History of Oregon (Bancroft)/Volume 1/Chapter 2

by Frances Fuller Victor

CHAPTER II.

LIFE AT FORT VANCOUVER.

1825–1846.

Marriage Relations—Fidelity—Social Conditions—McLoughlin—Douglas—Peter Skeen Ogden—Ermatinger—Thomas McKay—Duncan Finlayson—Gairdner and Tolmie—Pambrun—McKinlay—Black—Rae—McLoughlin Junior—Lewes—Dunn—Roberts—Barclay—Manson—McLeod—Birnie, Grant, McBean, McDonald, Maxwell, Ballenden, and McTavish—Patriots and Liberals—Attitude Toward The Settlers—The Blessed Beavers.

So long and so conspicuously before the world stood the metropolitan post of the Pacific, so unique was its position, and so mighty its influence on the settlement and occupation of Oregon, that although I have often briefly noticed the place and its occupants, a closer scrutiny, and further familiarity with its inner life and the characters of its occupants, seem not undesirable or uninteresting at this juncture.

Up to August 1836, Fort Vancouver was a bachelor establishment in character and feeling, if not in fact. The native women who held the relation of wives to the officers of the company were in no sense equal to their station; and this feature of domestic life in Oregon was not a pleasing one. It was with the company a matter of business, but with the individuals it was something different. To be forever debarred from the society of intelligent women of their own race; to become the fathers of half-breed children, with no prospect of transmitting their names to posterity with increasing dignity, as is every right-minded man's desire; to accumulate fortunes to be devoted to anything but ennoblement—such was the present life and the visible future of these gentlemen. The connection was so evidently and purely a business one that, as I have before stated, the native wives and children were excluded from the officers' table, and from social intercourse with visitors, living retired in apartments of their own, and keeping separate tables.^[1]

Not to be degraded by conditions so anomalous presupposes a character of more than ordinary strength and loftiness; and this, a close scrutiny of the lives of the principal officers of the company in Oregon will show. But if there was present no higher motive, they were compelled to a life of comparative virtue by way of example to their subordinates. He who respected not his own marriage relations, or those of others, must suffer for it, either by incurring the wrath of the company,^[2] or the vengeance of the natives, or both. Licentiousness could not be tolerated, and this was one reason why, with so many discordant elements in the service, such perfect order was maintained. And this discipline was as rigidly enforced outside the fort as within it.^[3]

Notwithstanding the conjugal relations here described, society at Fort Vancouver embraced many happy elements, and numbered among its members men who would have graced a court.

Foremost among these, we may be sure, was John McLoughlin, always a pleasing character to contemplate. On the consolidation of the Northwest and Hudson's Bay fur companies, he had been sent to Oregon as chief factor and virtual governor of the great Northwest. He was born in the city of Quebec, of Irish parentage,^[4] in 1784, and educated in Paris for the profession of medicine. He entered the Northwest Company at an early age, and while in their service was stationed at several posts, and finally at Fort Frances, on Lake of the Woods, from which station he was transferred in 1824 to the Columbia River.

Finding Fort George unsuitable for a permanent establishment, such as he desired, he founded Fort Vancouver in 1824–5, leaving the old post at the mouth of the river in charge of Donald Manson. The selection of the new site was fortunate; prosperity reigned, and the days at Fort Vancouver were of the pleasantest in the early annals of the Northwest Coast. Here he held sway for many years, absolute monarch of the district of the Columbia, comprising all the Hudson's Bay trapping-grounds west of the Rocky Mountains, and extending as far south and north as the trapping parties ventured to penetrate.^[5]

Of McLoughlin's personal appearance almost every visitor who came to Fort Vancouver has left a sketch. All agree in representing him as of commanding presence, partly the effect of a tall, well-formed person, somewhat inclined to stoutness, flowing white hair, and a benevolent expression of countenance. He seems to have become gray early in life, for he was only thirty-nine when he came to Oregon. To this fine personal appearance he added courtly manners, and great affability in conversation. With the air of one monarch-born, he was fitted to govern men both by awe and love. Such was the autocrat of the Columbia when he first became known to American traders, missionaries, and settlers. White men and red alike revered him.^[6]

He prevented wars, upheld right and justice, and ruled with a strong, firm hand. Perhaps there is no more difficult office to fill than that of sole arbiter, not only by reason of the numerous cares attending it, but because the struggle of a single will to maintain the mastery of the many requires a great expenditure of mental force. Absolute monarchs must be strict disciplinarians; to relax in the least is to encourage a freedom fatal to their influence. McLoughlin possessed and acted on this knowledge; and like other potentates, acquired a certain quickness of temper that made him the terror of evil-doers, from the trader to the ploughboy.^[7]

This unlimited power carried with it unlimited responsibility, and placed McLoughlin in very delicate positions, not alone with regard to his business with the company,^[8] but also in dealings with and treatment of those who had no connection with the company, and especially Americans, with whom, on account of the political situation of the Oregon Territory, he was especially careful to be in friendly relations, as well for the honor of the company as from a nice sense of justice. Yet it will be seen that he dared to discriminate, as in the cases of Kelley and Young. His liberality of sentiment and freedom from sectarian prejudices were proofs equally of a noble nature and a cultivated mind,^[9] and his energy and genial disposition placed him foremost in every good work.

I might have some doubts as to the propriety of attributing so many high qualities to a single character, were it not that every authority I turn to—and they are numerous—bears me out in it, and compels me to record some small portion of the almost universal praise. McLoughlin did not always please, but in the end most people came to say with Finlayson, "By the light of maturer years, and considering the circumstances under which he was placed, I cannot but express my utmost admiration of his character."

While McLoughlin was at Fort William, on Lake Superior, James Douglas, a youth of seventeen, was sent there from Scotland, and placed in the service of the company. McLoughlin was to him as an elder brother. For years they were constantly associated.^[10]

Tall like McLoughlin, but unlike the doctor he was dark and grave, as was the Black Douglas, the strongest pillar of the Scottish throne. Unlike the doctor, too, he was not quick or enthusiastic, but painstaking, cool, methodical, and resolute. His manners were by some thought pompous; but courtly bearing,^[11] in a man of his size and gravity of deportment, must partake somewhat of pomp. I think he impressed all the early settlers of Oregon as being much less approachable than the doctor, while at the same time they could but admire his bearing toward them.^[12]

Next in rank at Fort Vancouver was Peter Skeen Ogden, son of Chief Justice Ogden of Quebec. His father had been a loyalist, in early times, in New York, and had emigrated to Canada. Young Ogden was for a short time in the service of Mr Astor, and later of the Northwest Company, from which he was transferred to the Hudson's Bay Company. He had been active in establishing posts and negotiating commercial relations with Indian tribes. In one of his expeditions he discovered the Humboldt River.^[13] Ogden was a contrast in every way to McLoughlin and Douglas, being short, dark-skinned, and rather rough in his manner, but lively and witty, and a favorite with everybody.^[14] He died at Oregon City in 1854, aged sixty years.^[15]

