Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 22/John Boit's Log of the Columbia 1790-1793
May 11, 1792, Captain Gray, in command of the ship "Columbia," sailed into the Columbia River and anchored a short distance from what is now known as Chinook Point, opposite Astoria. He named the river after his vessel. Th "Columbia" was built near Boston in 1773 and was broken to pieces in 1801. It was the first vessel to carry the Stars and Stripes around the world. It is believed this was the original flag made by Mrs. Betsy Ross, according to the design adopted by Congress on June 14, 1777. Taken from the photograph of a large oil painting by an eastern artist for C. S Jackson, publisher of the Oregon Daily Journal, and used for the first time in a Souvenir Edition of that paper in 1905. The photograph was presented to the Portland Press Club.
THE QUARTERLY
of the
Oregon Historical Society
VOLUME XXII DECEMBER, 1921 NUMBER 4
Copyright, 1921, by the Oregon Historical Society
The Quarterly disavows responsibility for the positions taken by contributors to its pages
JOHN BOIT'S LOG OF THE COLUMBIA—1790-1793
Introduction
The Massachusetts Historical Society early in 1919 received as a bequest from Robert Apthorpe Boit the journals and log-books of his grandfather, John Boit. Among these was a journal kept of the Columbia's second voyage from Boston to the northwest coast of America for the collection of furs from the Indians for the markets of China. The Columbia's first voyage is memorable as the first circumnavigation of the globe by an American ship. Captain Robert Gray was in command of the vessel on this first voyage from the time of her departure from the northwest coast to China and retained command throughout the second voyage. This second voyage of which the Boit journal gives an account outshines the first in renown through the fact that in course of it the Columbia river was first entered and was named for the vessel.
Not only thus is the Boit journal a record of probably the most memorable of American voyages but it is also unique in being the only record extant of this voyage as a whole. And of none of the parallel voyages in these furtrading activities of this period by Americans is there a similar complete record. Of the official log of the Columbia only a remnant is preserved, covering the days from May 7th (1792) to May 21st, or from the time Gray first approached the entrance to Gray's harbor, to be discovered and by him named Bulfinch harbor, to his return to that vicinity after having entered and named the Columbia river. This portion of the official log is reprinted in this number of the Quarterly with the Boit document.
This journal of John Boit was published in volume 53 of The Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. That portion of it recording the movements of the Columbia while on this coast was reprinted in The Washington Historical Quarterly, volume XII, No. I. The Oregon Historical Society would here express highest appreciation of the courtesy of the Massachusetts Historical Society in granting it the privilege of reprinting this document. To the Washington State University Historical Society it is indebted for the use of the annotations made by Professor Edmond S. Meany in his reprint. The items of bibliography in Professor Meany's Introduction are exceedingly valuable.
The considerations that compel the reprinting complete of the Boit log of the Columbia in the Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society are connected primarily with the specially planned annotations with which it here appears. And the command of this source record as a whole enables us also more easily to see the wider relations and meaning of this voyage and thus to connect the flow of our Pacific northwest history with the currents of the world's greatest movements. This document contains the record of a close inspection of this coast line through two summers by an experienced navigator spying out opportunities for trade with the native tribes. The Columbia passed up and down the stretch of coast from Cape Blanco at about the 43d parallel to the 55th parallel and beyond, covering a large portion of it half-a-dozen times and nearly all of it as many as four times. This log registers the latitude and longitude from observations taken regularly of the vessel's position. Through annotations on the entries of such a record that utilize critically all the sources of light from other MS. and printed records of exploration available, this document becomes the best guiding clue through the somewhat labyrinthine confusion necessarily created by the conditions under which these sources of the exploration history of the Pacific Northwest were produced. Both the region to be explored and the combination of explorers participating were factors in creating this confusion. The intricacy of the coast line indentations north of the Straits of Juan de Fuca and the multitudinous island groups constituted a veritable labyrinth of passages to be defined. Then representatives of four or five different nationalities simultaneously and without concert participated in effecting the exploration. That such materials of history may enter into the lives of a people they needs must be sublimated and vitalized. Adequate annotation is the first step toward this end.
