CHAPTER IX
{116} CHAPTER IX
Departure of the Tonquin—Indian Messengers—Project of an Expedition to the Interior—Arrival of Mr. Daniel Thompson—Departure of the Expedition—Designs upon us by the Natives—Rumors of the Destruction of the Tonquin—Scarcity of Provisions—Narrative of a strange Indian—Duplicity and Cunning of Comcomly.
Having built a warehouse (62 feet by 20) to put under cover the articles we were to receive from the ship, we were busily occupied, from the 16th to the 30th, in stowing away the goods and other effects intended for the establishment.
The ship, which had been detained by circumstances, much longer than had been anticipated, left her anchorage at last, on the 1st of June, and dropped down to Baker’s bay, there to wait for a favorable wind to get out of the river. As she was to coast along the north, and enter all the harbors, in order to procure as many furs as {117} possible, and to touch at the Columbia river before she finally left these seas for the United States, it was unanimously resolved among the partners, that Mr. M’Kay should join the cruise, as well to aid the captain, as to obtain correct information in regard to the commerce with the natives on that coast. Mr. M’Kay selected Messrs. J. Lewis and O. de Montigny to accompany him; but the latter having represented that the sea made him sick, was excused; and Mr. M’Kay shipped in his place a young man named Louis Bruslé, to serve him in the capacity of domestic, being one of the young Canadian sailors. I had the good fortune not to be chosen for this disastrous voyage, thanks to my having made myself useful at the establishment. Mr. Mumford (the second mate) owed the same happiness to the incompatibility of his disposition with that of the captain; he had permission to remain, and engaged with the company in place of Mr. Aikin as coaster, and in command of the schooner.[57]
{118} On the 5th of June, the ship got out to sea, with a good wind. We continued in the meantime to labor without intermission at the completion of the storehouse, and in the erection of a dwelling for ourselves, and a powder magazine. These buildings were constructed of hewn logs, and, in the absence of boards, tightly covered and roofed with cedar bark. The natives, of both sexes, visited us more frequently, and formed a pretty considerable camp near the establishment.
On the 15th, some natives from up the river, brought us two strange Indians, a man and a woman. They were not attired like the savages on the river Columbia, but wore long robes of dressed deer-skin, with leggings and moccasins in the fashion of the tribes to the east of the Rocky Mountains. We put questions to them in various Indian dialects; but they did not understand us. They showed us a letter addressed to {119} “Mr. John Stuart, Fort Estekatadene, New Caledonia.”[58] Mr. Pillet then addressing them in the Kristeneaux language, they answered, although they appeared not to understand it perfectly.[59] Notwithstanding, we learned from them that they had been sent by a Mr. Finnan M’Donald, a clerk in the service of the Northwest Company, and who had a post on a river which they called Spokan; that having lost their way, they had followed the course of the Tacousah-Tesseh (the Indian name of the Columbia), that when they arrived at the Falls, the natives made them understand that there were white men at the mouth of the river; and not doubting that the person to whom the letter was addressed would be found there, they had come to deliver it.[60]
We kept these messengers for some days, and having drawn from them important information respecting the country in the interior, west of the Mountains, we decided to send an expedition thither, under the command of Mr. David Stuart; and the 15th July was fixed for its departure.
All was in fact ready on the appointed day, {120} and we were about to load the canoes, when toward midday, we saw a large canoe, with a flag displayed at her stern, rounding the point which we called Tongue Point. We knew not who it could be; for we did not so soon expect our own party, who (as the reader will remember) were to cross the continent, by the route which Captains Lewis and Clarke had followed, in 1805, and to winter for that purpose somewhere on the Missouri. We were soon relieved of our uncertainty by the arrival of the canoe, which touched shore at a little wharf that we had built to facilitate the landing of goods from the vessel. The flag she bore was the British, and her crew was composed of eight Canadian boatmen or voyageurs. A well-dressed man, who appeared to be the commander, was the first to leap ashore, and addressing us without ceremony, said that his name was David Thompson, and that he was one of the partners of the Northwest Company.[61] We invited him to our quarters, which were at one end of the warehouse, the dwelling-house not being yet completed. After the usual civilities {121} had been extended to our visitor, Mr. Thompson said that he had crossed the continent during the preceding season; but that the desertion of a portion of his men had compelled him to winter at the base of the Rocky mountains, at the head waters of the Columbia. In the spring he had built a canoe, the materials for which he had brought with him across the mountains, and had come down the river to our establishment. He added that the wintering partners had resolved to abandon all their trading posts west of the mountains, not to enter into competition with us, provided our company would engage not to encroach upon their commerce on the east side: and to support what he said, produced a letter to that effect, addressed by the wintering partners to the chief of their house in Canada, the Hon. William M’Gillivray.[62]
