The Fur-Traders, their Bateaux, and their Stations
Importance of the Fur-trade as Connected with all Other Parts of the
History--Fur-hunters Compared with Gold-hunters--Sea-otter--Ledyard's
Exploration--The European Inaugurators of the Trade--Beginnings of the
American Trade--The Great British Companies and their Struggles with
the French--Mackenzie's Journey across the Continent--Thompson's
Descent of the Columbia--Union of the Two Great Canadian
Companies--The American Fur Companies--Henry's Fort--The Winship
Enterprise on the River--John Jacob Astor and the Pacific Fur
Company--Rivalry with the North-westers--Arrangements for Expeditions
by Land and Sea, and the Personnel of these--Voyage of the _Tonquin_
and her Disastrous Approach of the River--Founding of
Astoria--Appearance of Thompson and the North-westers--Interior
Expedition and Founding of Fort Okonogan--McDougall, the Smallpox
Chief and Bridegroom of the Indian Princess--Evil Tidings in Regard to
the _Tonquin_--Other Disasters--War of 1812 and Sale of Astoria to the
North-westers--Restoration of Astoria to the Americans--Monopolisation
of the River by the Hudson's Bay Company--Their Expeditions--Hard Lot
of Madame Dorion and her Children--Adventures of Alexander Ross--The
Forts and General Plan of Work--Fort Vancouver and its Remarkable
Advantages--Dr. McLoughlin, or the "White Eagle"--Profits of the
Fur-trade--The Canoes and Bateaux and the _Voyageurs_--The Routes of
the Brigades--Later Americans.
As the reader will doubtless already have discovered, we are presenting
the history of the River topically rather than chronologically. The
various great stages of progress, discovery by sea, discovery by land,
fur-trade, Indian wars, missionary undertakings, international contests,
beginnings of steamboat navigation, and settlement, overlap each other,
and each topic compels us in a measure to anticipate its successors. This
is especially true of the topic treated of in this chapter.
The fur-trade was an important factor in the eras of discovery both by
land and by sea, in the Indian wars and in the era of settlement, while
the strife of nations for the possession of the land of Oregon is almost a
history of the fur companies and their international policies. Remembering
this synthetic nature of these features of our history, we shall
endeavour, with as little repetition as possible, to present a coherent
picture of that great era of the fur-traders.
Without doubt one of the earliest uses to which man has put the lower
animals is that of clothing his body in their captured skins. The
acquisition of furs has been a special feature of the colder climes. It is
obviously also a feature of discovery and conquest, for it is the
wilderness only which yields any considerable number of fur-producing
animals. Thus navigation, commerce, discovery, invention, economics,
finally international wars and policies, have been rooted to a large
degree in this primal business. The fur-hunters have held the hunters of
gold and precious stones and spicery a close race in the rank of world
movers. Indeed it may well be questioned whether results of greater moment
to humanity have not proceeded from the quest for furs than from that for
gold.
The Spaniards expended their energies in the gold and silver hunt in
Mexico and Peru and annihilated the races of those lands in their pitiless
rapacity. The other great exploring nations of the sixteenth century,
especially the French, while not indifferent to the possibility of
encountering the precious metals, found more certain and permanent results
in the less feverish and dazzling pursuit of the wild animals of the
wilderness. Neither the hunters for gold nor those for peltries were the
state-builders and home-builders without whom our American Union would not
exist. But they were the avant-couriers of both. Our land of Oregon has
had the peculiar fortune of being opened by both for both.
China furnished the most active and convenient market for furs to those
who secured their supplies on the Pacific Coast of North America. The
Russians were the first Europeans to enter the Chinese market, and they
began their voyages as early as 1741.
The sea-otter seems to have had its chief habitat on the Pacific shore
from Oregon to Alaska, and, as the ships of all nations began to crowd
upon the location of the fabled Strait of Anian, the trade with the
natives for these precious furs became constantly augmented, until the
curious and interesting creatures, so fatally attractive, were added to
the long list of "lower creatures" whom the greed of the "higher
creatures" has exterminated. A book by Coxe published in London in 1787
first made known to the English-speaking people the rich profits of the
Russians from the transportation of the sea-otter skins to China. He
instanced a case of a profit of $50,000 from a single cargo. It had,
however, been known in 1785 from the report of the voyage of Captain Cook
that the North-west Coast of America contained a new source of wealth from
the accumulation of these furs by the Indians and their eager desire to
trade them for trinkets and implements of civilised manufacture.
The first American to comprehend the greatness of the fur-trade on the
North-west Coast of the Pacific, both as a means of profit to himself and
as a patriotic impulse to direct his own nation into the channels of
westward expansion, was John Ledyard. Thomas Jefferson and John Paul Jones
became deeply interested in Ledyard's extravagant hopes of future wealth
and glory, but all his efforts came to naught, and in 1788 this brilliant
adventurer, just on the eve of setting out to explore the interior of
Africa, suddenly put an end to his own life at Cairo, Egypt. Ledyard
should always be remembered by his countrymen, for, though his glowing
visions were unfulfilled, he was an important link in the great chain
which bound Oregon to our own country.
During these same years, several Englishmen, already noted in the chapter
on discovery, Portlock, Dixon, Hanna, Barclay, and Meares, were actively
engaged in the fur-trade, while the voyages of La Perouse and Marchand
carried the flag of France on the same quest, and Spain's once illustrious
emblem of world dominion was borne by Quadra, Valdes, Galiano, Fidalgo,
Quimper, Caamano, and several others. While these explorers all were
impelled in part by national pride and diplomacy, the hope of sharing the
spoils of the sea-otter droves was the chief lure to the tempestuous seas
of the North Pacific.
In Bullfinch's _Oregon and El Dorado_ is a very interesting narration of
the inception of the American part in the fur-trade of Oregon. In a
building known as the Coolidge Building in Boston a company were gathered
together in 1787 discussing the reports, then first made public, of Cook's
voyages. Mr. Joseph Barrell, a rich merchant of Boston, was much impressed
with Cook's account of the chances of barter with the Indians for furs and
the disposal of them in China for yet more profitable cargoes of teas,
silks, and other characteristic commodities of that land. As a result of
this conference, a company was formed in Boston to prosecute such
enterprise, the members of the company, Messrs. Barrell, Brown, Bulfinch,
Darby, Hatch, and Pintard, being among the foremost of the business men in
Boston in that good year of the creation of the American Constitution.