Frank Ermatinger was another person of note at Vancouver; a stout Englishman, jovial and companionable, but rather too much given to strong drink. He was a successful trader, and was sent out to compete with the American fur companies in the Flathead and Nez Percé countries. Afterward, when Oregon City had been established, he took charge of the company's business there, and figured a little in American affairs, being much esteemed by the settlers. Allan, a brother clerk, says he was sometimes styled Bardolph at the fort, from the color and size of his nose; that he was fond of talking, and would address himself to the governor in all humors when others stood aloof, bearding the lion in his den, as the clerks called it, and being met sometimes with a growl. "Frank," said the governor, "does nothing but bow, wow, wow!"^[16]

One of the most noted story-tellers of the bachelor's hall was Thomas McKay, a step-son of McLoughlin—for the doctor's wife was an Ojibway woman, formerly the wife of Alexander McKay, who was lost on the Tonquin. Thomas McKay acquired a reputation for daring which made him the terror of the Indians. Townsend, who met him at Fort Vancouver, said he often spoke of the death of his father with the bitter animosity and love of vengeance inherited from his Indian mother; and that he declared he would yet be known on this coast as the avenger of blood. But had he been in truth so bloody-minded he could hardly have been so successful a trader. He was undoubtedly brave, and led many a trading party into the dreaded Blackfoot country; and was accustomed to amuse the clerks at Fort Vancouver with his wonderful adventures. In telling a story, says Allan, he invariably commenced, "It rained, it rained; and it blew, it blew"—often throwing in by way of climax, "and, my God, how it did snow! "quite regardless of the unities.

McKay was tall, dark, and powerful in appearance, and often strange in his deportment. Perhaps the tragical fate of his father had impressed him, as well as the recollection that in his own veins ran savage blood. His first wife was a Chinook, the mother of William McKay of Pendleton, who was brought up in McLoughlin's household, and afterward sent to the east to be educated. His second wife, the mother of the famous scout, Donald McKay, half-brother of William McKay, was a half-breed daughter of Montoure, a confidential clerk of the company. They were married at Vancouver by Blanchet.^[17]

Duncan Finlayson, one of the many Scotchmen in the company's service, came to Fort Vancouver in 1831 remaining there until 1837. It is believed by those who know best that the council in London were for some reason dissatisfied with McLoughlin's management, and sent out Finlayson to keep an eye on him. He had no direct charge, yet was consulted on all points by the head of the department. Matters of this kind were kept close at Fort Vancouver. By the light of subsequent events, however, it seems probable that the London council were dissatisfied with the invasion of the territory west of the Rocky Mountains by the American companies, and desired more vigorous opposition. But McLoughlin, however irritated, was too just to visit his anger upon the company's agent, who remained at Fort Vancouver on the most amicable terms with its governor.

Previous to 1833 there had been no physician at Fort Vancouver, except Doctor McLoughlin, who, through the epidemic of 1830 and the several seasons of fever that followed, suffered much fatigue from care of the sick, and much annoyance from the interruption of his business. In 1833 two young surgeons came out from Scotland, Gairdner and Tolmie. They had for their patron Sir William Hooker. Gairdner had been studying under the celebrated Ehrenberg. He was surgeon at Fort Vancouver from 1833 to 1835, but being troubled with hemorrhage of the lungs went to the Hawaiian Islands in the autumn of the latter year, where he died. Being a young man of high attainments, his death was much deplored. Dr Gairdner made a study of the salmon of the Columbia River, and his authority on their habits is still high.

William Frazer Tolmie, his associate, was from the University of Glasgow, and made botany a study. He had been at Fort Vancouver but a few months when he was assigned to the post on Millbank Sound. Returning to Fort Vancouver in 1836, he served in the medical department for several years.

Thus we see that there was no lack of good society at Fort Vancouver. Besides the residents, there were many gentlemen scattered over the country at the different posts, and in the field as traders, leading trapping parties, and carrying on commercial warfare with the American companies, and usually getting the better of them, owing to a superior organization and a better quality of goods.

Prominent among the chief clerks who had charge of posts in the interior was Pierre C. Pambrun, for several years in charge of Fort Walla Walla, where he dispensed hospitality with a free hand.^[18]

Archibald McKinlay, who succeeded Pambrun at Walla Walla, was another Scotchman who had been in the service of the Northwest Company. Genial and stout-hearted,^[19] he was a worthy successor of the favorite Pambrun, and the friend and ally afterward of the American missionaries in the upper country. He possessed that very necessary acquirement in an Indian country, knowledge of the native character.^[20] I am aware that it was a common belief among the early settlers, because the Hudson's Bay people were less frequently attacked than others, that they enjoyed immunity; but such was not the case.^[21] Nothing but their uniform just treatment, and the firmness and intrepidity of the leaders and officers in charge, preserved this apparent security. Except in the vicinity of Fort Vancouver, or among the diseased and wasted tribes of the Willamette and Columbia valleys, there needed to be exercised sleepless vigilance, and a scrupulous regard to the superstitions of the different tribes.

Chief Factor Samuel Black, in charge of Fort Kamloop at the junction of Fraser and Thompson rivers, was a great favorite, and many were the stories told of him.^[22] His murder by one of the fort Indians shows that, though he had been among them many years, he was no more safe from their fury or superstition than were others.^[23]

William Glen Rae, a large, handsome man, educated at Edinburgh, was a native of the Orkney Islands. From 1834 to 1837 he was employed as trader at the different posts, and was then appointed head clerk at Fort Vancouver. In 1838 he married Maria Eloise, daughter of Dr McLoughlin, soon after which he was appointed chief trader, and sent to Stikeen River in 1840 to receive from the Russians their fort at that place, leased to the Hudson's Bay Company. He left the post at Stikeen in charge of John McLoughlin, son of Dr McLoughlin and brother of his wife. In 1841 he was sent to California to take charge of the company's business, which continued under his management until his death by his own hand in 1846.^[24]

John McLoughlin, junior, second son of Dr McLoughlin, was but a young man to be placed in charge of a fort, and appears to have been in no way worthy of the name he bore. About a year after Mr Rae left him at Stikeen he was murdered by his own men, Canadians and kanakas. An account of the affair is given in the History of the Northwest Coast. One who knew him called him too young and hot-headed for such service; but there is reason to think that he brought about his own death by his debaucheries.^[25] Sir George Simpson, who investigated the murder, treated it in such a way as to incur the life-long displeasure of Dr McLoughlin. This, however, was not the only cause for offence,^[26] a tacit disagreement having existed for at least ten years between the resident governor of the Hudson's Bay Company and the 'emperor of the west.' Sir George was of humble though respectable origin, a Scottish family of Caithness, and his father was a school-master. He was in the possession of no personal qualities that could awe McLoughlin. The fop of the Columbia district was John Lee Lewes, an old Northwester, who, after having been many years at the several northern posts, was placed in charge of the district of McKenzie River, and afterward at Fort Colville. He was a man of fine personal appearance, and possessed many good qualities. He had the misfortune to lose his right hand by the accidental discharge of a gun. When he retired from the service in 1846 he proceeded to Australia with the intention of remaining there; but habit was too strong upon him, and he returned and took up his abode at Red River.^[27] A son of Mr Lewes was the first representative from Vancouver county when Oregon territory was organized.

