at Vancouver till October 31st of that year, or until it was ascertained that the government was not prepared to purchase without examining the claims of the Hudson's Bay Company. On the date mentioned Colonel Loring, in command of the department, published a notice that a military reservation had been made for the government of four miles square, "commencing where a meridian line two miles west from the flag-staff at the military post near Vancouver, O. T., strikes the north bank of the Columbia River, thence due north on said meridian four miles, thence due east four miles, thence south to the bank of the Columbia River, thence down said bank to the place of beginning."[1] The notice declared that the reserve was made subject alone to the lawful claims of the Hudson's Bay Company, as guaranteed under the treaty of 1846, but promised payments for improvements made by resident settlers within the described limits, a board of officers to appraise the property.
This large reserve was, as I have before indicated, favorable to the British company's claims, as the only American squatter on the land was Amos M. Short, the history of whose settlement at Vancouver is given in the first volume of my History of Oregon. Short took no notice of the declaration of reserve,[2] thinking perhaps, and with a show of justice, that in this case he was trespassed upon, inasmuch as there was plenty of land for government reservations, which did not include improvements, or deprive a citizen of his choice of a home. He remained upon the land, continuing to improve it, until in 1853 the government restricted the military reservations to one mile square, which left him outside the limits of this one.
- ↑ Or. Spectator, Oct. 31, 1850; 32d Cong., 2d Sess., H. Ex. Doc. 1, pt. ii. 124.
- ↑ Short had shot and killed Dr D. Gardner, and a Hawaiian in his service, for trespass, in the spring of 1850. He was examined and acquitted, of all of which Colonel Loring must have been aware. Or. Spectator, April 18, 1850; Id., May 2, 1850. He was himself regarded as a trespasser by the fur company. U. S. Ev. Hudson's Bay Company Claims, 90.