The enterprising Yankees rapidly drew to the front, so that during the
years from 1790 to 1818, the records show one hundred and eight American
vessels regularly engaged in the business, while only twenty-two English,
with a few Portuguese and French are found. It should, of course be
remembered that the tremendous strife of the Napoleonic Wars was
engrossing the attention of European nations during that time. So well
known did the Boston navigators become in that period that the common name
of Americans used by the Oregon Indians was "Bostons." Robert Gray, the
discoverer of the Columbia River, was fitted out by Bulfinch and others of
the first Boston Company. During the period under consideration the
profits of the traffic were usually very great, though variable, sometimes
actual losses being incurred, while disaster from wreck, storm, scurvy,
and murderous Indians was frequent. During the two years, 1786 and 1787,
if Dixon is to be followed, there were sold in Canton five thousand eight
hundred sea-otter hides for $160,700. Swan figures that with the four
years ending with 1802, forty-eight thousand five hundred skins were sold.
Sturgis states that he knew a capital of $50,000 to yield a gross income
of $284,000. He relates that he had collected as high as six thousand fine
skins in a single voyage and once secured five hundred and sixty of the
best quality in one day. The Indians, however, learned to become very
expert traders, and as they discovered the eagerness with which the whites
sought their furs, they raised the price. They became, moreover, very
capricious and unreliable, so that the phenomenal profits could no longer
be obtained.
The stage of the history of the fur-trade of which we have thus far spoken
may be called its first era of a free-for-all rush to the new seas, with
no vast moneyed interests in any position of leadership. But commercial
conditions were already in existence which were bound to reverse the
situation.
Great operators, gigantic companies, foreshadowings of the great trusts of
the present, with monopolistic aims, were seeking the ear of the British
Government, while enterprises, larger, though not so monopolistic, were
rapidly forming in the United States. The great monopolies of Europe had
indeed existed long prior to the period of the Oregon fur-traders. As far
back as the beginning of the sixteenth century, De Monts, Pontgrave,
Champlain, and other great French explorers had secured monopolies on the
fur-trade from Louis XIII. and his minister, Richelieu. Later La Salle,
Hennepin, D'Iberville, and others had the same advantages. The St.
Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and the upper Mississippi were the great
"preserve" of these great concessionaires. The English and their American
Colonists set themselves in battle array against the monopolistic Bourbon
methods of handling the vast domain which the genius and enterprise of De
Monts and Champlain had won for France, with the result that upon the
heights of Abraham the Fleur-de-Lis was lowered before the Cross of St.
George, and North America became English instead of Gallic, and one of the
world's milestones was set for good. Then by one of those beautiful
ironies of history which baffle all prescience, victorious Britain
violated the principles of her own conquest and adopted the methods of
Bourbon tyranny and monopoly, with the result that another milestone was
set on the highway of liberty and the new continent became American
instead of European.
But out of the struggles of that century, French, English, and American,
out of the final distribution of territory, by which England retained
Canada and with it a large French and Indian population, mingled with
English and Scotch,--out of these curious comminglings, economic,
commercial, political, religious, and ethnic, grew the great English fur
companies, whose history was largely wrought out on the shores of the
Columbia, and from whose juxtaposition with the American State-builder the
romance and epic grandeur of the history of the River largely comes.
Many enterprises were started by the French and English in the seventeenth
century, but the Hudson's Bay Company became the Goliath of them all. The
first charter of this gigantic organisation was granted in 1670 by Charles
II. to Prince Rupert and seventeen others, with a capital stock of ten
thousand five hundred pounds. From this small beginning, the profits were
so great that, notwithstanding the loss of two hundred thousand pounds
from the French wars during the latter part of the century, the Company
declared dividends of from twenty-five to fifty per cent.
The field of operations was gradually extended from the south-eastern
regions contiguous to Hudson's Bay until it embraced the vast and dreary
expanses of snowy prairie traversed by the Saskatchewan, the Athabasca,
the Peace, and finally the Mackenzie. Many of the greatest expeditions by
land under British auspices which resulted in great geographical
discoveries were primarily designed for the expansion of the fur-trade.
Just at the critical moment, both for the great Canadian Fur Company, as
well as for discovery and acquisition in the region of the Columbia, a
most important and remarkable champion entered the lists. This was the
North-west Fur Company of Montreal. It was one of the legitimate
consequences of the treaty of Paris in 1763, ceding Canada to Great
Britain. The French in Canada became British subjects by that treaty, and
many of them had extensive interests as well as experience in the fur
business. Furthermore a number of Scotchmen of great enterprise and
intelligence betook themselves to Canada, eager to partake of the
boundless opportunities offered by the new shuffle of the cards. These
Scotchmen and Frenchmen became natural partners in the foundation of
enterprises independent of the Hudson's Bay monopoly. In 1783 a group of
the boldest and most energetic of these active spirits, of whom the
leaders were McGillivray, McTavish, Benjamin and Joseph Frobisher,
Rechebleve, Thain, and Frazer, united in the formation of the North-west
Fur Company. Bitter rivalry soon arose between the new company and the old
monopoly. Following the usual history of special privilege, the old
company, which had now been in existence one hundred and thirteen years,
had learned to depend more on privilege than on enterprise, and had become
somewhat degenerate. The North-westers "rustled" for new business in new
regions. In 1789 Alexander Mackenzie, as one of the North-westers, made
his way, with incredible hardship, down the river which bears his name to
the Frozen Ocean. A few years later he made the first journey to the shore
of the Pacific, commemorating his course by painting on a rock on the
shore of the Cascade Inlet, north-east of Vancouver Island, these words:
"Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the twenty-second of July, one
thousand seven hundred and ninety-three."
As a result of the new undertakings set on foot by the North-westers and
the reawakened Hudson's Bay Company, both companies entered the Columbia
Valley. The struggle for possession of Oregon between the English and
American fur companies and their government was on. In the summer of 1810
David Thompson of the North-west company crossed the continental divide by
the Athabasca Pass in latitude 52 deg. 25'. The North-westers had heard of the
Astor enterprise in New York and realised that they must be up and doing
if they would control the land of the Oregon. Although the character of
soil, climate, and productions of the Columbia Valley was but imperfectly
known, enough had been derived from Lewis and Clark, and from ocean
discoveries to make it plain that the Columbia furnished the most
convenient access to the interior from the sea, and that its numerous
tributaries furnished a network of boatable waters unequalled on the
Western slope, while there was every reason to suppose that its forests
abounded in fur-bearing animals and that its climate would admit of much
longer seasons of work than was possible in the biting winters of the
Athabasca. It became vital to the continental magnitude of the designs of
the Canadian companies that they control Oregon.
