Reaching the Pacific Northwest in summer 1831, officers and crew of the Ganymede caught the "remittent fever" current that year, Roberts last of all—which postponed his naval service. He remained for some time at Fort George, then taught school at Fort Vancouver. When he did engage in the coastal trade in 1834-35, either the sea or the post at Stikine disagreed with him, and he returned to the Columbia, where McLoughlin and Douglas liked his work.[1] He spent a month or two at Cowlitz in 1839, at Oregon City in 1840, and at Champoeg in 1842.
After the end of his apprenticeship, George Roberts returned to England, to visit his old home and consider his future. There he courted and married his cousin Martha. Yet he felt "out of place" in England, and since the Company had given him the then unusual option of returning to its service with a better chance for advancement, Roberts decided to venture his fortunes in the Pacific Northwest.[2] In one respect at least, he was like Oregon pioneers from the States, for his reports and letters to England in the 1840s urged relatives to come to the new country.[3]
Back in the Oregon Country with his wife, Roberts served at Vancouver until December 1846, when Peter Skene Ogden sent him to take charge of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company's Cowlitz Farm, located on the north-
- ↑ Edward Huggins says Roberts "disliked the sea." See Huggins to Eva Emery Dye, February 1, 1904 (Dye Collection, OHS). For McLoughlin's recommendation and remarks about Roberts' naval service, see E. E. Rich, ed., McLoughlin's Fort Vancouver Letters, Second Series, 1839-44, HBRS VI (London, 1943), 81.
- ↑ The office of "clerk," its salary and chances for advancement are discussed in Burt Brown Barker, Letters of Dr. John McLoughlin … (Portland, 1948), 344.
- ↑ His sister-in-law's recollections on the subject (see pp. 236-40) have a slightly acid tone, though she admits the Washington prairie she and her family settled on was very beautiful.
voyage no doubt were intended, along with the ship itself, to implement Company plans of the late 1820s for stepping up competition with the Americans in the coastal trade. See E. E. Rich, ed., John McLoughlin's Fort Vancouver Letters, First Series, 1823-38, Hudson's Bay Record Society IV (London, 1941), W. Kaye Lamb's introduction, lxix-lxxiv. (Hereafter HBRS IV.)
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