USA > Washington > Spokane County > Spokane > History of the city of Spokane and Spokane County, Washington : from its earliest settlement to the present time, Volume I > Part 3
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Captain Lewis's Indian informants seem to have drawn a long bow in their description of the falls on the Clark or Pend d'Oreille river. These are now known as Albani falls, and are near the town of Newport.
It is possible that wandering and adventurous white men or half breeds may have found their way to the falls of the Spokane prior to the coming of Lewis and Clark into this country, but here we are embarking on a wide sea of conjecture. Early in the nineteenth century an aged Spokane woman told the early-day fur
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BIRDSEYE VIEW OF SPOKANE
Mount Carleton and Pend d'Oreille range in the distance
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SPOKANE AND THE INLAND EMPIRE
traders that she had onee been far to the south, where she heard mission bells and saw men plowing fields, and it is within the range of probabilities that faint com- munications had been opened between the Indians of the Spokane country and the Spaniards in far-away California. Some color is lent to this conjecture by the resemblance between the saddles that were used by the Indians here a hundred years ago and the Spanish or Mexican saddle. Certainly the Indian cayuse ponies, which roamed over the Palouse country in large bands at the time of the Lewis and Clark expedition, eame from Spanish . stoek, for the horse was extinet on this continent at the time of the discovery of America. Old Indians informed the early for traders that the horse had been brought into this seetion within their own mem- ory, and were fond of reeiting the astonishment with which they viewed the strange animal when their parents had taken them to see it in possession of a. neighboring tribe .*
Lewis and Clark returned to the east, and for several years the government of the United States put forth no effort to follow up such rights of possession as it may have acquired by this great work of exploration. Indeed, President Jefferson, who conceived and executed these explorations, appears to have entertained but vague ideas regarding the outcome of the heroie achievement, for we find him, a few years later, writing to John Jacob Astor of New York, encouraging the enter- prise of that daring merchant, but holding out no expectation that either the flag or the constitution would follow him to the distant banks of the Columbia.
"I remember well having invited your proposition on this subject (wrote Jeffer- son to Astor) and encouraged it with the assurance of every facility and protection which the government could properly afford. ; I considered, as a great public acquisition, the commencement of a settlement :on 'that'point of the western coast of America, and looked forward with gratifieation to the time when its deseendants should have spread themselves through the whole length of that eoast, covering it with free and independent Americans; UNCONNECTED WITH US BUT BY THE TIES OF BLOOD AND INTEREST, and enjoying like us the rights of self-government."
We come now to the advent of the fur traders- to the first commerce on the Spokane- and the establishment a hundred years ago of rival stores by Astor's Pacifie Fur company and the Northwest Fur company of Canada, at the con- fluenee of the Spokane and the Little Spokane, streams, designated then as the Pointed Heart and the Spokane. A brief resume of the history of these companies, and the older Hudson's Bay company, is essential to a clear understanding of the stirring events that are to follow. To that end } shall quote in part from Ross Cox, who came to the northwest in 1812 as a elerk in the service of Mr. Astor's Pacifie company, and in part from Irving's "Astoria," written by that great genins after study of the records entrusted to him by Mr. Astor, his friend.
* Xavier Finlay, a mixed blood, when more than 50 years of age, at the time of the es- tablishment of Fort Colville in 1859, said to white men that he could remember when the first horse was brought into the country north of Snake river. Word came to the Indians in the Colville valley, he said, of the presence of a strange animal among the Indians in the Wilson Creek country, between Spokane and the Columbia, fleet as the wind, as large as an elk, but without horns, and doeile as a deer. Moved by curiosity, a number of northern Indians, including his grandparents, journeyed to see this first horse in the northern country, and he recited how he was lifted, then a little boy, upon the back of the strange and beautiful creature, and shivered with fear when the sleek coat touched his little bare legs.
SPOKANE AND THE INLAND EMPIRE
The history of the Hudson's Bay company goes back to 1670, when King Charles il of England granted a charter to a number of adventurous gentlemen ambitious to exploit the wilds of North America. Prince Rupert was made the first governor. and the company was allowed the exclusive privilege of establishing trading fac- tories on the shores of Hudson's bay and its tributary rivers.