For greater topical clearness we will anticipate a little at this point
and state that after several years of intense rivalry it became plain to
the British Parliament that it was suicidal to allow a policy of division
in the face of a common enemy. Hence in 1821, by act of Parliament, the
two companies were reorganised and united under a charter which was to
last twenty-one years (and as a matter of fact was renewed at the end of
that time), and under the provisions of which the North-westers were to
have equal shares in both stock and offices, though the name of the
Hudson's Bay Company, was retained. It will be remembered therefore, that
up to the year 1821, the two great Canadian companies were distinct, and
that during that time the North-west Company was much the more active and
aggressive in the Columbia Valley, but that after that date the entire
force of the Canadian Companies was combined under the name of the old
monopoly. But however bitter the first enmity of the Canadian rivals, they
agreed on the general proposition that the Americans must be checkmated,
and during the score of years prior to their coalition they were seizing
the pivotal points of the Oregon country. During the next two decades
they created a vast network of forts and stations, and reduced the country
contiguous to the River and its tributaries to a system so elaborate and
interesting as to be worthy of extended study. We can sketch only its more
general features. And the more perfectly to understand them, we must
arrest here the story of the great Canadian monopoly and bring up the
movement of the American fur companies.
It may be noted, first of all, that by reason of the quicker colonisation
and settlement and consequent establishment of agriculture and other arts
pertaining to home life, the region of the United States east of the
Mississippi never became the natural habitat of the trapper and fur-trader
to anything like the degree of Canada and the western part of our own
land. Nevertheless extensive fur interests grew up on the Mississippi
during the French regime, and in 1763-4 August and Pierre Choteau located
a trading post on the present site of St. Louis, and the fascinating
history of that great capital began.
Most of the American trading companies confined their operations to the
east side of the Rocky Mountains. But the Missouri Fur Company of St.
Louis, composed of a miscellaneous group of Americans and
Hispano-Gallo-Americans, under the presidency of Manuel Lisa, a bold and
enterprising Spaniard, took a step over the crest of the mountains and
established the first trading post upon the waters of the Columbia. This
was in 1809. Andrew Henry, one of the partners of the aforesaid company,
crossed the mountains in that year and a year later built a fort on a
branch of Snake River. This seems to have been on what subsequently
became known as Henry's River. It was in one of the wildest and grandest
regions of all that wild grand section of Snake River. Henry's River
drains the north side of the Three Tetons, while the south branch, known
afterwards as Lewis and finally as Snake River, drains the south of that
group of mountains. _Henry must be remembered as the first American and
the first white man recorded in history who built any structure upon any
tributary of our River, and the year was 1810._ Both Henry and his Company
had hopes of accomplishing great things in the way of the fur-trade in
that very favourable region. But the next year the Indians were so
threatening that the fort was forsaken and the party returned to the
Missouri. When the Hunt party in the fall of 1811 sought refuge at this
point they found only a group of abandoned huts, with no provisions or
equipment of which they could make any use.
But though Henry's fort was but a transient matter, his American
countrymen were beginning to press through the open gateways of both
mountain and sea. In the early part of 1809 the Winship brothers of
Boston, together with several other keen-sighted Yankees, formed a project
for a definite post on the Columbia River, proposing to reach their
destination by ship. Accordingly they fitted out an old vessel known as
the _Albatross_, with Nathan Winship as captain, William Gale as captain's
assistant, and William Smith as first mate. Captain Gale kept a journal of
the entire enterprise, and it is one of the most interesting and valuable
of the many ship's records of the North-western Coast.
Setting sail with a crew of twenty-two men and an excellent supply of
stores and ammunition, and abundance of tools and hardware for erecting
needful buildings, the _Albatross_ left Boston in the summer of 1809.
After a slow and tedious, but very healthful and comfortable voyage,
stopping at the Hawaiian Islands on the route, the _Albatross_ reached the
mouth of the Columbia River on May 26, 1810. Many American and other ships
had entered the mouth of the River prior to that date, but so far as known
none had ascended any considerable distance. Apparently Gray and Broughton
were the only shipmasters who had ascended above the wide expanse now
known as Gray's Bay, while the Lewis and Clark expedition contained the
only white men who had seen the river above tide-water. The Winship
enterprise may be regarded with great interest, therefore, as the first
real attempt to plant a permanent establishment on the banks of the River.
Winship and his companions spent some days in careful examination of the
river banks and as a result of their search they decided on a strip of
valley land formed by a narrowing of the River on the north and an
indentation of the mountain on the south. This pleasant strip of fertile
land is located on the south bank of the lordly stream, and its lower end
is about forty-five miles from the ocean. Being partially covered with a
beautiful grove of oak trees, the first to be seen on the ascent of the
River, the place received the name of Oak Point. It may be noted that this
name was subsequently transferred to a promontory nearly opposite on the
north bank, and this circumstance has led many to locate erroneously the
site of the first buildings designed for permanent use on the banks of
the Columbia. And such these were, for the Lewis and Clark structures at
what they called Fort Clatsop, erected four and a half years earlier, were
meant only for a winter's use. But the Winship party had glowing visions
of a great emporium of the fur-trade, another Montreal or St. Louis, to
inaugurate a new era for their country and themselves. They designed
paying the Indians for their lands and in every way treating them justly.
They seem in short to have had a very high conception of the dignity and
worth of their enterprise. They were worthy of the highest success, and
the student of to-day cannot but grieve that their high hopes were dashed
with disaster.
Tying the _Albatross_ to the bank on June 4th, they entered at once with
great energy on the task of felling trees, rearing a large log house,
clearing a garden spot, in which they at once began the planting of seeds,
and getting ready to trade with the natives. But within four days the
River began to rise rapidly, and the busy fort-builders perceived to their
dismay that they had located on land subject to inundation. All the work
thus far done went for naught, and they pulled their fort to pieces and
floated the logs down stream a quarter of a mile to a higher place. There
they resumed their buildings with redoubled energy. But within a week a
much more dangerous situation again, and this time permanently, arrested
their grand project. This time it was the very men toward whom they had
entertained such just and benevolent designs, the Indians, who thwarted
the plans. For, as Captain Gale narrates in a most entertaining manner, a
large body of Chinooks and Cheheeles, armed with bows and arrows, and some
muskets, made their appearance, announcing that they were on their way to
war against the Culaworth tribe who had killed one of their chiefs a year
before. But the next day the Indians massing themselves about the whites,
gave such plain indications that the previous declaration was a pretence
that the party hastily got into a position of defence. Their cannon on
board the _Albatross_ had already been loaded in anticipation of
emergencies, and so plain was it that they could make a deadly defence
that the threatened attack did not come. A long "pow-wow" ensued instead,
and the Chinooks insisted that the builders must select a site lower down
the river. After due consideration the party decided that any determined
opposition by the Indians would so impair their enterprise, even though
they might be able to defend themselves, that it would be best to seek a
new location. Accordingly they reloaded their effects, dropped down the
River, and finally decided to make a voyage down the California coast and
return the next year. Return they did, but by that time the next year the
Pacific Fur Company had already located at Astoria the first permanent
American settlement, and the Winship enterprise faded away. That the
design of the Winships was not at all chimerical is apparent from the fact
that within twenty years the Hudson's Bay Company had made of Vancouver,
sixty miles farther up the River, the very kind of a trading entrepot of
which the Winships had dreamed. Their dream was reasonable, but the time
and place were unpropitious.