John Dunn, who wrote a book on Oregon made up partly from his own observations but more largely from those of others, was in charge of Fort McLoughlin, on Milbank Sound, in 1830; but later he was at Fort George on the Columbia, where he remained till about 1840. Dunn was one of two young naval apprentices sent out in the ship Ganymede in 1830. George B. Roberts of Cathlamet was the other. This latter gentleman was for many years clerk at Fort Vancouver, being cognizant of a long series of interesting events. His Recollections in manuscript, from which I have made so many extracts, has proved very valuable to me.^[28]

Alexander Caulfield Anderson was born at Calcutta in India, in 1814, and educated in England. At about twenty years of age he entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Northwest Coast, but was not so much at Fort Vancouver as north of that fort. From his manuscript History of the Northwest Coast much valuable and interesting matter has been obtained.

Doctor Forbes Barclay came to Oregon in the service of the company in 1839, and remained at Fort Vancouver till 1850, when he became a resident of Oregon City and a naturalized American citizen. Barclay was a native of the Shetland Islands, and was born on Christmas-day, 1812. While but a lad he went on a cruise with Sir John Ross to the Arctic regions, in search of a north-west passage. The vessel was wrecked, and nearly all on board were lost. Among those who escaped and were picked up by the Eskimos was young Barclay. He was taken to the island of Fisco, where he lived with the Danes for several months, finally returning to Scotland on a vessel which touched at the island. Resuming his studies, he graduated at the royal college of surgeons, in London, in July 1838, and left the following year for Oregon, where he arrived in the spring of 1840.^[29]

Donald Manson was also a native of Scotland, who had received a good education, and in his seventeenth year, 1817, entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. He remained on the east side of the mountains till 1823, when he accompanied Black into the country now known as the Cassiar mining district, after which he returned to Athabasca, and in the autumn of 1824 was ordered to the Columbia River, arriving at Fort Vancouver in April 1825. In the summer of 1827 he assisted in the erection of Fort Langley, the first trading post established by the company west of the Rocky Mountains and north of Fort Vancouver. He returned to Fort Vancouver in 1828, in which year two American vessels, the brig Owyhee, Captain Dominus, and the schooner Convoy, Captain Tomson, entered the Columbia to trade. Manson was sent to occupy the deserted post at Astoria, and oppose the interlopers. He found the old fort in so ruinous a state that he lived in a tent for the season.^[30]

In 1829 Manson accompanied Ogden to establish Fort Simpson, north of Langley; and in 1830 a post on Milbank Sound, Fort McLoughlin, where he remained in charge until 1839, when he was granted a year's absence. Returning in 1841, he succeeded Mr Black, who had just been murdered at Kamloop; and in 1842 he succeeded John McLoughlin, murdered at Stikeen. In 1844 he was appointed to the command of the district of New Caledonia, where he remained as executive officer until 1857, when he resigned. Soon afterward he purchased a farm at Champoeg.^[31]

Donald McLeod, born about 1811, in one of the western isles of the county of Ross, Scotland, came to Oregon in the company's service in 1835 by sea. He was leading trapping parties in the Snake country with Thomas McKay in 1836, and remained in this occupation ten years, when he settled on a farm in the Tualatin Plains, where he died February 26, 1873, leaving a large family.^[32]

The lives of these men, separated by thousands of miles from the civilized world, and entirely deprived of the companionship of cultivated women, might easily have been barbarous through the lack of example and emulation which everywhere exists in the world of intellect and refinement. The highest praise that can be bestowed upon them is that under these temptations they never forgot themselves. As nearly as possible McLoughlin maintained the fashions of manor life in England, the hospitality, the courtesy, the riding, hunting, and conversation. A dinner at Fort Vancouver was a dignified and social affair, not lacking either in creature comforts or table-talk. As early as 1836 there was good living at this post; plenty of cattle, sheep, swine, salmon, game, and an ample garden. The table was set off with a display of fine English glass, and ruddy wines. No liquors were furnished. McLoughlin never drank either wine or liquor, except on great occasions, to open the festivities. He presided, and led the conversation, the others being seated according to rank. No more time was consumed at table than was convenient; there was present neither gluttony nor intemperance.^[33] If guests were present the chief devoted some time to them; after dinner he showed them the farm and stock, offered them horses and guns, or perhaps made up a party to escort them wherever they wished to go. Did they remain at the fort, there was the opportunity to study a whole museum of curious things from all parts of the savage and civilized world, all kinds of weapons, dresses, ornaments, mechanisms, and art. When these were exhausted there were the pipe and books, and the long-drawn tales of evening. Where were met together so many men of adventurous lives, mariners who had circumnavigated the globe, leaders of trapping parties through thousands of miles of wilderness, among tribes of hostile savages, in heat and cold, in sunshine and storm, contending always with the inhospitable whims of mother nature, there could be but little flagging in the conversation. Sometimes the story was a tragedy, sometimes a comedy; but no matter what the occasion for mirth, discipline was always preserved and propriety regarded.

Many Americans found shelter and entertainment at Vancouver, as we shall see, most of whom have made suitable acknowledgment, testifying to the generous assistance given to every enterprise not in conflict with the company's business. Whether it was a rival trapping party like Jedediah Smith's, which found itself in trouble, or an unlucky trader like Wyeth,^[34] a missionary, a naturalist, or a secret agent of the United States in disguise, one universal law of brotherhood embraced them all. Their charity sometimes went so far as to clothe as well as house and feed wandering stars of American wit, as in the case of Thomas J. Farnham, who visited Fort Vancouver in 1839.^[35]

Likewise there were other resources at hand. The annual ship brought books, reviews, files of newspapers; and the mail was brought overland by express from York Factory, Red River, and Canada. With every such arrival the leading topics of the time were discussed, more closely perhaps from the length of time before the next batch of subjects could be expected. Very early in Fort Vancouver life, owing to the relative positions of the two governments, British and American institutions and ideas were compared, and defended or condemned according to the views of the disputants.^[36] But after the advent of the first missionaries and settlers as an American element, these discussions became more frequent, and in fact developed a great deal of patriotism on one side, and a liberality not to be expected on the other. John Dunn relates that in those days, from 1834 to 1843, there were two parties at Fort Vancouver, patriots, and liberals, or philosophers.^[37] The British, or patriots, maintained that the governor was too chivalrous, that his generosity was thrown away, and would be unrequited, that he was nourishing those who would by and by rise and question his own authority, and the British right to Fort Vancouver itself. This party cited the American free trapper, and the advocates of the border lynch-law, as specimens of American civilization. They had no faith in American missionaries, nor approbation for American traders. In short, the term American with them was synonymous with boorishness and dishonesty.