"While Canada belonged to France." says Cox in 'Adventures on the Columbia River,' "the Canadian traders had advanced many hundred miles beyond take Supe- rior, and established several trading posts in the heart of the interior, some of which the voyageurs stift call by their original names, such as Fort Dauphin, Fort Bourbon and others. The conquest of that province opened a new source of trade to British enterprise: and white the officers of the Hudson's Bay company fancied their charter had secured them in the undisturbed possession of their monopoly, an active and enterprising rival was gradually encroaching on their territories, and imperceptibly undermining their influence with the Indians. I allude to the North- west Fur company of Canada, which originally consisted of a few private traders, but subsequently became the first commercial establishment in British America.
"Its first members were British and Canadian merchants. Their clerks were chiefly younger branches of respectable Scottish families, who entered the service as apprentices for seven years, for which period they were allowed one hundred pounds and suitable clothing. At the expiration of their apprenticeship they were placed on yearly salaries, varying from 80 to 160 pounds, and according to their talents were ultimately provided for as partners.
"This system, by creating an identity of interest, produced a spirit of emulation among the clerks admirably calculated to promote the general good: for as each individual was led to expect that the period for his election to the proprietary de- pended on his own exertions, every nerve was strained to attain the long-desired object of his wishes.
"Courage was an indispensable qualification, not merely for the casual en- counters with the Indians, but to intimidate any competitor in trade with whom he might happen to come in collision. Success was looked upon as the great criterion of a trader's cleverness: and provided he obtained for his outfit of merchandise what was considered a good return of furs. the partners never stopped to inquire about the means by which they were acquired.
"The Hudson's Bay company, on the contrary, presented no such inducements to extra exertion on the part of its officers. Each individual had a fixed salary. without any prospect of becoming a proprietor ; and some of them, whose courage was undoubted, when challenged to single combat by a Northwester, refused. alleg- ing as a reason that they were engaged to trade for furs, and not to fight with fel- low-subjects.
"Independently of the foregoing circumstances, the Northwest company, in the selection of its canoe men, or, as they were called, engages, had another great advantage over its chartered rival. These men were French Canadians, remarkable for obedience to their superiors, and whose skill in managing canoes, capability of enduring hardships, and facility of adapting themselves to the habits and peculiari- ties of the various tribes, rendered them infinitely more popular in the eyes of the Indians than the stubborn, unbending. matter-of-fact Orkney men. (The chief part
WILLIAM CLARK Of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
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of the boatmen, and several of the officers of the Hudson's Bay company had been formerly natives of the Orkney islands.)
"After establishing opposition trading posts adjoining the different factories of the Hudson's Bay company in the interior, the indefatigable Northwesters con- tinued their progress to the northwest and westward, and formed numerous trading establishments at Athabasca, Peace River, Great and Lesser Slave lakes, New Caledonia and the Columbia, etc., to none of which places did the officers of the Hudson's Bay company attempt to follow them. By these means the Northwest company became undisputed masters of the interior. Their influence with the na- tives was all-powerful, and no single trader, without incurring imminent danger from the Indians or encountering the risk of starvation, could attempt to penetrate into their territories.
"With the interior thus inaccessible, and the confines not worth disputing, Mr. Astor turned his attention to the opposite side of the American continent (he had been operating on the Atlantic side), and accordingly made proposals to the North- west company to join with him in forming an establishment on the Columbia river. This proposition was submitted to the consideration of a general meeting of the wintering proprietors (the annual winter conference at Fort William, near lake Supe- rior ) and, after some negotiations as to the details, rejected.
"Mr. Astor therefore determined to make the attempt without their coopera- tion, and in the winter of 1809 he succeeded in forming an association called the Pacific Fur company, of which he himself was the chief proprietor. As able and experienced traders were necessary to insure success, he induced several of the gentlemen connected with the Northwest company to quit that establishment and join in his speculation. Among these was Alexander, MeKay, an old partner, who had accompanied Sir Alexander Mackenzie in 'his perilous journey across the continent to the Pacific ocean.
