gan coming to Oregon they were usually dependent on the Hudson's Bay Company for supplies, stock, tools, and in general everything necessary to start them in farming. McLoughlin, believing that Great Britain would at last come into possession of the region north of the Columbia, tried to prevent American settlers from taking claims on that side of the river, directing them all to the Willamette. For a time this plan worked well, but when the best lands of the valley were all taken up, and Americans became so numerous in the country as to feel somewhat independent of the fur company, a few pioneers began to think of taking claims north of the river. Of the party which arrived in the fall of 1844 a few men, under the lead of M. T. Simmons, tried to reach Puget Sound overland, but failing, returned to the neighbourhood of Vancouver, where they spent the winter. The following summer Simmons started out once more, with six companions, made his way up the Cowlitz to the head of navigation, and then westward to the lower end of the Sound. One of their fellow-emigrants of the previous year, John R. Jackson, was already established in a cabin on the highland north of the Cowlitz, and the pioneers also saw the large farm opened some years before by the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, a branch of the fur company. They were delighted with the prospects of the Puget Sound country, with its splendid opportunities for commerce and manufactories; and returning for his family, Simmons settled, in October, on a claim near the site of Olympia. Four