A quotation from Captain Gale's journal will give a conception of his
feelings:
June 12th.--The ship dropped further down the River, and it was now
determined to abandon all attempts to force a settlement. We have
taken off the goats and hogs which were left on shore for the use of
the settlement, and thus we have to abandon the business, after
having, with great difficulty and labour, got about forty-five miles
above Cape Disappointment; and with great trouble began to clear the
land and build a house a second time, after cutting timber enough to
finish nearly one-half, and having two of our hands disabled in the
work. It is, indeed, cutting to be obliged to knuckle to those whom
you have not the least fear of, but whom, from motives of prudence,
you are obliged to treat with forbearance. What can be more
disagreeable than to sit at the table with a number of these rascally
chiefs, who while they supply their greedy mouths with your food with
one hand, their bloods boil within them to cut your throat with the
other, without the least provocation.
On the way out of the River Captain Winship learned that the Chinooks
designed capturing his vessel, and would doubtless have done so, had not
his vigilance prevented.
While the crew of the _Albatross_ were engaged in these adventures the
largest American Fur Company yet formed was getting ready to effect a
lodgment on the shores of the Columbia. This was the Pacific Fur Company.
John Jacob Astor was the founder of this enterprise. Though unfortunate in
almost every feature of its history and its final outcome, this company
had a magnificent conception, a royal grandeur of opportunity, and it
possessed also the felicity, shared by no one of its predecessors, of the
genius of a great literary star to illuminate its records. To Washington
Irving it owes much of its fame. Yet the commercial genius of Astor could
not prevent errors of judgment by the management any more than the
literary genius of Irving was able to conceal their errors, or the genius
of American liberty able to order events so as to prevent victory for a
time by the "Britishers." As we view the history in the large it may be
that we shall conclude that the British triumph at first was the best
introduction to American triumph in the end.
John Jacob Astor may, perhaps, be justly regarded as the first of the
great promoters or financial magnates who have made the United States the
world's El Dorado. Coming from Germany to this land of opportunity after
the close of the Revolutionary War, he soon manifested that keen intuition
in money matters, as well as intense devotion to accumulation, which has
led to the colossal fortunes of his own descendants and of the other
multimillionaires of this age. Having made quite a fortune by transporting
furs to London, Mr. Astor turned to larger fields. With his broad and keen
geographical and commercial insight, he could readily grasp the same fact
which the North-westers of Montreal were also considering, that the
Columbia River might well become the key to an international fur-trade, as
well as a strategic point for American expansion westward. He made
overtures to the North-westers for a partnership, but they declined. Then
he determined to be the chief manager, and to associate individual
Americans and Canadians with himself. With the promptitude of the skilful
general, he proceeded to form his company and make his plan of campaign in
time to anticipate the apparent designs of the active Canadians. They saw,
as well as Astor did, the magnitude of the stake and at once made ready to
play their part. For, as already noted, David Thompson crossed the Rockies
by the Athabasca Pass in 1810, spent the winter at Lake Windermere on the
Columbia River, and in the summer of 1811 reached Astoria, only to find
the Astor Company already established there. It should be especially noted
that the Thompson party was the first to descend the River from near its
source to the ocean, although of course Lewis and Clark had anticipated
them on the portion below the junction of the Snake with the main River.
Mr. Astor's plans provided for an expedition by sea and one by land. The
first was to convey stores and equipment for founding and defending the
proposed capital of the empire of the fur-traders. Of the expedition by
land under Hunt we have already given a full account in the preceding
chapter, since its events rather allied it to the era of exploration than
that of the traders. The organisation of Mr. Astor's company provided that
there should be a capital stock of a hundred shares, of which he should
hold half and his associates half. Mr. Astor was to furnish the money,
though not to exceed four hundred thousand dollars, and was to bear all
losses for five years. The term of the association was fixed at twenty
years, though with the privilege of dissolving it in five years if it
proved unprofitable. The general plan and the details of the expedition
had been decided upon by the master mind of the founder with statesmanlike
ability. It comes, therefore, as a surprise to the reader that Mr. Astor
should have made a capital mistake at the very beginning of his
undertaking. This mistake was in the selection of his associates and the
captains of some of his ships. Of the partners, five were Americans and
five were Canadians. Two only of the Americans remained with the company
long enough to have any determining influence on its policies. Take the
fact that the majority of the active partners and almost all the clerks,
trappers, and other employees of the company were Canadians, and put it
beside the other fact that war was imminent with Great Britain and did
actually break out within two years, and the dangerous nature of the
situation can be seen. Of the ship-captains, the first one, Captain
Jonathan Thorn of the _Tonquin_, was a man of such overbearing and
obstinate nature that disaster seemed to be fairly invited by placing him
in such vitally responsible a position. The captain of the second ship,
the _Beaver_, was Cornelius Sowles, and he seems to have been as timid and
irresolute as Captain Thorn was bold and implacable. Both lacked judgment.
It was probably natural that Mr. Astor, having had his main prior
experience as a fur-dealer in connection with the Canadians centring at
Montreal, should have looked in that direction for associates. But
inasmuch as war between England and the United States seemed a practical
certainty, it was a great error, in founding a vast enterprise in remote
regions whose ownership was not yet definitely recognised, to share with
citizens of Great Britain the determination of the important issues of the
enterprise. It would have saved Mr. Astor great loss and chagrin if he had
observed the maxim: "Put none but Americans on guard." As to the captains
of the two vessels, that was an error that any one might have made. Yet
for a man of Astor's exceptional ability and shrewdness to err so
conspicuously in judging the character of the men appointed to such
important places seems indeed strange.
[Illustration: Astoria in 1845. From an Old Print.]
