commanded by John H. Couch, who came to establish a fishery on the Columbia.[1]
The petition of the colonists forwarded to congress by Farnham in the winter of 1839–40 was followed by a report from Captain Spaulding of the Lausanne, in which the British fur company was charged with avarice, cruelty, despotism, and bad government, in terms even more violent and exaggerated than Farnham had ventured to use.[2]
Such grave accusations, made so boldly and repeatedly, at length stirred the government to some show of action. The secretary of war could not be expected to know that the patriotic Spaulding spoke only from hearsay, or that all these communications drew their aspiration from the same source, the Methodist Missions. The result was, therefore, that instructions were despatched to the commander of the United States exploring squadron in the Pacific to visit the Columbia River, and ascertain how much ground really existed for the complaints so frequently made to congress concerning the hardships imposed by a foreign corporation upon citizens of the United States.
- ↑ McLoughlin's Private Papers, MS., 2d ser. 7; Lee and Frost's Or., 272–3. Couch was unsuccessful in this undertaking, and after having sold his vessel at the Hawaiian Islands, returned to Newburyport, leaving in Oregon George W. Le Breton, a young man of intelligence and respectability, who settled at the falls of the Willamette, and attached himself to the anti-Hudson's Bay or American Missionary party. Having learned the condition of trade in Oregon and its requirements, Couch returned there in 1842 with a new brig, the Chenamus, named after a Chinook chief living opposite Astoria, and leaving a stock of goods at Oregon City in charge of Albert E. Wilson, who came out in the Chenamus, and Le Breton, employed his vessel in trade with the Sandwich Islands, as had been arranged in the informal treaty between Jason Lee and King Kamehameha III.; the whole business being under the name and auspices of Cushing & Co. Couch continued to manage the business of Cushing & Co. until 1847, when he returned to Newburyport by way of China. In the following year he engaged with a company of New York shipping merchants to take a cargo of goods to Oregon in the bark Madonna. Captain Flanders sailed with him as first officer, and took command of the Madonna on reaching Oregon, while Couch took charge of the cargo, which was placed in store and sold in Portland. The two captains went into business together in 1850, and remained at Portland up to the death of Couch, April 1809. Besides his business, Couch owned a land claim which proved a source of wealth, being now a part of the city of Portland. His wife and family came from Massachusetts by sea in 1852. His children were all daughters, and the three elder married Dr Wilson, C. H. Lewis, merchant, and Dr Glisan, all prominent citizens. S. F. Bulletin. May 1, 1869.
- ↑ H. Rept., 27th Cong., 2d Sess., 56–61.
