Francis William Pettygrove (c. 1812 – October 5, 1887) was an American pioneer and merchant who was one of the founders of the cities of Portland, Oregon, and Port Townsend, Washington.

Later that year he paid $50 for half of a land claim on which he and Asa Lovejoy laid out a town named Portland after the port city in Pettygrove's home state.

Teamed with Benjamin Stark, who bought Lovejoy's half-interest in the town site in 1845, Pettygrove engaged in a highly profitable three-cornered trade between Portland, San Francisco, and Hawaii.

Making money in his stores and warehouses, in trades of lumber, grain, and salted fish, and in real-estate deals, Pettygrove by 1848 was one of the richest men in the Oregon Territory.

When the California Gold Rush drew potential laborers from Oregon and threatened Pettygrove's short-term prospects, he sold his assets in Portland and vicinity.

[2] Stopping first in Vancouver, Pettygrove arranged with the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) for a schooner to take his store goods up the Willamette River to Oregon City.

[2] Strongly encouraged by John Couch, a sea captain who considered The Clearing a good site for a river port, they hired Thomas A.

Brown and his assistant, James Terwilliger, a blacksmith, laid the town out more compactly than usual on a grid of 16 square blocks, 200 feet (61 m) to a side.

[3] Pettygrove built a small log store near the river, hired a married couple to run it, and commissioned the building of a wharf.

The three men then arranged to have Stark act as Pettygrove's supercargo on the Toulon, trading lumber, wheat, salted fish, and other goods between San Francisco, Honolulu, and Portland.

To increase profits from cattle, Pettygrove built a slaughterhouse along the river and sold hides to Daniel H. Lownsdale, who had opened the first tannery on the Pacific Coast on a tract just west of the town site.

Scouting the area for a likely spot, they met Alfred A. Plummer and Charles Bachelder, who had filed land claims near a bay on the northeastern corner of the Olympic Peninsula.

[10] Lovejoy and Pettygrove used a copper Matron Head penny, dated 1835, in their coin flip to determine Portland's name.