Through the Boit log we have for the first time a view of this historic voyage as a unit. We are in position, therefore, to get more completely the meaning of it. But this meaning and the import of the record cannot be satisfactorily grasped unless the situation under which the Columbia participated in this work of exploration is clearly visualized. To get this background it is necessary to note the transformation wrought during the last quarter of the 18th century in the geography of northwest America, affecting nearly if not quite one-fourth of the continent. The typical map of this part of North America at the opening of the fourth quarter of that century represented an inland sea as occupying a goodly share of the lower portion of this region and two or three wide straits cutting diagonally across the upper part. The actors in this transformation scene were to approach independently from the landward and the seaward sides. Alexander Mackenzie played almost the sole role during this period in the exploration on land from the east. The Mackenzie river, the Peace river and portions of the Fraser and other rivers were placed on the map. From the side of the sea the participating personnel included illustrious representatives of four leading nations but Robert Gray through entering the Columbia on this second voyage won the highest honor. Through such cooperation the salient features of the interior and the coast line of northwest America were defined, named and mapped.
By following now a little more in detail the development of this quarter of a century of exploration from the seaward side we get the stage setting for Robert Gray's achievement. The Spanish authorities with newly established outposts as far north as San Francisco Bay were first on the scene. Reports of advances down the coast from the Alaskan region by Russian explorers as well as anxiety about possible use of a supposed northwest passage incited the Spaniards to activity in exploration beginning in 1774. In the next few years under Perez, Heceta and Cuadra a cursory inspection of the coast was made from the 55th parallel south. No Russian trespassers were detected nor was the fabled northwest passage or Straits of Anian discovered. However, Heceta in 1775 did detect evidences of the mouth of a large river in latitude 46° 9′, but did not succeed in entering it. At this time James Cook, the English navigator, was dispelling the darkness that was still hovering over the south Pacific region. On his third voyage of discovery spurred by an offer of Parliament of 20,000 for the discovery of a northwest passage through the continent of North America he passed up along the northwest coast in 1778 and made a landing in Nootka Sound. The immediate and moving outcome of his voyage was the disclosure of the opportunity of riches through trade in sea-otter furs to be secured from the northwest Indians for trifles and marketed in China. Beginning in 1785 the grand rush in this maritime fur trade was on. The flags of half-a-dozen nations were soon in evidence in these waters. Some of the English fur traders took steps looking towards a permanent occupation of the shore at Nootka Sound. This was resented by the Spanish authorities as they had priority in discovery and had occupied the coast, though their post was some 750 miles to the south. Seizures and a diplomatic controversy followed that seriously threatened war between Spain and England in 1790. In the meantime inlets offering means of trade contacts with the Indians were being spied out and visited more and more frequently by vessels plying back and forth and up and down the coast. "In the year 1792, there were twenty-one vessels under different flags," writes Washington Irving, "plying along the coast and trading with the natives." Log books and seamen's journals were kept and reports were made. As they pertained to the affairs of a lucrative trade and some of them had to do with a hot international controversy they were in part preserved and not a few, especially those whose authors had public commissions, and those that had a bearing on disputed territorial claims, were published. Thus a body of source material was accumulating. This material contains the sources largely of the names of places of this region and constitutes the records of the origins of the communities here developing. History serves its leading purpose through such annals as the cherished home traditions. The richest and best authenticated nuclei of facts with their relations should be segregated and organized for each locality. The annotations on the text of the Boit journal here supplied through selecting the appropriate portions of the other sources conserve and focus all the light available for illuminating the stage of exploration in the history of each locality visited by the Columbia during her second voyage, and at the same time furnish the means for a more accurate and complete determination of the background of the voyage as a whole. The Quarterly had the great good fortune of interesting Judge F. W. Howay of New Westminster, British Columbia, in this project of making this prime and recently available source of Pacific Northwest History serve the largest and best purpose. Judge Howay's mastery of northwest history sources, and his large personal acquaintance with the features of the coast line now British territory make his annotations invaluable. Mr. T. C. Elliott of Walla Walla, Washington, has been a like indefatigable student of the sources of the history of the coast line south of the Straits of Juan de Fuca. He annotates the entries of the Boit log while the Columbia was on this section of the coast on her trading tours. He also contributes the annotations to the remnant of the official log of the Columbia still extant.
Turning now to the orientations of this achievement of Captain Robert Gray in connection with the course of world history. The discovery of the Columbia river recorded in the two documents here reprinted completes at the end of a three hundred year period of continuing progress, the full discovery of America which in 1492 Christopher Columbus had initiated. The western continent in its essential features as a home for civilized humanity was now revealed.
In sailing into the Columbia under the American flag Captain Gray brought into the race a new competitor for the possession of this vast and still unacquired region of the basin of the Columbia. For, in international usage or comity, the discovery of a river carried with it at least an inchoate title to the territory drained by that river. The American people had a zealous and an able exponent for promoting their interests in view of this opening made for national expansion. Thomas Jefferson did not let slip an opportunity to follow up this basis for a claim to this part of the continent. With the purchase of Louisiana in 1803 proximity of possession was secured. Then Lewis and Clark were dispatched so that only fourteen years after Gray's presence in the river they were encamped on the south bank. In less than half-a-dozen years later the Astor expedition had established its fort at Astoria. And at the end of another half-a-dozen years in 1818 the restoration of the American flag was acknowledged by our only rival claimant to this domain.