The liberal party, of which McLoughlin was understood to be the leader, though they admitted that Americans were not exempt from charges of trickery and tyranny, being slaveholders, and sometimes even thereafter repudiating honest debts; and that the half-apostolical and half-agricultural character of the missionaries was not, in their judgment, the highest example of clerical dignity; and that the American traders did domineer over and corrupt the natives; yet they thought that Americans ought not to be excluded, because they had some claims to the right of Occupancy, claims really existing, though feeble, which would make it both impolitic and unjust to exclude them from possession. And as to American lynch-law and other usages repugnant to justice and humanity, they were rather exceptions to the American code than examples of American principles of legislation, which in commercial and civil matters was, generally speaking, just and humane, and from which even British legislation might derive some useful hints. They had hopes, too, that the Americans, by the influence of the gentlemen fur-traders, would become more civilized. Such sentiments amused Farnham when he was at Fort Vancouver,^[38] and troubled many later comers, who felt their national dignity assaulted by British patronage of this sort.^[39] There was an Arcadian simplicity about Fort Vancouver life, in its early days, that awakens something of poetry and sentiment. It is a bit of feudal life in the wilderness. The fort is the duke's castle; the other posts the dependent baronies; the leaders of trapping parties the chiefs who sally forth to do battle for their lord. Every summer, when the season is at its height, the fortress gates are opened to receive, not the array of knights in armor, but the brigade of gay and happy trappers home from the mountains with the year's harvest of furs. It is like the return of the conquering heroes. It does not need a bugle at the gates to announce the arrival. A courier has been sent in advance to give notice. When within two miles of the fort, the song of the boatmen can be distinctly heard, keeping time to the oars bright flashing like Toledo blades. The company's flag waves proudly from the tall staff. Everybody is eager and excited, from the servants to the grand master himself, who stands at the landing with the rest. Presently the boats sweep round the last point into full view. The number depends on the success of the year's traffic; there may be twenty-five, or less; and each can carry fifteen or twenty tons. Down they come with the current, in perfect order, amidst shouting and cheering from the shore, every voyageur in gala dress, ribbons fluttering from Canadian caps, and deerskin suits ornamented with beads and fringes.

The arrival of the brigade was the great event of the year at Fort Vancouver, and as we have noticed before, the occasion when McLoughlin relaxed his abstemious rule, and drank a glass of wine to open the festivities, which were expected to last twenty-four hours, and during which everybody did as he pleased. There was in the gentlemen's dining-hall a grand dinner on such occasions, at which jollity, anecdote, and wit enlivened the table more than the red wine that was drunk. ^[40]

Another picturesque feature of this early Hudson's Bay life in Oregon was that of the chief trader's caravan when it moved through the Indian country; or when the governor himself made a tour through the Willamette Valley, as occurred at rare intervals. On these occasions Indian women were conspicuous. In addition to the trappers' wives, there was the grand dame, the wife of the bourgeois, or leader. Seated astride the finest horse, whose trappings were ornamented with colored quills, beads, and fringes to which hung tiny bells that tinkled with every motion, herself dressed in a petticoat of the finest blue broadcloth, with embroidered scarlet leggings, and moccasons stiff with the most costly beads, her black braided hair surmounted by a hat trimmed with gay ribbon, or supporting drooping feathers, she presented a picture, if not as elegant as that of a lady of the sixteenth century at a hawking party, yet quite as striking and brilliant.

When the caravan was in progress it was a panorama of gayety, as each man of the party, from the chief trader and clerk down to the last trapper in the train, filed past with his ever-present and faithful helpmate in her prettiest dress. After them came the Indian boys, driving the pack-horses, with goods and camp utensils. When the governor went on a visit, it was like a royal promenade; the camp equipage consisted of everything necessary for comfortable lodging, and a bountiful table, the cook being an important member of the numerous retinue. Here was feudalism on the western seaboard, as I before remarked. The Canadian farmers were serfs to all intents and purposes, yet with such a kindly lord that they scarcely felt their bondage; or, if they felt it, it was for their good.^[41]

So absolute was McLoughlin's authority that previous to the settlement of Americans in the Willamette Valley no legal forms had been thought necessary, except such as by the company's grant were so made; the governor and council having power to try and punish all offenders belonging to the company or any crimes committed in any of "the said company's plantations, forts, factories, or places of trade within Hudson's Bay territory." The Canadians and other servants of the company yielded without question to the company's chartered right to judge and punish. But with the Americans it was different. The charter forbade any British subject from trespassing upon the company's territory for purposes of trade; but it could not forbid Americans or other people. The charter permitted the company to go to war, on its own account, with any unchristianized nation; but the Americans could not be styled unchristianized, though they might, if provoked, become belligerent. The Americans, though so lacking in civilized conceptions according to the ideas of the gentlemen at Fort Vancouver, were stubborn in their legal rights, and were, besides, turbulent in their habits, and might put thoughts of insubordination into the minds of the company's people.

Foreseeing the troubles that would arise on this account, McLoughlin took timely measures to provide against them, and procured, by act of parliament, the appointment of justices of the peace in different parts of the country, James Douglas filling that office at Fort Vancouver. These justices were empowered to adjudicate upon minor offences, and to impose punishment; to arrest criminals guilty of serious crimes and send them to Canada for trial; and also to try and give judgment in civil suits where the amount in dispute did not exceed two hundred pounds; and in case of non-payment, to imprison the debtor at their own forts, or in the jails of Canada.

Dunn relates that in the discussions at Fort Vancouver the liberal party had an advantage, even in his estimation, when the neglect of the home government, and of the British and Foreign Missionary Society, touching the conversion and civilization of the natives, was brought up. The patriots were forced to admit that this state of affairs was highly censurable, and that since England had so grossly neglected the natives, they could make no proper objection to American missionaries. Even should they prove to be as bad as other Americans in the country, contact with the British residents would render them more gentlemanly, tolerant, and honest.

Sunday was observed both in the matter of religious services and suspension of labor; but the latter part of the day was allowed for amusements. After the first American missionaries came to Oregon, the doctor questioned whether it was right to be without a chaplain at Fort Vancouver, or dignified for so great a company to pay so little regard to religious forms. The American ministers might not be to his taste, but some there should be who were. These Americans, uncouth perhaps in dress and bearing, had set themselves to teach not only the children of the Canadians, but those within the fort, his children, and the sons and daughters of gentlemen high in the company's service.

Should he not have to acknowledge that they had been missionaries to him? Such an admission might never pass his lips; but in many ways he must acknowledge his approbation of the work, and his heart was full of friendliness toward them, which alas! they did not always requite with kindness. They could not be so liberal toward him as he had been with them. He followed their lead whenever he saw good in it, even when he was doubtful of its being the best or the safest course, because he could not refuse to encourage the right.

