The year 1809 brought to the active notice of the North-Westers the intention of John Jacob Astor to occupy the mouth of the Columbia River, and the records of the House of Commons in London show a petition from the North- West Company for a charter which would give them prior rights to trade upon Columbian waters. David Thompson, however, was not waiting for charters, but prepared to act according to the teachings of the later David Harum, that is "to do to the other fellow as he would do to you and do it fust." He knew from the results of the winter trade at Kootenay Falls that there were Indians of a friendly disposition living to the south of the Kootenay, and doubtless he also had already some knowledge of the route of the Lewis and Clark party on their return trip in 1806, for the following year he had a copy of Patrick Gass' Journal with him as he traveled. So after a trip across the Rocky Mountains to leave his furs and obtain more trading goods, he returned to the Columbia during the summer of 1809, and from there descended the Kootenay River as far as the present site of Bonner's Ferry, in Idaho, where his goods were transferred to pack animals and taken southward across the regular Indian trail (the "Lake Indian Road," as he called it) to Pend d'Oreille Lake. And on the 10th of September, 1809, upon one of the points jutting out into the lake near the town of Hope, Idaho, he set up his leather lodge or tent upon the site of the next: trading post upon Columbian waters, which was called "Kullyspell House." A substantial log house was at once built for the protection of the goods and furs and another for the officers and men, and Mr. Finan McDonald placed in charge. Kullyspell House did not remain in active use for more than two winters, probably, other posts to the eastward and westward being found sufficient to care for the trade; but business was lively there during the season of 1809–10. Ross Cox, who passed that way in the fall of 1812, makes no mention of this Post, but John Work, when crossing the lake in 1825, mentions a camp at "the Old Fort." No trace of its site has been found in these later years.
