Of the many adventures of the Hunt party on the journey up the Missouri, we cannot speak. For some reason, although taking a more direct route than did Lewis and Clark, and having, to all appearance, a better equipped party, they did not make so good time. Guided by Indians, they crossed chain after chain of mountains, supposing each to be the summit, only to find another yet to succeed. At last on the 15th of September, they stood upon a lofty eminence over which they could gaze both eastward and westward. Scanning attentively the western horizon, the guide pointed out three shining peaks, whose bases, he told them, were touched by a tributary of the Columbia River. These peaks are now known as the Three Tetons.
And now the party set forth upon the long descent of the western slope, pa.s.sing mountain after mountain and stream after stream, some of the way in boats which the _voyageurs_ made from the green timber of the forests, and much of the way being obliged to carry their effects around cataracts and rapids, and thus losing much time. Nevertheless, they found one long stretch of over a hundred miles upon the upper Snake which they navigated with comparative ease. But having reached what is now known as the Seven Devils country in South-western Idaho, they found themselves in a chain of rapids and precipitous bluffs where neither boats nor horses, apparently nothing but wings, could be of service. This was in fact the beginning of over a hundred miles of the most ragged and inaccessible region upon the whole course of the Snake River, a region which even to this day contains neither road nor steamboat route, and by which the great State of Idaho is separated into two divisions, neither directly accessible to the other by any ordinary modes of travel.
After a forty-mile tramp up and down the river, Hunt decided that the only way to escape the difficulties with which they were surrounded, was to divide the party into four divisions, hoping that one of them might find game and a way out of the forbidding volcanic wastes in which they were beleaguered. Two of the parties soon returned. One, being in charge of McKenzie, continued upon its course northward and reached the mouth of the Columbia, without ever again seeing the main party.
During the weeks that followed, the main party, lost amid the great mountains which lie eastward from the present vicinity of Baker City and Wallowa Lake, suffered all the torments of famine and cold. In places the river ran through volcanic sluiceways, roaring and raging; in some cases, although within hearing, yet entirely inaccessible, so that although within sound of its angry raving, the travellers were often obliged to lie down with tongues parched and swollen for lack of water. The party applied to this long volcanic "chute" the name of the Devil"s Scuttle-hole, and to the river they applied the name _La Riviere Maudite Enragee_, or "Accursed Mad River."
The lives of the party were evidently at stake. In the emergency Hunt determined to divide his force into two divisions, one on the north and one on the south side of the river. From the 9th of November until the first part of December they urged on this dismal and heart-sickening march. They pa.s.sed a few wretched Indian camps where they managed to secure dogs for food, and once they got a few horses. The frightened and half-starved Indians could give them no clear information as to the location of the Great River, but they signified that they supposed it to be yet a long way off. The party was evidently approaching something, for gigantic snowy mountains now loomed dimly through the winter mists.
Finding it impossible to make headway against blinding snowstorms and up the icy crags, they turned their course down to the river itself and made a cheerless camp. In the morning they were startled by seeing upon the opposite side of the river, a group of men more wretched and desolate than themselves. It soon appeared that this was the other party, which had entirely failed in finding either food or guidance from the Indians.
Finding it necessary that some provision should be made for these dying men, Hunt constructed a rude canoe from the limbs of trees and the skin of one of the horses. In this crazy craft one of the daring Canadian _voyageurs_ made his way with some of the horse meat, which, poor as it was, was sufficient to save life for the time.
With their little remaining strength, they pressed on down the river until they reached another small village of the wretched Snake Indians. Urging these Indians to provide for them a guide, and at last securing one by the most bounteous offers of rewards, Hunt succeeded in gathering all of his party together, with the exception of six sick men whom they were obliged to leave to the tender mercies of the Indians.
For another fortnight, the cold and hungry party floundered painfully through the snow across the rugged mountains which lie between what we now know as the Powder River Valley and the Grande Ronde. Reaching a lofty mountain height on the last day of December, they looked far down into a fair and snowless prairie, bathed in sunshine and appearing to the winter-worn travellers like a gleam of summer. Moreover, they soon discerned a group of Indian lodges which they judged were well supplied with dogs and horses. Thither hastening eagerly, they soon found themselves in a beautiful valley, which from their description must have been the Grande Ronde Valley. Beautiful at all times, it must have seemed trebly so to these ragged and famished wanderers.
The next morning the new year of 1812 shone in upon them bright and cheerful, as if to make amends for the stern severity of the outgoing year. And now the Canadians insisted upon having their New Year"s holiday.
Not even death and famine could rob the light-hearted _voyageurs_ of their festivals. So with dance and song and with dog meat, roasted, boiled, fried, and frica.s.seed, they met the newly-crowned year with their Gallic happiness and abandon.