[Illustration: Astoria. Looking up and across the Columbia River. Photo.
by Woodfield.]
To these facts in regard to the personnel of the partners, the captains,
and the force, must be added two others; _i. e._, war and shipwreck. The
combination of all these conditions made the history of the Astoria
enterprise what it was. Yet, with all of its adversity, this was one of
the best conceived, and, in most of its details, the best equipped and
executed of all the great enterprises which have appeared in the
commercial history of our country. As an element in the development of the
land of the Oregon, it must be accorded the first place after the period
of discovery.
The _Tonquin_ left New York on September 6, 1810. She carried a fine
equipment of all things needed for founding the proposed emporium. She was
manned by a crew of twenty-one and conveyed members of the fur-trading
force to the number of thirty-three. Stopping at the Sandwich Islands, an
added force of twenty-four natives was taken aboard. At various times on
the journey the rigid ideas of naval discipline and the imperious temper
of Captain Thorn came near producing mutiny among the partners and clerks.
When the _Tonquin_ hove to off the mouth of the Columbia on March 22,
1811, the eager voyagers saw little to attract. The wind was blowing in
heavy squalls, and the sea ran high. Nevertheless the hard-hearted Captain
issued orders to the first mate, Fox, with a boat's crew of four men, to
go into the foaming waves and sound the channel. The boat was
insufficiently provided, and it seemed scarcely short of murder to
despatch a crew under such circumstances. But the tyrannical captain would
listen to no remonstrances, and the poor little boat went tossing over the
billows on her forlorn hope. Such indeed it proved to be, for neither
boat nor any one of the crew was ever heard of again. This was a wholly
unnecessary sacrifice of life, for the _Tonquin_ was in no danger, and
time could just as well have been taken for more propitious weather.
The next day, the wind and sea having abated, the _Tonquin_ drew near the
dreaded bar, but, no entrance that satisfied the captain appearing, the
ship again stood off to spend the night in deep water. On the next day,
the 24th, the wind fell and a serene sky seemed to invite another attempt.
The pinnace in command of Mr. Aikin, with two white men and two Kanakas,
was sent out to find the channel. Following the pinnace the ship moved in
so rapidly under a freshening breeze that she passed the pinnace, the
unfortunate men on board finding it impossible to effect an entrance and
being borne by the refluent current into the mad surge where ocean tide
and outflowing river met in foamy strife. So the pinnace disappeared. But
meanwhile the crew had all their energies engaged to save the _Tonquin_.
For the wind failed at the critical moment and the ship struck the sands
with violence. Night came on. Had the men been classically trained (as in
fact Franchere was) they might have remembered Virgil, _Ponto nox incubat
atra_. But they had no time for classical or other quotations. Hastily
dropping the anchors they lay to in the midst of the tumult of waters, in
that worst of situations, on an unknown coast in the dark and in storm.
But as Franchere expresses it, Providence came to their succour, and the
tide flooding and the wind rising, they weighed the anchors, and in spite
of the obscurity of the night, they gained a safe harbour in a little
cove inside of Cape Disappointment, apparently just about abreast of the
present town of Ilwaco.
Thus the _Tonquin_ was saved, and with the light of morning it could be
seen that she was fairly within the bar. Natives soon made their
appearance, desirous of trading beaver-skins. But the crew were in no mood
for commerce while any hope existed for finding the lost sailors. Taking a
course toward the shore by what must have been nearly the present route
from Ilwaco to Long Beach, the captain and a party with him, began a
search and soon found Weeks, one of the crew of the pinnace. He was stark
naked and suffering intensely from the cold. As soon as sufficiently
revived he narrated the loss of the pinnace in the breakers, the death of
three of the crew, and the casting of himself and one of the Kanakas upon
the beach. The point where they were cast would seem to have been near the
present location of the life-saving station.
The two survivors of the ill-fated pinnace having been revived, the party
returned to the _Tonquin_, which was now riding safely at anchor in the
bay on the north side of the river, named Baker's Bay by Broughton
nineteen years before. Joy for their own escape from such imminent perils
was mingled with melancholy at the loss of their eight companions of the
two boats, and with the melancholy there was a sense of bitterness toward
the captain, who was to blame, at least for the loss of the small boat.
But now the new land was all before them where to choose, and since
Captain Thorn was in great haste to depart and begin his trading cruise
along the coast, the partners on the _Tonquin_, Messrs. McKay, McDougal,
David Stuart, and Robert Stuart, decided somewhat hurriedly to locate at
the point which had received from Lieutenant Broughton the name of Point
George. Franchere gives a pleasant picture of the beauty of the trees and
sky, and the surprise of the party to find that, though it was only the
12th of April when they set to work upon the great trees which covered the
site of their chosen capital, yet spring was already far advanced. They
did not then understand the effect of the Japan current upon the Pacific
Coast climate.
An incident of special interest soon after landing was the appearance on
June 15th of two strange Indians, a man and a woman, bearing a letter
addressed to _Mr. John Stuart, Fort Estekatadene, New Caledonia_. These
two Indians wore long robes of dressed deerskins with leggings and
moccasins more like the Indians of the Rocky Mountains. They could not
understand the speech of the Astoria Indians nor of any of the mixture of
dialects which the white men tried on them, until one of the Canadian
clerks addressed them in the Knisteneaux language with which they seemed
to be partially familiar. After several days of stay at the fort the two
wandering Indians succeeded in making it clear to the traders that they
had been sent out by a clerk named Finnan McDonald of the North-west Fur
Company from a fort which that company had just established on the Spokane
River. They said that they had lost their way and in consequence had
descended the _Tacousah-Tessah_ (and this Franchere understood to be the
Indian name for the Columbia, though the general impression among the
Indians is that Tacousah-Tessah, or Tacoutche-Tesse, signified Frazer
River). From the revelation gradually drawn from these two Indians (and
the surprising discovery was made that they were both women) the very
important conclusion was drawn that the North-west Fur Company was already
prepared to contest with the Astor Company the possession of the River.
The peculiar feature of the situation was that the most of the Astorians,
though American by the existing business tie, were Canadian and British by
blood and sympathy, and hence were very likely to fraternise with the
Montreal traders.
[Illustration: One of the Lagoons of the Upper Columbia River, near
Golden, B. C. Photo. by C. F. Yates, Golden.]
[Illustration: Saddle Mt., or Swallalochost, near Astoria, Famous in
Indian Myth. Photo. by Woodfield.]
