USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. I, 1834-1848 > Part 7
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This unlimited power carried with it unlimited responsibility, and placed McLoughlin in very deli- cate positions, not alone with regard to his business with the company,8 but also in dealings with and treat- ment of those who had no connection with the com- pany, and especially Americans, with whom, on account of the political situation of the Oregon Territory, he
6 He is thus spoken of many years later by an American settler in Oregon: ' McLoughlin was one of nature's noblemen. He was six feet six or seven inches in height, and his locks were long and white. He used to wear a large blue cloak thrown around him. You can imagine a man of that sort-a mnost beautiful picture. See him walking down to his church Sunday morning- it was really a sight.' Chadwick's Public Records, MS., 4, 5; Harvey's Life of McLoughlin, MS., 5, 6. See also Hist. Brit. Col., chap. xvii., this series.
1 Harvey's Life of McLoughlin, MS., 16-18. 'I may mention that a young American gentleman, Mr Dwight, of Salem, Mass., having come across the plains, had been rather imposed upon by the company's agent then at Fort Hall, having had to leave his rifle for provisions supplied him there, and com- plained, or rather spoke of the matter to me, then at the Sandwich Islands. I wrote and explained the case to McLoughlin, who immediately sent orders to Fort Hall and had the rifle forwarded to Mr Dwight free of all charge. I had the pleasure of returning it to him.' Allan's Reminiscences, MS., 10, 11.
8 ' McLoughlin was a stout, hearty man, and very determined in character. Even the directory in London could not well control him: he would have his own way.' Finlayson's V. I., MS., 70.
31
JAMES DOUGLAS.
was especially careful to be in friendly relations, as well for the honor of the company as from a nice sense of justice. Yet it will be seen that he dared to discriminate, as in the cases of Kelley and Young. His liberality of sentiment and freedom from secta- rian prejudices were proofs equally of a noble nature and a cultivated mind," and his energy and genial disposition placed him foremost in every good work.
I might have some doubts as to the propriety of attributing so many high qualities to a single character, were it not that every authority I turn to-and they are numerous-bears me out in it, and compels me to record some small portion of the almost universal praise. McLoughlin did not always please, but in the end most people came to say with Finlayson, "By the light of maturer years, and considering the cir- cumstances under which he was placed, I cannot but express my utmost admiration of his character."
While McLoughlin was at Fort William, on Lake Superior, James Douglas, a youth of seventeen, was sent there from Scotland, and placed in the service of the company. McLoughlin was to him as an elder brother. For years they were constantly associated.10
Tall like McLoughlin, but unlike the doctor he was dark and grave, as was the Black Douglas, the strongest pillar of the Scottish throne. Unlike the doctor, too, he was not quick or enthusiastic, but painstaking, cool, methodical, and resolute. His man- ners were by some thought pompous; but courtly bearing,11 in a man of his size and gravity of deport- ment, must partake somewhat of pomp. I think he
9 He was above proselyting. He was broad in his views. 'A man, dying, left him his daughter to bring up; the father being a Protestant, McLoughlin would not put the daughter to a Catholic school, so conscientious was he.' Applegate's Views, MS., 14.
10 See Hist. Brit. Col., chap. xvii., this series.
11 ' I have often smiled at Douglas' behavior to people, honest perhaps, but rough, who had not been accustomed to show much outward respect to any one; his excessive politeness would extort a little, in that way, from them.' Roberts' Recollections, MS., 17.
32
LIFE AT FORT VANCOUVER.
impressed all the early settlers of Oregon as being much less approachable than the doctor, while at the same time they could but admire his bearing toward them. 12
Next in rank at Fort Vancouver was Peter Skeen Ogden, son of Chief Justice Ogden of Quebec. His father had been a loyalist, in early times, in New York, and had emigrated to Canada. Young Ogden was for a short time in the service of Mr Astor, and later of the Northwest Company, from which he was transferred to the Hudson's Bay Company. He had been active in establishing posts and negotiating com- mercial relations with Indian tribes. In one of his expeditions he discovered the Humboldt River. 18 Og- den was a contrast in every way to McLoughlin and Douglas, being short, dark-skinned, and rather rough in his manner, but lively and witty, and a favorite with everybody.14 He died at Oregon City in 1854, aged sixty years. 15
Frank Ermatinger was another person of note at Vancouver; a stout Englishman, jovial and com- panionable, but rather too much given to strong drink. He was a successful trader, and was sent out to compete with the American fur companies in the Flathead and Nez Percé countries. Afterward, when Oregon City had been established, he took charge of the company's business there, and figured a little in American affairs, being much esteemed by the set-
12 ' Douglas would not flatter you. McLoughlin was more free and easy than he. He was a man born to command; a martial fellow. He never gave an evasive answer; he was a gentleman, too.' Waldo's Critiques, MS., 11. 13 Applegate's Views, MS., 13.
