game while they belonged to the company. The stockade and buildings were burned in 1851. The land was finally taken as a donation claim. Walla Walla was abandoned in 1855–6, during the Indian war, in obedience to an order from Indian Agent Olney, and was afterward claimed by an American for a town site. Fort Boisé was abandoned in 1856 on account of Indian hostilities, and Fort Hall about the same time on account of the statute against selling of ammunition to Indians, without which the Indian trade was worthless. Okanagan was kept up until 1861 or 1862, when it was left in charge of an Indian chief. Vancouver was abandoned about 1860, the land about it being covered with squatters, English and American.[1] Fort George went out of use before any of the others, Colville holding out longest. At length in 1871, after a tedious and expensive examination of the claims of the Hudson's Bay and Puget Sound companies by a commission appointed for the purpose, an award of seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars was made and accepted, there being nothing left which the United States could confirm to any one except a dozen dilapidated forts. The United States gained nothing by the purchase, unless it were the military reserves at Vancouver, Steilacoom, and Cape Disappointment; for the broad acres of the companies had been donated to squatters who applied for them as United States land. As to the justice of the cause of the American people against the companies, or the companies against the United States, there will be always two opinions, as there have always been two opinions concerning the Oregon boundary question. Sentiment on the American side as enunciated by the Oregon pioneers was as follows: They held that Great Britain had no rights on the west shore of the American continent; in which opinion, if they would include the United States in the same category, I would concur. As I think I
- ↑ J. L. Meek, in U. S. Ev. H. B. C. Claims, 90.