"It was intended in the first instance to form .a trading establishment at the entraner of the Columbia, and as many more subsequently on its tributary streams as the nature and produetions of the country would admit. It was also arranged that a vessel laden with goods for the Indian trade should sail every year from New York for the Columbia, and after discharging her cargo at the establishment, take on board the produce of the year's trade, and thence proceed to Canton, which is a ready market for furs of every description. On disposing of her stock of peltries at the latter place, she was to return to New York, freighted with the prodnetions of China.
"The first vessel fitted out by the Pacific Fur company was the Tonquin, com- manded by Captain Jonathan Thorne, formerly a lieutenant in the service of the United States. She sailed from New York in the autumn of 1810, and had on board four partners, nine clerks, with a number of mechanics and voyageurs, with a large and well assorted cargo for the Indian and Chinese trades.
"Much about the same period a party under the command of Messrs. W. P. Hunt and Donald Mackenzie left St. Louis on the Missouri, with the intention of proceeding as nearly as possible by Lewis and Clark's route across the continent to the mouth of the Columbia. This party consisted, besides the above gentlemen. who were partners, of three clerks and upwards of seventy men.
"The following year, 1811, another vessel, the Beaver, of 180 tons, commanded
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by Captain Cornelius Sowles, sailed for the Columbia. She had on board one partner, six clerks and a number of artisans and voyageurs, with a plentiful supply of everything that could contribute to the comfort of the passengers and crew."
Ross Cox came on the Beaver as one of the clerks in the service of Mr. Astor's company.
It is not the purpose of this history to enter into the details of the setting up of the establishment at Astoria, but reference having been made to the Tonquin. the narrative would be incomplete without a brief recital of her tragic fate. From the hour she attempted to cross the Columbia river har. "disaster followed fast upon disaster." Chief Mate Fox, with two American sailors and two Canadian voya- geurs, who were ordered out by Captain Thorne in the long boat to sound the chan- nel, were drowned in the breakers on the 23d of March, and the gale became so menacing that the Tonquin drew off shore and waited there two days for an abate- ment of the tempest.
On the 25th. the wind having moderated, a second effort was made to cross the bar, and again it was necessary to order five men into the long boat for the perilous duty of going ahead to search out the channel. Aiken, one of the officers. Weekes, the blacksmith, Coles, the sailmaker, and two natives from the Sandwich islands were selected, and they too were swept into the breakers, shouting frantically for the help that could not be given. Aiken and Coles were drowned with the capsizing of the little eraft, but Weckes and the Sandwich islanders clung to the boat and were carried by tide and current out to sea. They succeeded in righting the boat. but the islanders were exhausted by cold and labor and were powerless to man the oars. Weckes pulled hard till daylight. and made a landing on the long beach to the north of Cape Disappointment on the northern shore of the Columbia. One of the Sandwich islanders had died in the night, and the other was so exhausted on reaching land that he could not take an Indian trail which appeared to lead towards the river. This trail Weekes followed, and a few hours' walking brought him in sight of the Tonquin, lying at anchor in the bay. A relief party brought in his Hawaiian companion and he was restored to health.
Meanwhile the men on the Tonquin had passed a night of terror. As the long- boat was carried away, the ship struck repeatedly on the bar, and was swept by great breakers rolling in from the Pacific. She stuck upon the sands and for hours was deluged in the darkness, the people aboard expecting every minute to be their last; but with daybreak the tide and a wind from the west set her affoal and she was soon in safe waters under the shelter of the North cape.
The work of choosing a site for the establishment (Astoria). erecting buildings to shelter the stores and supplies, and discharging cargo consumed several weeks. and the Tonquin did not leave the river till June 5. With 23 persons on board she set sail for the north, and picking up an Indian interpreter on the way. soon came to a harbor on Vancouver's island. Out of that harbor the Tonquin sailed never- more.
Accounts of the massacre which have come down to us from Cox, Irving. Fran- chere and others are conflicting, but on one tragie point there is complete unanim- ity: saving only the Indian interpreter, every soul aboard fell a victim to savage treachery and fury.
And yet the massacre could easily have been avoided, and would have been but
MERIWETHER LEWIS Of the Lewis and Clark Expedition
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for the pig-headedness of Captain Thorne, an irascible, contentious, stubborn indi- vidual who scorned all prudent counsels, and by his insolence towards the Indians invited the attack and frightful butchery that followed.