However the Astorians decided to send an expedition into the interior to
verify the story given by the two Indian women, but, just as they were
ready to go, a large canoe with the British flag floating from her stern
appeared, from which, when it had reached the landing, there leaped ashore
an active, well-dressed man who introduced himself as David Thompson, of
the North-west Company. This was the same man, the reader will remember,
who had crossed the Rocky Mountains the year before, had wintered near the
head of the River, and had then descended it, seeking a location for the
Columbia River emporium of the Canadian company. But he was too late. It
was quite strange by what narrow margins on several occasions the British
failed to forestall the Yankees.
On July 23d the delayed expedition of the Astorians set forth far to the
interior, and as a result of their investigations, David Stuart, in charge
of the party, began the erection of a trading house at the mouth of the
Okanogan, five hundred and forty miles above Astoria. It was on September
2, 1811, that this post was begun, and hence Fort Okanogan may be
regarded as the first American establishment in the present State of
Washington. It was antedated a few months by the post of the North-west
Company at the entrance of the Little Spokane into the Spokane, near the
present site of the City of Spokane.
During the fall of 1811 the Indians around Astoria became very
threatening. Direful rumours, too, in regard to the destruction of the
_Tonquin_ began to disquiet the Astorians. In the emergency the wary
McDougall, then acting as the head of the Company, bethought himself of a
very effective expedient. He had learned that dreadful loss of life among
the Indians had resulted a few years before from smallpox and that the
Indians were mortally afraid of it. Calling into his room several of the
principal chiefs, he asked if they remembered the smallpox. Their serious
faces were sufficient proof that they did. McDougall then held up a small
vial and continued with awful solemnity: "Listen to me. I am the great
smallpox chief. In this little bottle I keep the smallpox. If I uncork the
bottle and let it out I will kill every man, woman, and child of the
Indians. Now go in peace, but if you make war upon us I will open the
bottle, and you will die." The chiefs filed out in terror, and peace was
preserved.
McDougall still further cemented the bond of union with the natives by
becoming united in wedlock with the daughter of Comcomly, the one-eyed
chieftain of the Chinooks. After numerous and thorough ablutions had
somewhat mitigated the oiliness and general fishiness of the Chinook
princess, she was clad in the most brilliant style of the native beauty, a
grand holiday was declared at Astoria, and white men and Indians joined
in the wedding feast and made the welkin ring with their demonstrations.
Thus did the daughter of Comcomly become the first lady of the land, and
thus did peace brood over the broad waters of the lower River.
During the winter of 1811-12 the two instalments of the Hunt party made
their appearance, after their distressful journey from St. Louis as
already narrated in Chapter IV. In May, 1812, the company's ship _Beaver_
arrived from New York, loaded with stores and trading equipment, and
bringing a considerable addition to the force of men. In the following
month sixty men were despatched up-river, and by them a trading post was
located at Spokane and another on the Snake River somewhere near the
present site of Lewiston, while one section of the party went across the
mountains and down the Missouri to convey dispatches to Mr. Astor.
At this stage of the history of the Astoria enterprise, every aspect was
encouraging. The trade in furs on the Spokane, the Okanogan, the Snake,
the Coeur d'Alene was excellent, a successful cruise along the coast by
the _Beaver_ seemed sure, and the Indians about the mouth of the River
were friendly and well disposed. Mr. Astor's great undertaking seemed sure
to be crowned with success. In the midst of all the signs of hope came
tidings of dismay. It became known with certainty that the _Tonquin_ had
been destroyed. This appalling disaster was related directly to the
Astoria Company by the only survivor. This was an Indian of the Chehalis
tribe whose name is given by Irving as Lamazee, by Ross as Lamazu, and by
Bancroft as Lamanse. He had escaped from the Indians who had held him
after the destruction of the _Tonquin_ and had finally found his way to
Astoria, there to tell his tale, one of the most sanguinary in the long
roll of struggles with the Indians. The next great disaster was the
wrecking of the _Lark_, the third of the Company's ships from New York.
During the same period Mr. Hunt, the partner next in rank to Mr. Astor and
the one above all who could have acted wisely and patriotically in the
forthcoming crisis, had gone in the _Beaver_ on a trading cruise among the
Russians of Sitka, and by a most remarkable series of detentions he had
been kept away from Astoria for over a year.
To cap the climax of misfortunes, the War of 1812 burst upon the knowledge
of the fur-traders and seemed to force upon such of the partners as were
of British nationality the question of their paramount duty. As a result
of the crisis, McDougal and McKenzie, although against the wishes of the
other partners present, sold out to the agent of the North-westers, who
had repaired at once to Astoria upon knowledge of the declaration of war.
Thus the great Astoria enterprise was abandoned, and the Stars and Stripes
went down and the Union Jack went up. Soon after the transfer, the British
man-of-war _Raccoon_, Captain Black, arrived at Astoria, expecting to have
seized the place as a rich prize of war. Imagine the disgust of the
expectant British mariners to discover that the post had already been sold
to British subjects, that their long journey was useless, and that their
hopes of prize money had vanished.
With the close of the War of 1812 a series of negotiations between the
ministers of the two countries took place in regard to the possession of
the River, by which it was finally decided that Astoria should be restored
to the United States. Accordingly, on the 6th of October, 1818, the
British Commissioners, Captain F. Hickey, of His Majesty's Ship _Blossom_,
and J. Keith, representing the North-west Fur Company, signed an act of
delivery restoring Fort George (Astoria) to the United States. Mr. J. B.
Prevost, Commissioner for the United States, signed the act of acceptance.
Astoria was once again American property.
[Illustration: Steamer _Beaver_, the First Steamer on the Pacific, 1836.]
[Illustration: Portland, Oregon, in 1851. From an Old Print.]
While the River was now nominally in possession of the United States, it
was practically under the control of the British fur companies. The
Pacific Fur Company ceased to operate, and the North-westers entered upon
active work both by sea and land in exploring the vast and profitable
domain which the misfortunes of their American rivals, supplemented in a
most timely manner by the treachery of McDougall and McKenzie, had put
within their power. The canny Scotchmen, McDougall, McTavish, McKenzie,
McDonald, and the various other Macs who now guided the plans of the
North-westers, signalled their entrance into power by despatching
companies to the various pivotal points of the great Columbia Basin, the
Walla Walla, Yakima, Okanogan, Spokane, and Snake rivers. Two incidents
may be related to illustrate the character of people and the conditions of
that wilderness period.
