Page:Quarterlyoforego10oreg 1.djvu/367

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THE QUARTERLY

OF THE

Oregon Historical Society.



Volume X
DECEMBER, 1909
Number 4


[The Quarterly disavows responsibility for the positions taken by contributors to Its pages.]


THE PETER SKENE OGDEN JOURNALS

Editorial Notes by T. C. Elliott.

The publication of the Ogden Journals, four in number, is made possible by the courtesy of Miss Agnes C. Laut, who for a very nominal consideration indeed consented to dispose of her copy of these Journals to the writer of these notes. Miss Laut is deserving of great credit for her success in obtaining this copy from the originals in London, England.

The Journal reproduced in this number of the Quarterly covers the period of Mr. Ogden's second expedition to the Snake country. As yet no Journal has been found of the first expedition, and the reader will appreciate such brief mention of that expedition as is at this time possible from original Hudson's Bay Company sources; particularly as some new light will be thrown upon a certain oft mentioned occurrence of the fur trade involving the trapping parties of the H. B. Co. from the Columbia river and of the Americans from St. Louis. (See entry of April 10, 1826 ultra.)

Let it be briefly stated here that Peter Skene Ogden, then in the thirtieth year of his age and already a Chief Trader of the Hudson's Bay Company, on the 27th of October, 1824, at the mouth of the Spokane river met (Deputy) Governor George Simpson of that Company (Gov. Simpson passed down the Columbia that Fall in company with Dr. John McLoughlin