No sooner the Tonquin had come to anchor than canoes filled with Indians and ladened with rich furs were seen putting off from shore, and as the natives mani- fested a friendly purpose, they were taken aboard with their pelts, and the business of bartering was taken up. As the Indians brought a large number of sea-otter skins, the most precious fur taken on these shores, Captain Thorne saw visions of great profits, and began by offering trifling values. These the Indians, grown wise and wary by years of sharp trading with Yankee ships, scorned and rejected, where- upon Captain Thorne grew sulky and began to pace his deck in moody silence. An Indian chief, holding a tempting sea-otter skin, dogged his footsteps and kept holding the treasure before the irate captain, until Thorne, in a moment of uneon- trollable anger snatched the pelt from the hands of the chief and with it struck him across the face.
Secretly vowing revenge, the Indians went ashore, and the interpreter and Mr. MeKay, one of the partners, warned Thorne that mischief was brewing and advised him to weigh anchor and sail away. These counsels were curtly rejected. the cap- tain affirming that he could whip three times as many savages as the whole country could muster, and pointed to his cannon and firearms in substantiation of his boast.
On the following morning, while Thorne and Mckay were still asleep, several canoe loads of Indians drew to the ship's side, and the natives were permitted to come aboard. They were followed by others, and soon the deck was swarming with them in such numbers as interfered with the work of the crew. Thorne and Mckay were called, and Mckay urged the captain to lift anehor and sail away, but even then Thorne was obdurate for a while, and allowed the Indians to exchange furs for knives. In the meantime the interpreter had observed that a number of the natives wore mantles, and expressed a suspicion to Thorne and Mckay that they were secretly armed, a fear that was soon to have frightful verification, for at a signal hy the chief, the mantles were cast aside, revealing war clubs and knives, and with demoniacal yells the savages began their work of death and destruction. As the arms were all in the cabin, the officers and crew could offer little effective resistance. Captain Thorne fought with savage fury, armed only with a large clasp knife. and killed several Indians and wounded many others before he was dispatched with a war club while leaning on the tiller wheel in exhaustion. Mr. Lewis, the elerk, though mortally wounded, fought his way to the cabin, and four of seven men who were aloft when the fighting started, managed to drop to the deck and reach the same place of refuge, the remaining three having been dispatched with war clubs in the same effort.
Onee in the cabin and possessed of arms, the survivors opened fire and cleared the ship.
Regarding the subsequent developments we find conflicting reports. According to one account, when some Indians approached the ship cautiously the following morning, the survivors opened negotiations and offered to surrender it without fur- ther fighting provided they be allowed to take a boat and leave unmolested. An- other statement says the survivors, with the exception of Lewis, the clerk, took to
SPOKANE AND THE INLAND EMPIRE
the boat under cover of darkness the night before. It is probable, though, that Lewis staid with the Tonquin to the last.
The Indian interpreter, who had been spared and taken ashore in one of the canoes, reported that when the Indians approached the ship the next morning, only one man was visible, and responding to his peaceful invitation, they went aboard in large numbers. While in the height of their exultation there came a terrific explo- sion of the ship's magazine, killing more than a hundred of the savages and wound- ing more than a hundred others. The sea was reddened with their blood, and for days afterward severed members were washed upon the shore.
The four men who escaped in the boat, unable, by reason of tide and current, to pull out to sea. were forced to land in a small cove. Overpowered by weariness and loss of sleep, they fell into a deep slumber and were captured by the infuriated Indians. One report says they were dispatched on the spot, but another recites that they were taken prisoners into the village and slowly tortured to death. The fact that Weekes, the man who made so gallant a fight for life in the breakers on the Columbia river bar, was one of the four thus murdered or tortured. deepens the pathos of this distressing tragedy of early days.
That Lewis, the clerk, meditated and executed the blowing up of the Tonquin, first enticing aboard a great number of the natives, we may scarcely doubt. He possessed a melancholy nature, and on the way out from New York had voiced a premonition that he should die by his own hand. Irving says he refused to accom- pany the men who attempted escape by small boat. "being disabled by his wound. hopeless of escape and determined on a terrible revenge. He now declared his intention to remain on board of the ship until daylight, to decoy as many of the savages on board as possible, then to set fire to the powder magazine, and terminate his life by a signal act of vengeance."
