Henry W. Corbett

American businessman, politician, and philanthropist (1827–1903)

Henry Winslow Corbett (February 18, 1827March 31, 1903) was an American businessman, politician, civic benefactor, and philanthropist in the state of Oregon. A native of Massachusetts, he spent his early life in the East and New York before moving to the Oregon Territory. He was a prominent figure in the early development of Portland, Oregon, and was involved in numerous business ventures there, starting in general merchandise. His interests later included banking, finance, insurance, river shipping, stage lines, railways, telegraph, iron and steel and the erection of Portland downtown buildings among other enterprises. A Republican, he served as a United States senator from 1867 to 1873.

Corbett was born in Westborough, Massachusetts, on February 18, 1827. Of English descent, born into a family that had settled in Massachusetts in the seventeenth century, his parents were Elijah and Melinda Corbett. He was the youngest son, the fifth child, of a family of eight. His father became the first edge tool manufacturer in Westborough, Massachusetts, and later moved his business to Washington County in New York. When he retired, he moved his family to Cambridge, New York, where he had a hotel and farm. He died in 1845. There were three sons Joel Hamilton Corbett, the eldest and ten years Henry's senior, Elijah Corbett III, who was slightly over two years older than Henry. Elijah was to follow his younger brother, Henry, to Portland in 1854 followed by his two surviving younger sisters Mary Freeland Corbett (Mrs. Thomas Robertson who with her husband was to move to Portland in 1856) and Emily Phelps Corbett (later to marry Henry Failing in Portland in 1858). H. W. Corbett and these three siblings lived in Portland until their deaths. In 1831, Corbett moved with his parents to the town of White Creek, New York, in 1831.

Corbett, foreseeing this new US territory's promise, then subject to US law, formed a three year 50/50 partnership, signed October 12, 1850, 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. She set sail from New York on the long voyage through the Straits of Magellan around Cape Horn up the Pacific Coast to Portland. Corbett arrived on March 5, 1851, in Portland, a city of little over 821 souls 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. 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. 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". 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. 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. Instead he bought out their share in the partnership on August 28, 1852, for $1750. Corbett had renamed the store Corbett & McLarens, and became an independent buyer. 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. 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.

Soon after his return to Portland, Corbett, dissolved the partnership with the McLaren brothers, 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. 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. The Atlantic shipping terminal was in Colon, Panama. 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. 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), 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."

On February 14, 1859, eight years after Corbett's arrival there, Oregon became a state. In 1860 Corbett changed his business to a wholesale hardware and farm implement business. He became a leading dealer in various eight horse threshers and reapers and was one of the leading outlets for the McCormick reaper. He instructed his agent in New York at Samuel Roosevelt and Co., Samuel House, that his orders marked "Steamer" he was to "send by Isthmus [of Panama], the balance for first good clipper [around Horn]". These fast sailing ships were more numerous to San Francisco: some clippers went there first and then transhipped to Portland. who in 1857 when he was sixteen had first started to work at H. W. Corbett and Co when he had finished school, and M. B. Millard. Each became a sixth interest partner in H. W. Corbett and Co. Edward had been only ten when he first came out to Portland with his father Josiah Failing and older brother Henry Failing, who was then seventeen and later became Corbett's brother in law. By September 1867 H. W. Corbett & Co. had its own office in New York City and was no longer employing an agent. In 1869 John West and associates established the first salmon canning factory on the Oregon side of the Columbia River and H. W. Corbett & Co. shipped the canned salmon to New York.

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. 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." 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. Hatt later left the partnership when the arrival of telegraph and train connections with the East made a New York office no longer necessary. Corbett, Failing and Co were using the Northern Pacific Railroad (Northern Pacific Railroad Fast Freight Line) from New York by April 3, 1884 (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." 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

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 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.

Corbett was involved in numerous other businesses.

Corbett formed (with W. S. Ladd and S. G. Reed) the Oregon Telegraph Company in 1862, connecting Portland to the East by telegraph communications. 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.

Corbett became proprietor in 1865 of the Oregon Stage Line. 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. 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, 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. 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, who later sold his stage line to Wells Fargo in 1866. As the Central Pacific Railroad and Union Pacific Railroad tracks were approaching each other this overland stage line got shorter. Corbett held the contract to carry the mails to Lincoln, California and San Francisco, only giving up that 640 mile route when it conflicted with his responsibilities as a U. S. senator.