As early as 1836 the lever was applied to the foundations of the old society that was destined to overturn it. The boasted civilization of this English company, aristocratic and cultured, could not stand before the face of one white woman. The Nereid, coming from England and the Sandwich Islands, brought a chaplain to Fort Vancouver—a direct result, it may reasonably be inferred, of the American Mission. The name of this new officer on the governor's staff was Rev. Herbert Beaver, an appropriate name for the service, and one which the junior clerks undoubtedly repeated among themselves with the highest satisfaction. Mr Beaver had been chaplain of a regiment at Santa Lucía, in the West Indies. He was of the foxhunting type of English clergymen, and had been much diverted by the manners of his fellow-passenger from Honolulu, Mr Lee, whom he was constantly in the habit of quizzing. From the glimpse Dunn gives of the sentiment of Bachelor's Hall, his gibes at his Methodist brother must have provoked responsive mirth. But the inmates of the fort, grave, dignified, disciplined, and accustomed to respect, did not always escape the reverend gentleman's sallies of wit; nor, as it proved, his strictures on their immoral and uncivilized condition.

Gray, who saw him at Fort Vancouver, describes him as rather a small person, with a light complexion and feminine voice, who made pretensions to oratory, entirely unsupported by the facts. Also, his ideas of clerical dignity were such that he felt himself defiled by association with the gentlemen at Fort Vancouver. McLoughlin was uncivil, the clerks boors, the women savages. Here was a fine beginning of English missionary work! And yet the feudal lords could not deny it. There was Mrs Jane Beaver, who had accompanied her husband. They might kick the chaplain, but the chaplain's wife had a way with her, recognized in all Christian communities, of calling such manner of living vile. These lords of the Hudson's Bay Company were compelled to chew the reflective cud, and to stifle their warmth at clerical interference, while they slowly made up their minds to take the only alternative left them, if they would associate with clergymen and clergymen's wives. It was not enough for the Beavers that the governor, the chief factor, chief traders, and clerks attended the Sunday service and observed decorum. There was an abomination within the walls of the fort that Christianity could not tolerate.

Had Beaver's objections to the domestic relations of Fort Vancouver been his sole ground of criticism, his natural flippancy and professional arrogance might have been tolerated. But he found many things that were wrong in the practices of the Hudson's Bay Company, and so reported to the Aborigines Protection Society at London, to which he complained that his attempts to introduce civilization and Christianity among one or more of the neighboring tribes had not succeeded, because his efforts had not been seconded by the company. The truth was, that Beaver was quite too nice for the task of civilizing Indians in the vicinity of Fort Vancouver. He was dissatisfied with the plain quarters assigned him, the parsonage being only a cottage built of rough lumber, uncarpeted except with Indian mats, which Mrs Beaver pronounced filthy, and unfurnished with any of the elegancies of an English parsonage. He despised and disliked the natives, and abhorred the practice of the gentlemen at Fort Vancouver of cohabiting with them.

Roberts says that Beaver kept a good table, although his salary was only £200 a year; but everything was furnished him except clothes. He was kind enough to invite the young clerk to dinner frequently, but Roberts thinks the risk imposed upon his soul in making him sponsor-general to a motley crowd of the vilest of the vile, whom the chaplain insisted on baptizing in his character of missionary, more than offset the dinners.

While Beaver baptized reluctant heathen, white red and mixed, in the intervals of his hunting and other amusements, Mrs Jane Beaver held herself scornfully aloof from the wickedness of private life at Fort Vancouver. When she had been present about six weeks, there arrived from across the continent two other white women, wives of missionaries also, who remained as guests of the company from September to November, and who soon made themselves acquainted with its social life, not in the manner of Mrs Beaver, but in a humble, kindly way, which won for them the deference of every gentleman from the governor down.

Finally, in January 1837, Mr Beaver had the satisfaction of celebrating the church of England marriage-service at the nuptials of James Douglas and Nelia Connolly. McLoughlin too thoroughly despised Beaver to submit to remarriage at his hand, but to quiet the scandal which the chaplain so loved to scatter in Europe, he had the civil rite performed by Douglas in his capacity of justice of the peace. Whereupon, in the nostrils of Mrs Beaver the social atmosphere of Fort Vancouver became somewhat purified of its aboriginal stench, though to the pure-minded and chivalrous gentlemen of the fort the Beavers were far more obnoxious than the aboriginals.

Beaver returned to England in 1838, having been an inmate of the fort a year and a half. His departure was hastened by an unusual outburst of the doctor's disgust. It was the chaplain's duty to forward a written report to the London council, which he was required to place in McLoughlin's hands before sending. On reading one of these reports, the contents so incensed the doctor that he demanded an explanation on meeting the writer in the fort yard. The reverend gentlemen replied: "Sir, if you wish to know why a cow's tail grows downward, I cannot tell you; I can only cite the fact."

Up went the governor's cane of its own volition, and before McLoughlin was aware of it he had bestowed a good sound blow upon the shoulders of the impudent divine. Beaver shouted to his wife for his pistols, long-barrelled flintlocks; but on reflection concluded he would not kill the doctor just then. Next day there was an auction of the effects of Captain Home, drowned in the Columbia; and while the people were gathered there, McLoughlin, by the magnanimity of his nature, was constrained to do penance. "Mr Beaver," said he, stepping up to the chaplain before them all, "I make this public apology for the indignity I laid upon you yesterday." "Sir, I will not accept your apology," exclaimed the chaplain, turning upon his heel. Beaver went back to England, and the company sent no more chaplains to Fort Vancouver.^[42]

after calling at the S. Islands, about August 1st. The apprentices were transferred to the Cadboro, for the coast—but all hands were ill with the ague (we called it). We had to go into tents in Baker's Bay. I was the last to fall ill, and was sent to Fort George when the ship sailed for the Northwest Coast. I went to Vancouver in February and assisted Douglas (Sir James), who was then a clerk on £100 a year. When the expedition to the Stikeen was fitted out in '34 I applied to join my school-mates, but on the return of the expedition, in the winter of '34–35, I had had enough of the sea, and resumed my former berth, though for one year I kept the school of some 50 Indian children—it must have been after S. H. Smith ran off with our old baker's Indian wife. I was then employed in the office and stores till Dr McLoughlin's departure for England, when Douglas assumed charge, and took me for aid instead of Mr Allan to oversee the men. We had about 100 to 150, sometimes 200, and I was the overseer. I continued in this with the exceptions of a month or two at Cowlitz farm in '39, Oregon City in '40, and Champoeg in '42. I left that season, November '42, for England, with Captain McNeill, as a passenger of course. The doctor and Douglas, then the board of management, read to me their public letter commending me to the governor and committee, and thoughtfully asking them to allow me to return if I was so disposed, breaking the rule of the service in my case—generally there was no return to the service. We reached London by way of the Islands, 10th of May '43. I was soon tired of home, where I was out of place and a nobody, and availing myself of the thoughtfulness of the doctor and Douglas, married my first cousin, Miss Martha Cable, of Aldborough, and sailed from Cowes, Isle of Wight, 5th of December, on board the bark Brothers, Captain Flere, a chartered ship; and arrived at the Islands in April, where we took as fellow-passenger Rev. George Gary, who was coming to settle up the Methodist Mission business after the death of Jason Lee. [Mr Gary set out before the death of Jason Lee.] We arrived safely at Vancouver in May '44. From thence on to December '46, I had charge of the company's depot, wholesale business, that is, I received and shipped all cargoes, kept separate account of each post and ship. I may say that up to that time I had a better acquaintance of all things at Vancouver than anybody else. I came young, soon learned French and Indian, knew where everything was, and everybody. I hardly think there was a book or paper that I hadn't fullest access to. I went to take charge of the Cowlitz farm in 1846. In '48 came the measles, and a scene of death; in '49 a typhoid or camp fever, of which my poor wife died in July '50. In '55 I married Miss Rose Birnie, of Aberdeen, Scotland.'