It needs, however, to be noted that this discovery of the Columbia river with the view of extending geographical knowledge, or of laying the basis for the extension of the jurisdiction of his nation's sovereignty, was not the leading motive impelling Captain Gray in his exploit. Just how far it was in evidence in his consciousness it would be hard to say. Nothing of the kind, I believe, figured in his instructions. This is not by any means arguing that the discovery of the Columbia river was an accident. The Columbia was being sailed the third time along this stretch of the coast with the one purpose in mind of finding new inlets affording desired opportunities of new contacts with the Indians that additions might be made to his accumulations of furs for a cargo for the markets of China. John Boit's record of how the vessel in this latitude was kept "beating off the coast waiting for to find a good harbour" and of the practice thus specified: "sent a boat in shore often, but cou'd find no safe harbour," indicate that Gray's determination and skill made the discovery at this time virtually inevitable. Still more closely, negatively, is it possible with the aid of the Boit document to discern Captain Gray's purpose. Mr. Worthington C. Ford's annotation with the original document in hand here comes to our aid. Re
LOG OF THE COLUMBIA 263
ferring to the expression: "I landed abreast the ship with Captain Gray to view the Country and take possession, leaving charge with the 2d Officer", Mr. Ford notes, "the words 'and take possession' were inserted at a later time and are in quite different ink". The official log says, "In the afternoon, Cap- tain Gray and Mr. Hoskins, in the jolly-boat went on shore to take a short view of the country." An over-zealous nationalist it seems tampered with the record and made it say what had not been in the mind of Boit to record. As Boit attended Captain Gray in this landing party he would have been enough impressed with the ceremony, had it taken place, to have made a record of it.
In historical literature this voyage has been celebrated as an event initiating a new turn of events politically that was consummated in the establishment of the jurisdiction of the United States over the main portion of the Columbia river basin. This major outcome of this voyage, so far as yet recognized, was an incident or by-product with regard to the purpose contemplated with it. .The enterprise of the company of Boston merchants was rather in direct line of evolution of New England's main interests of shipping and cod and whale fisheries during the 18th century. It is quite easy to believe that in line with increasing international interdependence in trade and cooperation for the best utilization of the earth's resources for human purposes this second voyage of the Co- lumbia may in time to come have larger meaning as an achieve- ment in the evolution of trade than as an exploit of discovery laying the basis for national territorial expansion. These fur trading ventures to the northwest coast of America were the natural expansion of the New England activities in cod fisheries on the banks of New Foundland and in the whale fisheries in the South Sea. These were the mainstay of New England prosperity. On an Act placing an embargo on these fisheries and restricting the trade they involved did Parliament in 1775 rely "to starve New England." This intent brought forth the following glowing tribute from Edmund Burke to the daring exploits of the American whalemen which would have been as well deserved by the fur traders on their more extended voyages in their quite as dangerous experiences with the treacher- ous native tribes:
"And pray, Sir, what in the world is equal to it? [Referring to "the spirit by which that enterprising employment had been exercised"] Pass by the other parts, and look at the manner in which the people of New England have of late carried on the whale fishery. Whilst we follow them among the tumbling mountains of ice, and behold them penetrating into the deepest frozen recesses of Hudson's Bay and Davis's Straits, whilst we are looking for them beneath the arctic circle, we hear that they have pierced into the opposite region of polar cold, that they are at the antipodes, engaged under the frozen serpent of the south. Falklands Island, which seemed too remote and romantic an object for the grasp of national ambi- tion, is but a stage, and resting-place in the progress of their victorious industry. . . . No sea but what is vexed by their fisheries. No climate that is not witness to their toils. Neither the perseverance of Holland, nor the activity of France, nor the dexterous and firm sagacity of English enterprise, ever carried this most perilous mode of hard industry to the extent to which it has been pushed by this recent people; a people who are still, as it were in the gristle, and not yet hardened into the bone of manhood."
This spirit of enterprise which the Columbia's voyages so signally exemplify has been in eclipse as to this honor it had be- cause of the momentous project of political or territorial ex- pansion it enkindled. When all nationalities have become equally democratic and equally enamored with the mission of human welfare it may be possible that this spirit of human enterprise animating these voyages, now largely unnoticed, may outshine the nationalism that has heretofore enveloped them.
F. G. YOUNG.