The Indians a.s.sured them that they could reach the Great River within three days. But they found it twice that, and their way led across another lofty chain of snowy mountains, before the canopy of clouds which hung above them parted. There, looking far down from their snowy eyre, they beheld the boundless and sunny plains of the Great River. Swiftly descending the slopes of the mountains, they emerged upon that finest land of all Eastern Oregon, the plains of the Umatilla. Here they found the tribe of the Tushepaw Indians with thirty-four lodges and two hundred horses. More significant than these to Hunt were axes, kettles, and other implements of white construction, indicating that these Indians had already come into communication with the traders upon the lower River. In answer to his eager questions, the Tushepaws informed him that the Great River was but two days distant and that a small party of white men had just descended it. Being now certain that this was the advance guard which had left him at the Devil"s Scuttle-hole, Hunt felt sure that they were safe and was therefore relieved of one great anxiety.
After a few days" rest upon the pleasant prairies and in the comparatively genial climate of the Umatilla, the party set forth upon horses obtained from the Tushepaws, and after a pleasant ride of two days across the rolling prairie, they beheld flowing at their feet, a majestic stream, deep and blue, a mile in width, sweeping toward the sunset, evidently the Columbia. At the great falls of the River, known to the Indians as the Timm or the Tumwater, just above what we now call Dalles City, Hunt exchanged his horses for canoes. This last stage of two hundred and twenty miles by boat down the River, was calm and peaceful and a refreshing rest after the distress and disaster of their winter journey through the mountains. Not till the 15th of February, however, did they reach the newly christened town of Astoria. Rounding the bluffs of Tongue Point, they beheld with full hearts the Stars and Stripes floating over the only civilised abode west of St. Louis. Westward they saw the parted headlands between which the River pours its floods into the ocean. As the boats drew near the sh.o.r.e, the whole population, trappers, sailors, and Indians, came down to meet them. Foremost in the crowd they saw the members of the party which had gone on ahead through the Snake River Mountains. Having had no hope that Hunt and his men could survive the famine and the cold, these members of the advance guard were the more rejoiced to see them. The Canadians, with their French vivacity, rushed into each other"s arms, sobbing and hugging like so many schoolgirls. Even the nonchalant Americans and the stiff-jawed Scotchmen smiled and gave themselves up to the gladness of the hour. The next two or three days were mainly devoted to eating and telling stories.
As we have seen, they had lost several of their number from starvation and drowning along the banks of the Snake River. They had also left six sick men with the Indians in the heart of the mountains. They had little hope of ever seeing these again, but the next summer the party on their way up the Columbia River, saw two wretched looking beings, naked and haggard, wandering on the river bank near the mouth of the Umatilla. Stopping to investigate, they discovered that these were Day and Crooks, the leaders of the party which they had left behind. Their forlorn plight was relieved with food and clothes, and, having been taken into the boat, they related their dismal tale. It appeared that they had been provided sufficiently by the Indians to sustain their lives through the winter. In the spring they had left the Canadians among the Indians, and had set forth in the hope of reaching the Great River. But having reached The Dalles, they had been robbed of rifles and ammunition, stripped of their clothing, and driven forth into the wilderness. They were almost at the point of a final surrender to ill-fortune when they beheld the rescuing boat. So, with joyful hearts, they turned their boat"s prow to Astoria, which they reached in safety. But poor Day never regained his health. His mind was shattered by the hardships of his journey, and he soon pined away and died. The barren and rugged sh.o.r.es of the John Day River in Eastern Oregon take on an added interest in view of the sad story of the brave hunter who discovered them, and who wandered in dest.i.tution for so many days beside them. Strange to say, the four Canadians who remained among the Indians were afterwards found alive, though utterly dest.i.tute of all things. Hence it appears that the loss of life in this difficult journey was not great.
The journeys here narrated may be considered as covering what we have designated as the first steps across the wilderness. Within a few years, many parties of trappers, explorers, and adventurers, with some scientists, and a little later, parties of missionaries, made their way over the great plains, through the defiles of the mountains, and down the barren sh.o.r.es of the Snake River to the Columbia and the sea. Each party had its special experiences, and made its special contribution to geographical or commercial advancement. But to the parties led by Lewis and Clark and by Hunt, we must accord the greatest meed of praise for having broken the first pathways across the continent and for having linked the two oceans by the footsteps of civilised men.
CHAPTER V
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 antic.i.p.ate 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 repet.i.tion 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 sh.o.r.e 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 c.o.xe 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 acc.u.mulation 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 Const.i.tution.
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 sh.o.r.es 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 sh.o.r.e of the Pacific, commemorating his course by painting on a rock on the sh.o.r.e 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 Pa.s.s in lat.i.tude 52 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 antic.i.p.ate 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 a.s.sistant, 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 circ.u.mstance 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 ma.s.sing 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.es 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.