1. The families lived separate and in private entirely. Gentlemen who came trading to the fort never saw the family. 'We never saw anybody.' Harvey's Life of McLoughlin, MS., 13. The statement of Mrs Elouise McLoughlin Rae Harvey has been of great use in determining many points of the history of those early times. Ross Cox, in his gossipy book, Adventures on the Columbia River, ii. 343–4, says: "The half-breed women are excellent wives and mothers, and instances of improper conduct are rare among them. They are very expert at the needle, and make coats, trousers, vests, gowns, shirts, shoes, etc., in a manner that would astonish our English fashioners. They are kept in great subjection by their respective lords, to whom they are slavishly submissive. They are not allowed to sit at the same table, or indeed at any table "for they still continue the savage fashion of squatting on the ground at their meals, at which their fingers supply the place of forks. The proprietors generally send their sons to Canada or England for education. They have a wonderful aptitude for learning, and in a short time attain a facility in writing and speaking both French and English that is quite astonishing. Their manners are naturally and unaffectedly polite, and their conversation displays a degree of pure, easy, yet impassioned eloquence seldom heard in the most refined societies.' This is a somewhat superficial view. The quickness in the children is true enough, but the paternal name soon disappears. The daughters often marry whites, the sons seldom. Says another writer: 'Many of the officers of the company marry half-breed women. These discharge their several duties of wife and mother with fidelity, cleverness, and attention. They are in general good housewives; and are remarkably ingenious as needle-women. Many of them, besides possessing a knowledge of English, speak French correctly, and possess other accomplishments; and they sometimes attend their husbands on their distant and tedious journeys and voyages. These half-breed women are of a superior class, being the daughters of chief traders and factors, and other persons high in the company's service, by Indian women, of a superior descent or of superior personal attractions. Though they generally dress after the English fashion, according as they see it used by the English wives of the superior officers, yet they retain one peculiarity—the leggin or gaiter, which is made, now that the tanned deerskin has been superseded, of the finest and most gaudy-colored cloth, beautifully ornamented with beads.' Dunn's Oregon Territory, 147–8. This seems to be an eastern view presented second-hand by the author. Before 1842 or 1843 there was not a white wife of a Hudson's Bay officer in Oregon to be imitated. About that time George B. Roberts, who had been on a visit to England, brought to Fort Vancouver the only white woman ever at home within its walls. She died in 1850 at the Cowlitz farm.
2. There is a story in Cox' Columbia River, 345, in which is given an instance of the seduction by one trader of another's wife; but it resulted in the seducer quitting the company's service, and the discarding of the unfaithful mistress. Cox also tells us that when a trader wished to separate from his Indian wife he generally allowed her an annuity, or married her comfortably to one of the voyageurs, who for a dowry was glad to become the husband of la dame d'un bourgeois. A retired partner, thus disembarrassed, on arriving in Canada was soon an object of interest to the ladies of Montreal and Quebec, where he was met by numerous hospitable invitations, and where, in short, he soon was able to marry a wife to his taste. More often, however, when the period he had fixed upon for quitting the Indian country arrives, he finds the woman who had been for many years a faithful partner cannot in a moment be whistled off and 'let down the wind to prey at fortune.' Children have grown up about him; the natural affection of the father despises the laws of civilized society, the patriot sinks in the parent, and in most cases the temporary liaison ends in a permanent union. See Hist. Northwest Coast, and Hist. Brit. Col., this series.
3. In the spring a clerk who understood the country would go with the trappers, and whatever that clerk said, the others had to do. They were all free, but at the same time they had to come under the control of that one man. They had their by-laws, which were enforced. 'If they did anything wrong, it was reported to the company, and they would be punished accordingly. They all had Indian women, never more than one. Old Doctor McLoughlin would hang them if they had more than one.' Matthieu's Refugee, MS., 17. Saint-Amant asserted that the company's policy of recompensing agents without imposing sacrifices, of maintaining the Indians in absolute dependence with the aid of the Canadians, and of creating more consumers, caused them to favor marriages of subalterns, especially those who had some means, with Indians, and to grant them lands along the Willamette, Cowlitz, and Nisqually.
4. See Hist. Brit. Col, chap, xvii., this series. Howison, Rept. on Coast, 12, affirms that McLoughlin is of Irish parentage; and Jesse Applegate, in his Views of History, MS., 27, says the same; but George T. Allan, who was for many years at Fort Vancouver, and should be good authority on this point, says he was Scotch. 'I am not sure but his grandfather emigrated to Canada. The doctor, though a true Canadian, used to tell anecdotes of old Scotland, possibly furnished by his grandfather. One I remember, of a certain Highland chief who was in the habit of carrying a yellow cane, and of drumming the unwilling of his clan to church with it, so that the faith of that tribe came to be called the religion of the yellow stick.' Allan's Reminiscences, MS., 5.
5. McLoughlin was called 'governor' by courtesy, but he had no right to the title. Sir John H. Pelly was the governor in England, and Sir George Simpson the resident governor. Roberts Recollections, MS., 78.
6. He is thus spoken of many years later by an American settler in Oregon: 'McLoughlin was one of nature's noblemen. He was six feet six or seven inches in height, and his locks were long and white. He used to wear a large blue cloak thrown around him. You can imagine a man of that sort—a most beautiful picture. See him walking down to his church Sunday morning—it was really a sight.' Chadwick's Public Records, MS., 4, 5; Harvey's Life of McLoughlin, MS., 5, 6. See also Hist. Brit. Col., chap, xvii., this series.
7. Harvey's Life of McLoughlin, MS., 16–18. 'I may mention that a young American gentleman, Mr Dwight, of Salem, Mass., having come across the plains, had been rather imposed upon by the company's agent then at Fort Hall, having had to leave his rifle for provisions supplied him there, and complained, or rather spoke of the matter to me, then at the Sandwich Islands. I wrote and explained the case to McLoughlin, who immediately sent orders to Fort Hall and had the rifle forwarded to Mr Dwight free of all charge. I had the pleasure of returning it to him.' Allan's Reminiscences, MS., 10 11.
8. 'McLoughlin was a stout, hearty man, and very determined in character. Even the directory in London could not well control him: he would have his own way.' Finlayson's V. I., MS., 70.
9. He was above proselyting. He was broad in his views. 'A man, dying, left him his daughter to bring up; the father being a Protestant, McLoughlin would not put the daughter to a Catholic school, so conscientious was he. Applegate's Views, MS., 14.
