CHAPTER VI
UPON the opening of the year 1792, the Oregon country was an unknown and unexplored land. It had been believed that a great river entered the Northern Pacific, and several nations had, from time to time, made investigations. It had been reported that ancient navigators had discovered it a century previous, but if so, it had no place upon any map. It was in that year that Captain Robert Gray, a merchant trader, whose ship was fitted out in Boston by a syndicate of merchants achieved the honor. Captain Gray was a native American, born in Tiverton, Rhode Island, in 1755, and died in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1800, eight years after his discovery. He was an observant sailor, as well as a Yankee trader, and as he was sailing leisurely in a gentle breeze, from forty to sixty miles from the shore, he observed a change in the color of the water, and upon testing it, found it comparatively
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