A party of ninety men in ten canoes left Astoria for up-river points on
April 4, 1814. While passing the mouth of the Yakima, about three hundred
and fifty miles up the River, the men were surprised to see three canoes
putting out from shore and to hear a child's voice calling out, "_Arretez
donc! arretez donc!_" Stopping to investigate, the party found in one of
the boats the Indian wife of Pierre Dorion, with her children. Dorion,
with five other Canadians, had gone the previous summer with a party under
command of John Reed of the Astor Company. While trapping and hunting,
deep in the mountains of Snake River, the party had been massacred by
Indians. The woman and her two boys had alone escaped the massacre. It was
the dead of winter and the snows lay deep on the Blue Mountains. But the
wife of Dorion found shelter in a remote fastness of the mountains,
putting up a bark hut for a shelter and subsisting on the carcasses of
some of her horses. In the spring, the pitiful little company of mother
and children descended to Walla Walla and found there more kindly disposed
natives, who cared for them and turned them over to the protection of the
whites. A more thrilling story of suffering and heroism than this of
Madame Dorion and her children has never come up from the chronicles of
the wild West.
Equally illustrative of the life of the fur-traders is the account given
by Alexander Ross of one of his many adventures in the Columbia country.
In 1814 Ross went from Okanogan to Yakima to secure horses. With him were
four other whites and three Indian women. The Yakima Valley was then as
now a paradise of the Indians. There the tribes gathered by the thousands
in the spring to dig camas, to race horses, and to gamble, as well as to
form alliances and make plans for war. When the little company of traders
reached the encampment, they discovered to their astonishment that it was
a veritable city. Six thousand men, women, and children, with ten thousand
horses, and uncounted dogs and many shackled bears and wolves, were strewn
across the plain. It was a dangerous situation for the traders, for it
became plain to them that the Indians were unfriendly. But assuming an air
of careless bravado, Ross proceeded to display his store of trinkets for
the purpose of starting a traffic in horses. Assuming a very hilarious
manner the Indians would seize and drive away the animals as fast as the
white men got them. Then the Indians began to deprive them of clothes and
food. Finally they made ready to seize their three women as slaves. Ross
managed to have the women escape temporarily, but then the savages were
worse than ever. Matters reached a crisis when an obstreperous chief named
Yaktana snatched a knife from the hands of one of the Canadians. A
desperate struggle was just at the point of breaking out, which would
inevitably have resulted in the death of all the white men, when a sudden
intuition flashed through the quick mind of Ross, and rushing between the
combatants he handed his own knife, a much more elegant one, to Yaktana,
saying in a friendly tone, "This is a chief's knife. Take it and give back
the other." There was an instant revulsion. Yaktana was so much flattered
that he turned at once into a stanch supporter of the shrewd trader. Food
was brought. The horses were restored. Equipment was provided. The three
women were regained, and the company made their way without further
trouble to Okanogan.
We have already mentioned the important fact that in 1821 the two great
Canadian Companies, the North-western and the Hudson's Bay, decided to
unite. With the union, the great era of fur-trade in the Columbia Basin
fairly began, to continue about twenty-five years, yielding then to the
American immigrant. That twenty-five years of the dominance of the great
Fur Company contained nearly all the poetry and romance as well as the
profit and statesmanship of the business. The entire region of the River,
as well as that of the Puget Sound country, was mapped out in a most
systematic manner with one chief central fort, Vancouver on the Columbia.
A more magnificent location for the purpose cannot be conceived. It is now
the site of a flourishing city and of the United States Fort Headquarters
for the North-west, generally conceded to be the finest fort location in
the United States. Fort Vancouver was established in 1825 upon a superb
bench of land gently sloping back from the River for two miles. Great
trees fringed the site, Mt. Hood lifted its pinnacled majesty sixty miles
to the eastward, the sinuous mazes of the Willamette Valley stretched out
far southward, while the lordly River was in full view a dozen miles up
and down. Every natural advantage and delight which wild nature could
offer was here in fullness. Ships could readily ascend the hundred miles
from the ocean to unload their merchandise and take on their cargoes of
precious furs, the furs collected at the outlay of so much toil and
suffering over the area of hundreds of miles. Every species of game and
fish abounded in the waters and along the banks of the River. Deer and elk
tossed their antlers between the stately firs of the upland, and pheasant
and grouse whirred among the branches. Geese, cranes, ducks, and swans, in
countless numbers, darkened the lagoons amid the many islands enclosed by
the mouths of the Willamette and the adjacent waters of the larger stream.
Fish of many varieties, the royal Chinook salmon, king of food fish, being
at the head in beauty and edibility, though surpassed in size by the
gigantic sturgeon, which sometimes weighed a thousand pounds, abounded in
the River. No epicure of the world's capitals could command such viands as
nature brought to the doors of the denizens of Fort Vancouver.
The fort itself was laid out on a scale of amplitude suitable to the
spaciousness of the site. It was enclosed with a picket wall twenty feet
high, with massive buttresses of timber inside. This enclosure was a
parallelogram seven hundred and fifty by five hundred feet. Inside were
about forty buildings, the governor's residence of generous dimensions
being in the centre. Two chapels provided for the spiritual needs of the
company, while schoolhouse, stores, "bachelors' halls," and shops of
various kinds attested the variety of the needs. Along the bank of the
River, outside the enclosure, lay quite a village of cottages for the
married employees, together with hospital, boathouses, granaries,
warehouses, threshing mills, and dairy buildings.
Taken altogether Fort Vancouver was the model fort of the western slope.
Moreover, the fertile soil and genial, humid climate soon encouraged the
factors of the Company to experiment with gardens and orchards, and,
within a few years after founding, fifteen hundred acres of land were in
the finest state of productivity, while three thousand head of cattle,
twenty-five hundred sheep, three hundred brood mares, and over a hundred
milch cows, added their bounteous contributions to the already plentiful
resources of the fort.
With this rich larder, with the spacious buildings, with the annual
arrivals and departures of ships by sea and fleets of bateaux by river,
with hunting trips and Indian policies, with the intercoast traffic with
the Russians on the north and the Spaniards on the south,--there was as
much to engage and delight the minds of these people as if they had lived
in the heart of civilisation.
Any account of Fort Vancouver would be incomplete without some reference
to Dr. John McLoughlin, chief factor of the Company in the Columbia
district from 1824 to the time of his retirement from the Company in 1846
and settlement at Oregon City, Oregon, as an American citizen. Rarely has
any one in the stormy history of the Columbia Basin received such
unvarying and unqualified praise as has this truly great man. Physically,
mentally, and morally, Dr. McLoughlin was altogether exceptional among the
mixed population that gathered about the emporium of the traders. Six feet
four inches in height, his noble and expressive face crowned with a great
cascade of snowy hair, firm yet kindly, prompt and businesslike yet
sympathetic and helpful, "Old Whitehead" or "White Eagle," as the Indians
called him, was a true-born king of men.