CHAPTER HI
WHITE MEN ON THE SPOKANE
FINAN MACDONALD PROBABLY FIRST TO VIEW THE FALLS-RACE BETWEEN ASTORIANS AND THE NORTHWESTERS-BRITISHERS ESTABLISH SPOKANE HOUSE-AMERICANS LOCATE AT MOUTH OF OKANOGAN-A YEAR LATER AT MOUTH OF LITTLE SPOKANE-MR. ASTOR'S STOCK OF GOODS-HORSEFLESH STAPLE ARTICLE OF DIET-ADVENTURES OF ROSS COX-RESCUED BY FRIENDLY SPOKANES-BUFFALO WEST OF THE ROCKIES- TRADING WITH THE INDIANS-DUEL AT SPOKANE HOUSE-GAY LIFE IN THE BALL ROOM-LIFE OF PERIL AND HARDSHIP-PASSING OF THE BRIGADES-A MOTLEY CREW.
NASMUCH as the events in the preceding chapter touched the earlier history of Spokane and the Inland Empire at important points. the author has at- tempted to deseribe them with some partieularity. They signalized the very first effort by an American eitizen to establish commeree in a permanent form on the Columbia river and its interior tributaries, and portions of the Tonqnin's eargo were transported to the interior in eanoes and bateaux for the founding of trading posts at the mouth of the Okanogan and the forks of the Spokane and Little Spokane.
We know not for a certainty the name of the first adventurous white man to gaze upon the wild eataraets of the Spokane, but unquestionably the distinction of having been one of the first goes to David Thompson, astronomer, engineer and naturalist in the service of the Northwest Fur company .* In his "Remarkable His- tory of the Hudson's Bay company," George Bryee informs us that-
"In July. 1811, reports began to reach the traders at Astoria that a body of white men were building a fort far up the Columbia. This was serious news. for if true, it meant that the supply of furs looked for at Astoria would be eut off. An effort was made to find out the truth of this rumor, without suceess, but imme- diately after came definite information that the Northwest company agents were erecting a post at Spokane. This was none other than David Thompson, the emis-
*T. C. Elliott of Walla Walla, a painstaking student of northwestern history, believes that the Northwesters established Spokane House in 1\10, and that the work was probably done by Finan MacDonald, one of Thompson's men. That Thompson explored the Pend d'Oreille lake and river region in 1809-10, and wintered that year at a trading post near the Flathead Indians in Montana, and was at Spokane House in the spring of 1811. "Skeet- shoo was the designation given by Thompson to the Spokane river, and to the lake later known as the Coeur d'Alene." Thompson was then en route by horseback to Kettle Falls, where he built canoes for his descent of the Columbia .- " David Thompson, Pathfinder, and the Colum- bia River, " an address delivered at Kettle Falls on the occasion of the centennial celebra- tion in 1911.
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sary of the Northwest company sent to forestall the building of Astoria's fort. Though too late to fulfill this mission, on July 15, 1811, the doughty astronomer and surveyor, in his canoe manned by eight men and having the British ensign flying, stopped in front of the new fort. .
. After waiting for eight days, Thompson, having received supplies and goods from MeDougall (in command at Astoria) started on his return journey. With him journeyed up the river David Stuart, who, with eight men, was proceeding on a fur and trading expedition. Stuart had little confidence in Thompson, and by a device succeeded in getting him to proceed on his journey and leave him to choose his own site for a fort. Going up to within 110 miles of the Spokane river, and at the junction of the Okanogan and Columbia, Stuart erected a temporary fort to carry on his first sea- son's trade."
It seems probable that if Mr. Astor had not exposed his hand in his preliminary negotiations for a partnership with the Northwesters. Thompson would not have been dispatched to the far northwest, and the Pacific Fur company would have enjoyed an undisputed opportunity to seize the strategic points and thus become strongly entrenched well ahead of its cunning and daring rivals.
This was not, however, Thompson's first appearance upon the upper waters of the Columbia. From the same authority it is learned that
"In 1809 Thompson determined on extending his explorations southward on the Columbia river," and that "a short distance south of the international boundary he built a post in September of that year."
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