10. See Hist. Brit. Col., chap, xvii., this series.
11. 'I have often smiled at Douglas' behavior to people, honest perhaps, but rough, who had not been accustomed to show much outward respect to any one; his excessive politeness would extort a little, in that way, from them.' Roberts' Recollections, MS., 17.
12. 'Douglas would not flatter you. McLoughlin was more free and easy than he. He was a man born to command; a martial fellow. He never gave an evasive answer; he was a gentleman, too.' Waldo's Critiques, MS., 11.
13. Applegate's Views, MS., 13.
14. He carried his love of fun and frolic to great lengths. 'One of his tricks played at home was, as I have often been told—and played too on his own mother—to send notes to all the midwives in Quebec, asking them to repair to the house of Mrs Ogden at a certain hour, greatly, of course to the astonishment and indignation of that lady.' Allan's Reminiscences, MS., 9.
15. There is an anecdote, told by an eye-witness, of Ogden's Indian wife, to the effect that when the Hudson's Bay and American companies were competing in the mountains, riding into the enemy's camp to recover a pack-animal loaded with furs, the gallantry of the American trappers permitted her to recapture the pack. The Indian women were very useful to the traders in many ways.
16. Ermatinger married a Miss Sinclair, a relative of Doctor McLoughlin's wife. He was rather too intimate with the doctor to suit Sir George Simpson. He went home to England on a visit, and, to annoy the doctor, Simpson prevented his return to Oregon, where he had left a young wife, and ordered him to be stationed at Red River. Roberts' Recollections. MS., 2.
17. Or. Sketches, MS., 21; Roberts' Recollections, MS., 63.
18. Mr Pambrun was of French Canadian origin, and was formerly a lieutenant in the Voltigeurs Canadiens. His wife was a native woman, by whom he had several children. One of his daughters was married to Dr Barclay, of the Hudson's Bay Company, in 1838, at the same time that her father was formally married to her mother. Pambrun died in 1840, from bruises received in a fall from his horse, occasioned by the slipping of the guiding-rope from the mouth of the animal, which thereupon became unmanageable and ran away with him. Blanchet's Cath. Church in Or., 47; Lee and Frost's Or., 215; Farnham's Travels to the Rocky Mountains, 155.
19. He was a tall, fair, sandy-complexioned Highlander, weighing two hundred pounds, sociable, civil, clever, and a man of some intellect; a very lively, active, sharp Scotchman. Moss' Pioneer Times, MS., 37.
20. See Hist. Northwest Coast, this series, passim; McKinlay's Narrative, MS., 9–12; Or. Spectator, Aug. 5, 1847; Victor's River of the West, 31.
21. Traders of interior posts were in constant danger of Indian attacks. Only a few men could be kept at each post, and the Indians at times were discontented. When in want of provisions they could not get, they would become desperate and easily excited. Burnett's Recollections, MS., i. 112.
22. See Hist. Northwest Coast, passim, this series. Black was an oddity. He had a ring presented him at the coalition of the Northwest and Hudson's Bay companies, engraved, 'To the most worthy of the worthy Northwesters.' Roberts' Recollections, MS., 9.
23. McKinlay's Nar., MS., 13, 14; Simpson's Nar., i. 157; Roberts' Recollections, MS., 10; Tod's New Caledonia, MS., 13–19.
24. Mrs Rae had three children when she returned to Oregon on the death of her husband, a son and two daughters. The son inherited a large property in the Orkney Islands, but died early. The daughters became Mrs Theodore Wygant and Mrs Joseph Myrick of Portland. Mrs Rae was married again to Daniel Harvey of Oregon City, who was in charge of McLoughlin's mills at that place, and by whom she had two sons, Daniel and James, both becoming residents of Portland. Roberts' Rec., MS., 24, 57; Harvey's Life of McLoughlin, MS., passim.
25. Doctor McLoughlin had three sons; the eldest, Joseph, was uneducated. He settled at the mouth of the Yamhill River, and died there. His widow, who was a daughter of Mr McMillan of the Hudson's Bay Company, in early Astoria days married Etienne Grégoire, a French settler. David McLoughlin, the younger son, was sent to Paris and London for education, and was some time at Addiscombe, where young men are trained for the East India Company. He returned to Oregon, spent his inheritance, and became a resident of Montana.
26. 'I don't know how the feud between the doctor and Sir George originated. The doctor was "at outs," I think in 1831, and threatened to retire; and Duncan Finlayson, who afterwards married a sister of Lady Simpson, and cousin of Sir George, came to supersede him. The doctor did not leave for England till March 1838, and returned still in the employ of the company. It was said that Sir George had prepared the governor and committee to give the doctor a "whigging," but that when he came into their presence his fine manly appearance and bearing was such that they had no heart for the fight.' Roberts' Recollections, MS., 22–3.
27. Anderson's Hist. Northwest Coast, MS., 85–6.
28. Roberts has, by request, furnished his own biographical sketch. It is, like all his writings, rich in incident and allusion, and though not written with the expectation that it would be inserted verbatim in this history, there can be no objection to the following quotation: 'I was born at Aldborough in Suffolk, east coast of England, fifty miles or so north of the Thames, 16th of December 1815, the birthplace of the poet Crabbe. Through the kind interest of Sir Edward Berry, Nelson's flag-captain at the Nile, to whom Nelson said of the French as the fleet entered Aboukir Bay, "Count 'em, Sir Ed'ard", Southey's Life of Nelson, I was admitted to the Greenwich Royal Naval School at the age of between eleven and twelve, on the 30th of August '27, where I remained till 3d of November 1830, and was then with several others bound apprentices for seven years to the Hudson's Bay Company's naval service, and sailed from London on the 11th of November 1830 in the bark Ganymede, Captain Charles Kissling. She was only 213 tons, had a crew of 30, carried 6 carronades in the waist, and was for all Indian purposes a safe ship. The small size was owing to the difficulties and dangers of the Columbia there being no charts, buoys, or pilots in those days. We arrived at the Columbia
29. In 1842 he married Miss Maria Pambrun, daughter of Pierre C. Pambrun, by whom he had five children. The rules of the company prohibited him from leaving the fort to practise his profession. But in the early settlement of Oregon it was the custom of the Americans to go to the fort for medical advice, which was always freely given. He was seven years mayor of Oregon City, nine years a councilman, and eighteen years coroner. Ever attentive to the duties of citizenship, strictly honest, sagacious, and benevolent, he was trusted and esteemed by all. Doctor Barclay died at his home in Oregon City, May 14, 1873. Oregon City Enterprise, May 16, 1873; Olympia Standard, May 24, 1873; Portland Oregonian, May 17, 1873; Portland Herald, May 17, 1873: S. F Call, May 16, 1873.