14 He carried his love of fun and frolic to great lengths. 'One of his tricks played at home was, as I have often been told-and played too on his own mother-to send notes to all the midwives in Quebec, asking them to repair to the house of Mrs Ogden at a certain hour, greatly, of course, to the aston- ishment and indignation of that lady.' Allan's Reminiscences, MS., 9.
15 There is an anecdote, told by an eye-witness, of Ogden's Indian wife, to the effect that when the Hudson's Bay and American companies were com- peting in the mountains, riding into the enemy's camp to recover a pack-animal loaded with furs, the gallantry of the American trappers permitted her to recapture the pack. The Indian women were very useful to the traders in many ways.
33
FACTORS, TRADERS, AND CLERKS.
tlers. Allan, a brother clerk, says he was sometimes styled Bardolph at the fort, from the color and size of his nose; that he was fond of talking, and would address himself to the governor in all humors when others stood aloof, bearding the lion in his den, as the clerks called it, and being met sometimes with a growl. "Frank," said the governor, "does nothing but bow, wow, wow !" 16
One of the most noted story-tellers of the bach- elor's hall was Thomas McKay, a step-son of Mc- Loughlin-for the doctor's wife was an Ojibway woman, formerly the wife of Alexander McKay, who was lost on the Tonquin. Thomas McKay acquired a reputation for daring which made him the terror of the Indians. Townsend, who met him at Fort Vancouver, said he often spoke of the death of his father with the bitter animosity and love of ven- geance inherited from his Indian mother; and that he declared he would yet be known on this coast as the avenger of blood. But had he been in truth so bloody-minded he could hardly have been so success- ful a trader. He was undoubtedly brave, and led many a trading party into the dreaded Blackfoot country ; and was accustomed to amuse the clerks at Fort Vancouver with his wonderful adventures. In telling a story, says Allan, he invariably commenced, "It rained, it rained; and it blew, it blew" -- often throwing in by way of climax, "and, my God, how it did snow !" quite regardless of the unities.
Mckay was tall, dark, and powerful in appearance, and often strange in his deportment. Perhaps the tragical fate of his father had impressed him, as well as the recollection that in. his own veins ran savage blood. His first wife was a Chinook, the mother of William McKay of Pendleton, who was brought up
16 Ermatinger married a Miss Sinclair, a relative of Doctor McLoughlin's wife. He was rather too intimate with the doctor to suit Sir George Simpson. He went home to England on a visit, and, to annoy the doctor, Simpson pre- vented his return to Oregon, where he had left a young wife, and ordered him to be stationed at Red River. Roberts' Recollections. MS., 2.
HIST. OR., VOL. I. 3
34
LIFE AT FORT VANCOUVER.
in McLoughlin's household, and afterward sent to the east to be educated. His second wife, the mother of the famous scout, Donald McKay, half-brother of William McKay, was a half-breed daughter of Mon- toure, a confidential clerk of the company. They were married at Vancouver by Blanchet.17
Duncan Finlayson, one of the many Scotchmen in the company's service, came to Fort Vancouver in 1831, remaining there until 1837. It is believed by those who know best that the council in London were for some reason dissatisfied with McLoughlin's man- agement, and sent out Finlayson to keep an eye on him. He had no direct charge, yet was consulted on all points by the head of the department. Matters of this kind were kept close at Fort Vancouver. By the light of subsequent events, however, it seems probable that the London council were dissatisfied with the invasion of the territory west of the Rocky Mountains by the American companies, and desired more vigorous opposition. But McLoughlin, however irritated, was too just to visit his anger upon the com- pany's agent, who remained at Fort Vancouver on the most amicable terins with its governor.
Previous to 1833 there had been no physician at Fort Vancouver, except Doctor McLoughlin, who, through the epidemic of 1830 and the several seasons of fever that followed, suffered much fatigue from care of the sick, and much annoyance from the inter- ruption of his business. In 1833 two young surgeons came out from Scotland, Gairdner and Tolmie. They had for their patron Sir William Hooker. Gairdner had been studying under the celebrated Ehrenberg. He was surgeon at Fort. Vancouver from 1833 to 1835, but being troubled with hemorrhage of the lungs, went to the Hawaiian Islands in the autumn of the latter year, where he died. Being a young man of high attainments, his death was much de-
17 Or. Sketches, MS., 21; Roberts' Recollections, MS., 63.
35
GENTLEMEN SUBORDINATES.
plored. Dr Gairdner made a study of the salmon of the Columbia River, and his authority on their habits is still high.
