washington and is considered the oldest designated city park in the West. She also donated a long riverfront section for a public wharf that is now owned by the Port of Vancouver. Vancouver was incorporated two years later on January 23, 1857. Esther died June 28, 1862.