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 (and he was a director of Columbia River and Northern Railway Company ) and had been an early promoter, a principal investor and director of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company (OR&N). 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. 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 The OR&N later became part of Union Pacific after it bought a controlling interest in 1898. (From 1936 the railroad operated under the Union Pacific name.) 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. Corbett was also involved in building the street railways as an investor and director in the City & Suburban Railway.

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. 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. 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. (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 – 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. After over sixty years of Corbett family majority involvement, the Corbett brothers sold the bank in 1930 (along with minority shareholders) to Transamerica Corp, which also owned Bank of America and Bancitaly, to concentrate on their real estate and other investments. During those years the bank had been regarded as "typifying the extreme conservatism for which Portland had been celebrated for half a century".

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".

Corbett was a leading early developer of downtown Portland and ultimately owned over twenty seven buildings. 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). The Corbett (or Burrell) Block, was built in 1874 at SW Front and Alder. The Union Block built in 1879 at First and Stark, which he built with his brother in law Henry Failing. (pictured below)
The First National Bank Building. The original bank building was built in 1882 at the southeast corner of First and Washington Streets. 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. The Cambridge Block built in 1884 at Third and Morrison. 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). The Fifth & Stark Building in 1890. The Neustadter Building c. 1892 at Fifth and Ankeny. The Hamilton Building in 1893. The six story building at 529 SW 3rd Ave was named in memory Corbett's younger son Hamilton who predeceased him. 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. It was then one of the two most luxurious hotels in the West, 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.

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. and other charitable organizations set up to aid the less fortunate. Education being one of Corbett's central interests, he founded the Portland Academy, a predecessor educational institution of the present Catlin Gabel school, and was a long time supporter (and on the board of trustees) of Tualatin Academy and Pacific University. He was also a trustee and one of the largest donors to Albany Collegiate Institute, now Lewis & Clark College. 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. 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). 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, 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.

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). 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 but it was replaced by a more imposing three story Second Empire style structure in 1874. 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. (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." 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 )

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). 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

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. 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.

In later years Corbett was responsible (as President of the Portland Pioneer Association) for the planning of the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, the Portland world's fair (officially named the Lewis and Clark Centennial and American Pacific Exposition and Oriental Fair) earning him the accolade of "Father of the Exposition" (Corbett was also one of its main benefactors). It would be the first world's fair on the West Coast and became known as "The Great Extravaganza". It would be modelled on the successful 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, the 1893 Chicago World's Fair (World's Columbian Exposition), and a 1904 Fair scheduled for St. Louis (the Louisiana Purchase Exposition). As chair, H. W. Corbett chose the blue ribbon executive board, whose membership was ratified by a mass citizen's meeting in November 1901. The extent of his lifetime achievement, together with that of his fellow Portland pioneers, became evident when he presided in 1901 over these arrangements 20 foreign nations participated with Japan's million dollar exhibit being the largest. The participating nations were the US, Japan, Great Britain, the British Empire nations, Italy, France, Germany, Russia, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Hungary and Austria. During its four and a half months, 1,588,000 paying visitors passed through the gates to the 400 acre fairgrounds. More than 400,000 were from outside the Pacific Northwest, a huge number of visitors for a city of approximately 120,000 residents. It did much to demonstrate the national status of the United States as having become not just an Atlantic but a Pacific nation and a gateway to Asia. Portland in the process became a city of world note in 1905.</blockquote>

The Oregon Journal, the evening paper, headlined the report on its front page and continued it on its second page on the day of his death: A NOBLE CAREER ENDS IN THE DEATH OF HONOURABLE HENRY WINSLOW CORBETT Oregon's Sterling Citizen Called Suddenly to Eternity Valuable Life of the Great Man of Oregon Always Prominent in the Affairs of the State Kind and Gentle of Disposition and Beloved by All. The Daily Oregon Statesman in the state's capitol Salem, led with and used most of its front page in reporting the event on the afternoon of his death with: GRAND OLD MAN OF OREGON DEAD Hon. Henry W. Corbett Ex United States Senator Expires in Portland Was One of Oregon's Most Honoured Citizens and His Death Will Cause a Vacancy Which Will Be Most Difficult to Fulfill—Was One of the Principal Builders of State and Portland Prominent in Politics.