William Frazer Tolmie, his associate, was from the University of Glasgow, and made botany a study. He had been at Fort Vancouver but a few months when he was assigned to the post on Millbank Sound. Returning to Fort Vancouver in 1836, he served in the medical department for several years.
Thus we see that there was no lack of good society at Fort Vancouver. Besides the residents, there were many gentlemen scattered over the country at the different posts, and in the field as traders, leading trapping parties, and carrying on commercial warfare with the American companies, and usually getting the better of them, owing to a superior organization and a better quality of goods.
Prominent among the chief clerks who had charge of posts in the interior was Pierre C. Pambrun, for several years in charge of Fort Walla Walla, where he dispensed hospitality with a free hand.18
Archibald Mckinlay, who succeeded Pambrun at Walla Walla, was another Scotchman who had been in the service of the Northwest Company. Genial and stout-hearted,19 he was a worthy successor of the favorite Pambrun, and the friend and ally afterward of the American missionaries in the upper country. He possessed that very necessary acquirement in an Indian country, knowledge of the native character.20
1216589
18 Mr Pambrun was of French Canadian origin, and was formerly a lieu- tenant in the Voltigeurs Canadiens. His wife was a native woman, by whom he had several children. One of his daughters was married to Dr Barclay, of the Hudson's Bay Company, in 1838, at the same time that her father was formally married to her mother. Pambrun died in 1840, from bruises received in a fall from his horse, occasioned by the slipping of the guiding-rope from the mouth of the animal, which thereupon became unmanageable and ran away with him. Blanchet's Cath. Church in Or., 47; Lee and Frost's Or., 215; Farn- ham's Travels to the Rocky Mountains, 155.
19 He was a tall, fair, sandy-complexioned Highlander, weighing two hun- dred pounds, sociable, civil, clever, and a man of some intellect; a very lively, active, sharp Scotchman. Moss' Pioneer Times, MS., 37.
20 See Hist. Northwest Coast, this series, passim; Mckinlay's Narrative, MS., 9-12; Or. Spectator, Aug. 5, 1847; Victor's River of the West, 31.
36
LIFE AT FORT VANCOUVER.
I am aware that it was a common belief among the early settlers, because the Hudson's Bay people were less frequently attacked than others, that they enjoyed immunity; but such was not the case.21 Nothing but their uniform just treatment, and the firmness and intrepidity of the leaders and officers in charge, preserved this apparent security. Except in the vicinity of Fort Vancouver, or among the diseased and wasted tribes of the Willamette and Columbia valleys, there needed to be exercised sleepless vigi- lance, and a scrupulous regard to the superstitions of the different tribes.
Chief Factor Samuel Black, in charge of Fort Kanı- loop at the junction of Fraser and Thompson rivers, was a great favorite, and many were the stories told of him.22 His murder by one of the fort Indians shows that, though he had been among them many years, he was no more safe from their fury or super- stition than were others.23
William Glen Rae, a large, handsome man, educated at Edinburgh, was a native of the Orkney Islands. From 1834 to 1837 he was employed as trader at the different posts, and was then appointed head clerk at Fort Vancouver. In 1838 he married Maria Eloise, daughter of Dr McLoughlin, soon after which he was appointed chief trader, and sent to Stikeen River in 1840 to receive from the Russians their fort at that place, leased to the Hudson's Bay Company. He left the post at Stikeen in charge of John McLoughlin, son of Dr McLoughlin and brother of his wife. In 1841 he was sent to California to take charge of the
21 Traders of interior posts were in constant danger of Indian attacks. Only a few men could be kept at each post, and the Indians at times were dis- contented. When in want of provisions they could not get, they would become desperate and easily excited. Burnett's Recollections, MS., i. 112.
22 See Hist. Northwest Coast, passim, this series. Black was an oddity. He had a ring presented him at the coalition of the Northwest and Hudson's Bay companies, engraved, 'To the most worthy of the worthy Northwesters.' Roberts' Recollections, MS., 9.
23 Mckinlay's Nar., MS., 13, 14; Simpson's Nar., i. 157; Roberts' Recollec- tions, MS., 10; Tod's New Caledonia, MS., 13-19.
