both to the nature of the country and the severe weather, they returned to Washougal, where they passed the remainder of the winter and the first part of summer in making shingles, which they sold to the fur company, or in any employment they could find to pay expenses.
In February, Henry Williamson, who was from La Porte County, Indiana, and Isaac W. Alderman, erected a hut with a few logs, half a mile from Vancouver, on land occupied by the Hudson s Bay Company, and posted a notice on a tree that they intended to claim the land. This being reported to McLoughlin, he sent men to remove the logs and take down the notice; which removal was hardly completed when the intruders returned with a surveyor, and began running off a section of land. Being remonstrated with, Williamson and Alderman repaired to the fort to argue their case with the doctor. According to White, Williamson, "a modest and respectable young man, demeaned himself with propriety;" but Alderman, "a boisterious, hare-brained young fellow, caused him to blush for American honor."[1]
There were present at this interview, besides White, a number of Americans, and several officers of the fur company. Williamson asked McLoughlin why his hut had been pulled down. McLoughlin replied that it was because it was on land occupied by the Hudson's Bay Company, who were conducting business under a license from the British government, according to a treaty which implied a right to occupy as much ground as they required. This Williamson disputed,[2] and the argument lasted two hours, McLoughlin and Douglas keeping their temper very well, but Alderman declaring that if he were dis-
- ↑ Ten Years in Or., 251. According to Burnett, Alderman was a violent and unprincipled character, who soon made himself notorious He wont to California in 1848, and was killed in December of that year by Charles E. Pickett at Sutter Fort, under circumstances that justified the homicide. Recollections of a Pioneer, 242-4; Crawford's Nar., MS., 144.
- ↑ McLoughlin's Private Papers, MS., 2d ser., 10.