30. It was during this year that the ship William and Ann was cast away when a little distance inside the bar of the Columbia, and all on board, 26 persons, lost. This, however, was before the arrival of the American vessels or Mr Manson at the mouth of the river, and there were none but Indian witnesses. The crew gained the shore with arms wet and defenceless, and were all massacred by the Clatsops. This was avenged, and the two Clatsop chiefs killed. The Isabella, Captain Ryan, ran aground on Sand Island in 1830, and was abandoned by the crew, who probably dreaded the fate of those of the William and Ann. The vessel was lost. Had the men remained by the ship until the tide turned they might have saved her. A part only of the cargo was lost. Lee and Frost's Or., 106–7; Roberts' Recollections, MS., 15. The loss of another vessel two years later, quite as much as the occasional visits of American traders, caused the company to occupy the post at Astoria continuously after 1830.
31. Trans. Or. Pion. Assoc., 1879, 56; Bacon's Mer. Life, MS., 22–3; Grim's Emigrant Anecdotes, MS., 12; Portland Oregonian, March 28, 1874; Id., April 8, 1876; Id., Feb. 5, 1876; Salem Farmer, March 17, 1876. Mr Hanson's wife was Felice Lucier, of French Prairie, whom he married in October 1828, at which time her father had been two years settled in the Willamette Valley.
32. Portland Pacific Christian Advocate, March 6, 1873. McLeod while in the mountains suffered so severely with piles that he could neither ride nor sit, but was carried on a litter between two horses. The Indian wife of an American trapper, Ebberts, gave him a tea made from pounded roots gathered near Fort Vancouver, which cured him in a few days. He presented her with some gay dresses and other trifles; and to Ebberts, who was in need of a saw and two augers, he sent a whole chest of tools. Ebberts' Trapper's Life, MS., 42. James Birnie of Aberdeen, Scotland, who entered Oregon in 1818, succeeded Dunn at Fort George, and remained at that post for many years. He finally retired to Cathlamet, where he died December 21, 1864, aged 60 years. He was the first white man to descend the Umpqua River to its mouth. The second wife of George B. Roberts was a sister of Mr Birnie. James Grant was in charge of Fort Hall when the first overland immigration to Oregon crossed the continent, and until quite a late period. No man in Oregon has been more remarked upon, not to say reviled, by the American immigrants, though with what justice let him who reads decide. The same might almost be said of William McBean, successor to McKinlay at Fort Walla Walla. The history of events will point to the justice or injustice of popular opinion. Archibald McDonald, for a long time in charge of Fort Colville, and who had a daughter famous for her beauty, talents, and horsemanship; Angus McDonald, in charge of Fort Hall, and afterward of Colville; Henry Maxwell, John Ballenden, and Dugald McTavish, who were the last chief factors at Fort Vancouver—were some of the yet larger number of gentlemen who graced these halls with their constant or occasional presence. In the early days the selection of officers for the service of the Hudson's Bay Company was made chiefly with regard to strength of constitution and general probity of character, family influence, of course, regulating the selection. In after years the necessities of their position, in consequence of the active rivalry of the Northwest Company, demanded the infusion of more energetic elements, and in this way a body of officers was gradually introduced who fully equalled in all respects the pushing characteristics which marked the service of the Northwest Company. Anderson's Hist. Northwest Coast, MS., 87. 'Connected with the Hudson's Bay Company there are also many gentlemen who would do no discredit to any circle of society. These gentlemen sustain the forms and courtesies of civilized life much more than Americans engaged in the same pursuits.' Edwards' Sketch of Oregon Territory, MS., 25. Take them all in all, they were a body of men who, for physical strength, courage, coolness, and general intrepidity of character, were rarely equalled, and perhaps now here excelled.
33. 'I can see our old Vancouver dinning-hall, with the doctor at the head of the table suddenly pull the bell-tassel. "Bruce!" and in a few minutes Bruce would be on hand with an open mull, from which a pinch would be taken without a word on either side. The doctor never smoked; chewing was out of the question; he occasionally took snuff, but seemed afraid to trust himself with any.' Roberts' Recollections, MS., 38.
34. When Wyeth returned home he sent out a keg of choice smoking-tobacco with a friendly letter, to the gentlemen of Bachelor's Hall. The doctor and he were great friends, and corresponded for many years afterward. Allan's Reminiscences, MS., 9. The tobacco sold by the company was mostly from Brazil, twisted into rope an inch in diameter, and coiled. It went by the name of trail-rope tobacco among the American settlers.
35. 'Farnham was a jovial, jolly fellow. Douglas fitted him out from his own wardrobe so as to make him presentable at mess.' Roberts' Recollections, MS., 17.
36. 'The doctor was very fond of argument, especially on historical points connected with the first Napoleon, of whom he was a great admirer, and often entered into them with Captain Wyeth.' Allan's Reminiscences, MS., 9.
37. Dunn was very illiberal toward the Americans, having been excited by the competition on the north coast, while stationed at Milbank Sound. Roberts' Recollections, MS., 4.
38. 'Another was a Mr Simpson, a young Scotchman of respectable family, a clerk in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. This was a fine fellow, twenty-five years of age, full of energy and good feeling, well informed on general topics, and like most other British subjects abroad, troubled with an irrepressible anxiety at the growing power of the States, and an overwhelming loyalty toward the mother country and its sovereign skirts.' Farnham's California and Oregon, 8.
39. 'I often heard Dr McLoughlin say: "These Englishmen when they first come out are such rabid democrats; but in a few years they always are at least conservative." Robert' Recollections, MS., 17.
40. Applegate's Views, MS., 17.
41. It was a most remarkable condition of things. The old doctor would go down to Champoeg, and whatever he told them to do, they would do. If they were shiftless, he would not give them half what they wanted. If they were industrious, even if they were not successful, he would give them what they wanted. He kept himself constantly informed about those people, as to how they were doing. If they went around horse-racing, he would lecture them severely, and make them afraid to do so. There were no laws or rules. If there were any disputes, he settled them arbitrarily. Just what he said was the law.' Crawford's Misc., MS., 10. 'He was a disciplinarian, strict and stern to those under him. He had a great many Indians and kanakas. Whatever he told them to do they had to do. He was often very violent with them.' Bacon's Mer. Life Or., MS., 20.
42. Besides the authorities quoted, materials for this chapter have been gathered from Wilkes' Nar.; Comptons' Forts and Fort Life, MS.; Moss' Pioneer Times, MS.; Townsend's Nar.; Finlayson's V. I., MS.; Grover's Public Life, MS.; Parrish's Or. Anecdotes, MS.; Ford's Road-makers, MS.; Simpsons Journal; Tolmie's Hist. Puget Sound, MS.; Crawford's Missionaries, MS..; Strong's Hist. Or., MS.; Smet's Voy.; Good's British Columbia, MS.; Parker's Jour., in Ind. Aff. Rept., 1854; Sylvester's Olympia, MS.; Kane's Wanderings; Portland Oregonian, Sept. 30, 1854; Scenes in the Rocky Mountains; Palmer's Journal; Overland Monthly, viii. The scene between McLoughlin and Beaver was related by an eye-witness.