37
FURTHER CHARACTERISTICS.
company's business, which continued under his man- agement until his death by his own hand in 1846.24
John McLoughlin, junior, second son of Dr Mc- Loughlin, was but a young man to be placed in charge of a fort, and appears to have been in no way worthy of the name he bore. About a year after Mr Rae left him at Stikeen he was murdered by his own men, Canadians and kanakas. An account of the affair is given in the History of the Northwest Coast. One who knew him called him too young and hot-headed for such service; but there is reason to think that he brought about his own death by his debaucheries. 25 Sir George Simpson, who investigated the murder, treated it in such a way as to incur the life-long dis- pleasure of Dr McLoughlin. This, however, was not the only cause for offence,26 a tacit disagreement having existed for at least ten years between the resident gov- ernor of the Hudson's Bay Company and the 'emperor of the west.' Sir George was of humble though re- spectable origin, a Scottish family of Caithness, and his father was a school-master. He was in the possession of no personal qualities that could awe McLoughlin.
24 Mrs Rae had three children when she returned to Oregon on the death of her husband, a son and two daughters. The son inherited a large property in the Orkney Islands, but died early. The daughters became Mrs Theodore Wygant and Mrs Joseph Myrick of Portland. Mrs Rae was married again to Daniel Harvey of Oregon City, who was in charge of McLoughlin's mills at that place, and by whom she had two sons, Daniel and James, both becoming residents of Portland. Roberts' Rec., MS., 24, 57; Harvey's Life of McLough- lin, MS., passim.
25 Doctor McLoughlin had three sons; the eldest, Joseph, was uneducated. He settled at the mouth of the Yamhill River, and died there. His widow, who was a daughter of Mr McMillan of the Hudson's Bay Company, in early Astoria days married Etienne Grégoire, a French settler. David McLoughlin, the younger son, was sent to Paris and London for education, and was some time at Addiscombe, where young men are trained for the East India Com- pany. He returned to Oregon, spent his inheritance, and became a resident of Montana.
26 ' I don't know how the feud between the doctor and Sir George originated. The doctor was "at outs," I think in 1831, and threatened to retire; and Dun- can Finlayson, who afterwards married a sister of Lady Simpson, and cousin of Sir George, came to supersede him. The doctor did not leave for England till March 1838, and returned still in the employ of the company. It was said that Sir George had prepared the governor and committee to give the doctor a "whigging," but that when he came into their presence his fine manly appearance and bearing was such that they had no heart for the fight.' Roberts' Recollections, MS., 22-3.
38
LIFE AT FORT VANCOUVER.
The fop of the Columbia district was John Lee Lewes, an old Northwester, who after having been many years at the several northern posts was placed in charge of the district of Mckenzie River, and afterward at Fort Colville. He was a man of fine per- sonal appearance, and possessed many good qualities. He had the misfortune to lose his right hand by the accidental discharge of a gun. When he retired from the service in 1846 he proceeded to Australia with the intention of remaining there; but habit was too strong upon him, and he returned and took up his abode at Red River.27 A son of Mr Lewes was the first representative from Vancouver county when Oregon territory was organized.
John Dunn, who wrote a book on Oregon made up partly from his own observations but more largely from those of others, was in charge of Fort Mc- Loughlin, on Milbank Sound, in 1830; but later he was at Fort George on the Columbia, where he re- mained till about 1840. Dunn was one of two young naval apprentices sent out in the ship Ganymede in 1830. George B. Roberts of Cathlamet was the other. This latter gentleman was for many years clerk at Fort Vancouver, being cognizant of a long series of interesting events. His Recollections in man- uscript, from which I have made so many extracts, has proved very valuable to me.28
21 Anderson's Hist. Northwest Coast, MS., 85-6.
28 Roberts has, by request, furnished his own biographical sketch. It is, like all his writings, rich in incident and allusion, and though not written with the expectation that it would be inserted verbatim in this history, there can be no objection to the following quotation: 'I was born at Aldborough in Suffolk, east coast of England, fifty miles or so north of the Thames, 16th of December 1815, the birthplace of the poet Crabbe. Through the kind interest of Sir Edward Berry, Nelson's flag-captain at the Nile, to whom Nelson said of the French as the fleet entered Aboukir Bay, "Count 'em, Sir Ed'ard," Southey's Life of Nelson, I was admitted to the Greenwich Royal Naval School at the age of between eleven and twelve, on the 30th of August '27, where I re- mained till 3d of November 1830, and was then with several others bound apprentices for seven years to the Hudson's Bay Company's naval service, and sailed from London on the 11th of November 1830 in the bark Ganymede, Captain Charles Kissling. She was only 213 tons, had a crew of 30, carried 6 cannonades in the waist, and was for all Indian purposes a safe ship. The small size was owing to the difficulties and dangers of the Columbia, there being no charts, buoys, or pilots in those days. We arrived at the Columbia
39
SOME WRITERS.
