Elijah Bristow (1788–1872) was the first white settler to stake a claim and build a permanent cabin in 1846 in the upper Willamette Valley, in what is now Lane County, Oregon, United States.

[2] Crossing the plains by ox team, 58-year-old Bristow spent the winter of 1845 at Sutter's Fort, California, and in June 1846, set out by pony riding north with William Dodson, Felix Scott, and Eugene Skinner on an Indian trail that is now the old territorial road.

[2] They passed through the Siuslaw valley near the present day sites of Lorane, Crow, Elmira and Monroe, to Rickreall.

[2] The company traveled the east side of the Willamette Valley near present-day Salem, south to where the town of Jasper is presently located, and forded the Middle Fork Willamette River to the south side, seeing "a low ridge covered with scattering oak trees with timbered mountains rising above it.

"[2] At Bristow's request, "the first territorial legislature passed an act naming his donation claim of 640 acres, Pleasant Hill.