We have said that Fort Vancouver was the great central fort. The others
commanding the pivotal points upon the River and its tributaries were
Fort Hall and Fort Boise on the Snake, Spokane House on the Spokane near
the present metropolis of the Inland Empire, Fort Colville on the river of
the same name near its junction with the Columbia, Fort Okanogan at the
junction of the stream of that name with the great River, Fort Owen in the
Coeur d'Alene region, Fort Simcoe in the Yakima country, Fort Walla
Walla, first known as Fort Nez Perce, on the Columbia at the mouth of the
Walla Walla, and Fort George on the former site of Astoria. These forts
were all laid out in the same general fashion as Fort Vancouver, though no
one was so large, elaborate, or comfortable. Besides the forts there were
a number of small trading posts. The chief furs procured in the interior
were beaver, and those on the coast were sea-otter. Many others, as the
mink, sharp-toothed otter, fox, lynx, raccoon, were found in abundance.
The profits of the business were immense. Alexander Ross relates that he
secured one morning before breakfast one hundred and ten beaver skins for
a single yard of white cloth. Ross spent one hundred and eighty-eight days
alone in the Yakima country. During that time he collected one thousand
five hundred and fifty beavers, besides other peltries, worth in the
Canton market two thousand two hundred and fifty pounds, which cost him in
his objects of trade only thirty-five pounds. That was while Ross was
connected with the Astor Company.
In completing this necessarily hurried chapter on the fascinating era of
the fur-traders, we cannot omit a brief reference to the movements of the
regular brigades of boats up and down the River, for these comprised a
great part of both the business and the romance of the age. The course of
these brigades was from the southern shores of Hudson Bay, through
Manitoba, to the crest of the Rockies at the head of the Columbia. Water
was utilised to the greatest possible extent, while at the portages and
across the mountains horse-power and man-power were employed. Once afloat
upon the Columbia, the brigades braved most of the rapids, paying
occasional toll of men and goods to the envious deities of the waters, yet
with marvellous skill and general fortune making their way down the
thousand or more miles from Boat Encampment to Fort Vancouver. The descent
was easy compared with the ascent. The first journey of the east-bound
brigade of the North-westers from Astoria to Montreal was in 1814, and it
required the time from April 4th to May 11th to reach the mouth of Canoe
River, the point at which they entered upon the mountain climb to the head
of the Athabasca.
The boatmen were French-Canadians, a hardy, mercurial, light-hearted race,
half French, with the natural grace and politeness of their race, and
having the pleasant patois which has made them the theme of much popular
present-day literature. They were half Indian, either in tastes and
manners or in blood, with the atmosphere of forests and streams clinging
to every word and gesture. They were perhaps the best boatmen in the
world. Upon those matchless lakes into which the Columbia and its
tributaries expand at intervals the fur-laden boats would glide at ease,
while the wild songs of the _coureurs des bois_ would echo from shore to
shore in lazy sibilations, apparently betokening no thought of serious or
earnest business. But once the rapids were reached, the gay and
rollicking knight of the paddle became all attention. With keen eyes fixed
on every swirl or rock, he guided the light craft with a ready skill which
would be inconceivable to one less daring and experienced. The brigades
would run almost all the rapids from Death Rapids to the sea, making
portages at Kettle Falls, Tumwater or Celilo Falls, and the Cascades,
though at some stages of the water they could run down even them. They
always had to carry around those points in ascending the River. In spite
of all the skill of the _voyageurs_ the Columbia and the Snake, the Pend
Oreille and the Kootenai have exacted a heavy toll of life from those who
have laid their compelling hands upon the white manes of chute and
cataract. Many, even of the _voyageurs_, are the human skeletons that have
whitened the volcanic beds of the great streams.
The boats used by the fur brigades were either log canoes obtained of the
Indians or bateaux. The former were hollowed from the magnificent cedars
which grew on the banks of the River, sometimes fifty or sixty feet long,
with prow carved in fantastic, even beautiful fashion. They would hold
from six to twenty persons with from half a ton to two or three tons of
load, yet were so light that two men could carry one of the medium size
while four could handle one of any size around a portage. But the
_voyageurs_ never took quite so much to the canoes as did the Indians,
whose skill in handling them in high waves is described by Ross and
Franchere as something astonishing. And even the Indians of the present
show much the same ability, though the splendid cedar canoes are no
longer made, and only here and there can one of the picturesque survivors
be seen.
The bateaux were boats of peculiar shape, being built very high and broad
so that in an unloaded condition they seemed to rest on the water almost
like a paper shell. Both ends were high and pointed as prows. They were
propelled with oars and steered with paddles. One of the usual size was
about thirty feet long and five feet wide. Being of light-draft,
double-enders, capable of holding large loads and yet easily conveyed
around portages, more steady and roomy than canoes, these bateaux were the
typical Columbia River medium of commerce during the era of the
fur-traders. They, too, have mainly vanished from the scenes of their
former glory. Canoes, bateaux, cries and yells of Indians, songs of
_voyageurs_, have gone into the engulfing limbo of the bygone, along with
the keen-eyed Scotch factor and the sharp-featured Yankee skipper. Yet the
swans and geese and ducks still darken the more placid expanses of the
River and the salmon still start the widening circles in almost
undiminished numbers, while the glaciated heights of Hood and Adams and
St. Helens (we would rather say Wiyeast, Klickitat, and Loowit) still
stand guard over the unchanging waters.
This part of our topic has mainly centred upon the British possession of
the River. A full history of the fur era on the River would demand a
chapter on the later attempts of three remarkable men to reestablish
American interests in the disputed territory. These men were Jedediah
Smith, Capt. E. L. Bonneville, and Nathaniel J. Wyeth. But though these
men belong properly to this era, their efforts in the fur-trade were
relatively unimportant in comparison with the influence of their lives in
the direction of permanent American occupation. It seemed the appointment
of destiny that the American should play second fiddle to his British
rival in the fur-trade. But as tenfold, a thousandfold compensation, the
American farmers, home-builders, and tradesmen were to acquire final
possession of one of the goodliest lands on which the Stars and Stripes
has ever floated. The bateaux and canoes must needs give way to the
steamboat and the launch, the _coureur des bois_ to the lumberman and the
miner and farmer, and the picturesque emporium of the British fur-trader
on the River to the modern American city. We shall, therefore, more
fittingly chronicle the later American fur-traders as a part of the march
of their countrymen to permanent ownership of Oregon.