Alexander Caulfield Anderson was born at Cal- cutta in India, in 1814, and educated in England. At about twenty years of age he entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company on the Northwest Coast, but was not so much at Fort Vancouver as north of that fort. From his manuscript History of the Northwest Coast much valuable and interesting matter has been obtained.
Doctor Forbes Barclay came to Oregon in the ser- vice of the company in 1839, and remained at Fort Vancouver till 1850, when he became a resident of Oregon City and a naturalized American citizen. Barclay was a native of the Shetland Islands, and was born on Christmas-day, 1812. While but a lad
after calling at the S. Islands, about August Ist. The apprentices were trans- ferred to the Cadboro, for the coast-but all hands were ill with the ague (we called it). We had to go into tents in Baker's Bay. I was the last to fall ill, and was sent to Fort George when the ship sailed for the Northwest Coast. I went to Vancouver in February and assisted Douglas (Sir James), who was then a clerk on £100 a year. When the expedition to the Stikeen was fitted out in '34 I applied to join my school-mates, but on the return of the expedi- tion, in the winter of '34-35, I had had enough of the sea, and resumed my former berth, though for one year I kept the school of some 50 Indian chil- dren-it must have been after S. H. Smith ran off with our old baker's Indian wife. I was then employed in the office and stores till Dr McLoughlin's de- parture for England, when Douglas assumed charge, and took me for aid instead of Mr Allan to oversee the men. We had about 100 to 150, sometimes 200, and I was the overseer. I continued in this with the exceptions of a month or two at Cowlitz farin in '39, Oregon City in '40, and Champoeg in '42. I left that season, November '42, for England, with Captain McNeill, as a pas- senger of course. The doctor and Douglas, then the board of management, read to me their public letter commending me to the governor and committee, and thoughtfully asking them to allow me to return if I was so disposed, breaking the rule of the service in my case-generally there was no return to the service. We reached London by way of the Islands, 10th of May '43. I was soon tired of home, where I was out of place and a nobody, and availing myself of the thoughtfulness of the doctor and Douglas, married my first cousin, Miss Martha Cable, of Aldborough, and sailed from Cowes, Isle of Wight, 5th of December, on board the bark Brothers, Captain Flere, a char- tered ship; and arrived at the Islands in April, where we took as fellow-pas- senger Rev. George Gary, who was coming to settle up the Methodist Mission business after the death of Jason Lee. [Mr Gary set out before the death of Jason Lee.] We arrived safely at Vancouver in May '44. From thence on to December '46, I had charge of the company's depot, wholesale business, that is, I received and shipped all cargoes, kept separate account of each post and ship. I may say that up to that time I had a better acquaintance of all things at Vancouver than anybody else. I came young, soon learned French and Indian, knew where everything was, and everybody. I hardly think there was a book or paper that I hadn't fullest access to. I went to take charge of the Cowlitz farm in 1846. In '48 came the measles, and a scene of death; in "49 a typhoid or camp fever, of which my poor wife died in July '50. In '55 I married Miss Rose Birnie, of Aberdeen, Scotland.'
40
LIFE AT FORT VANCOUVER.
he went on a cruise with Sir John Ross to the Arctic regions, in search of a north-west passage. The ves- sel was wrecked, and nearly all on board were lost. Among those who escaped and were picked up by the Eskimos was young Barclay. He was taken to the island of Fisco, where he lived with the Danes for several months, finally returning to Scotland on a vessel which touched at the island. Resuming his studies, he graduated at the royal college of surgeons, in London, in July 1838, and left the following year for Oregon, where he arrived in the spring of 1840.29
Donald Manson was also a native of Scotland, who had received a good education, and in his seventeenth year, 1817, entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. He remained on the east side of the mountains till 1823, when he accompanied Black into the country now known as the Cassiar mining dis- trict, after which he returned to Athabasca, and in the autumn of 1824 was ordered to the Columbia River, arriving at Fort Vancouver in April 1825. In the summer of 1827 he assisted in the erection of Fort Langley, the first trading post established by the company west of the Rocky Mountains and north of Fort Vancouver. He returned to Fort Vancouver in 1828, in which year two American vessels, the brig Owyhee, Captain Dominus, and the schooner Convoy, Captain Tomson, entered the Columbia to trade. Man- son was sent to occupy the deserted post at Astoria, and oppose the interlopers. He found the old fort in so ruinous a state that he lived in a tent for the season.30
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