Mr. Thompson kept a regular journal, and travelled, I thought, more like a geographer than a fur-trader. He was provided with a sextant, chronometer and barometer, and during a week’s sojourn which he made at our place, had an opportunity {122} to make several astronomical observations. He recognised the two Indians who had brought the letter addressed to Mr. J. Stuart, and told us that they were two women, one of whom had dressed herself as a man, to travel with more security. The description which he gave us of the interior of the country was not calculated to give us a very favorable idea of it, and did not perfectly accord with that of our two Indian guests. We persevered, however, in the resolution we had taken, of sending an expedition thither; and, on the 23d Mr. D. Stuart set out, accompanied by Messrs. Pillet, Ross, M’Clellan and de Montigny, with four Canadian voyageurs, and the two Indian women, and in company with Mr. Thompson and his crew. The wind being favorable, the little flotilla hoisted sail, and was soon out of our sight.[63]
{123} The natives, who till then had surrounded us in great numbers, began to withdraw, and very soon we saw no more of them. At first we attributed their absence to the want of furs to trade with; but we soon learned that they acted in that manner from another motive. One of the secondary chiefs who had formed a friendship for Mr. R. Stuart, informed him, that seeing us reduced in number by the expedition lately sent off, they had formed the design of surprising us, to take our lives and plunder the post. We hastened, therefore, to put ourselves in the best possible state of defence. The dwelling house was raised, parallel to the warehouse; we cut a great quantity of pickets in the forest, and formed a square, with palisades in front and rear, of about 90 feet by 120; the warehouse, built on the edge of a ravine, formed one flank, the dwelling house and shops the other; with a little bastion {124} at each angle north and south, on which were mounted four small cannon. The whole was finished in six days, and had a sufficiently formidable aspect to deter the Indians from attacking us; and for greater surety, we organized a guard for day and night.
Toward the end of the month, a large assemblage of Indians from the neighborhood of the straits Juan de Fuca, and Gray’s Harbor, formed a great camp on Baker’s Bay, for the ostensible object of fishing for sturgeon.[64] It was bruited among these Indians that the Tonquin had been destroyed on the coast, and Mr. M’Kay (or the chief trader, as they called him) and all the crew, massacred by the natives. We did not give credence to this rumor. Some days after, other Indians from Gray’s Harbor, called Tchikeylis,[65] confirmed what the first had narrated, and even gave us, as far as we could judge by the little we knew of their language, a very circumstantial detail of the affair, so that without wholly convincing us, it did not fail to make a painful impression on our minds, and keep us in an excited state of {125} feeling as to the truth of the report. The Indians of the Bay looked fiercer and more warlike than those of our neighborhood; so we redoubled our vigilance, and performed a regular daily drill to accustom ourselves to the use of arms.
To the necessity of securing ourselves against an attack on the part of the natives, was joined that of obtaining a stock of provisions for the winter: those which we had received from the vessel were very quickly exhausted, and from the commencement of the month of July we were forced to depend upon fish. Not having brought hunters with us, we had to rely for venison, on the precarious hunt of one of the natives who had not abandoned us when the rest of his countrymen retired. This man brought us from time to time, a very lean and very dry doe-elk, for which we had to pay, notwithstanding, very dear. The ordinary price of a stag was a blanket, a knife, some tobacco, powder and ball, besides supplying our hunter with a musket. This dry meat, and smoke-dried fish, constituted our daily food, and that in very insufficient quantity for hardworking {126} men. We had no bread, and vegetables, of course, were quite out of the question. In a word our fare was not sumptuous. Those who accommodated themselves best to our mode of living were the Sandwich-islanders: salmon and elk were to them exquisite viands.
On the 11th of August a number of Chinooks visited us, bringing a strange Indian, who had, they said, something interesting to communicate. This savage told us, in fact, that he had been engaged with ten more of his countrymen, by a Captain Ayres, to hunt seals on the islands in Sir Francis Drake’s Bay, where these animals are very numerous, with a promise of being taken home and paid for their services;[66] the captain had left them on the islands, to go southwardly and purchase provisions, he said, of the Spaniards of Monterey in California; but he had never returned: and they, believing that he had been wrecked, had embarked in a skiff which he had left them, and had reached the main land, from which they were not far distant; but their skiff was shattered to pieces in the surf, and they had {127} saved themselves by swimming. Believing that they were not far from the river Columbia, they had followed the shore, living, on the way, upon shellfish and frogs; at last they arrived among strange Indians, who, far from receiving them kindly, had killed eight of them and made the rest prisoners; but the Klemooks, a neighboring tribe to the Clatsops, hearing that they were captives, had ransomed them.[67]
These facts must have occurred in March or April, 1811. The Indian who gave us an account of them, appeared to have a great deal of intelligence and knew some words of the English language. He added that he had been at the Russian trading post at Chitka,[68] that he had visited the coast of California, the Sandwich islands, and even China.
About this time, old Comcomly sent to Astoria for Mr. Stuart and me, to come and cure him of a swelled throat, which, he said, afflicted him sorely. As it was late in the day, we postponed till to-morrow going to cure the chief of the Chinooks; and it was well we did; for, the same {128} evening, the wife of the Indian who had accompanied us in our voyage to the Falls, sent us word that Comcomly was perfectly well, the pretended tonsilitis being only a pretext to get us in his power. This timely advice kept us at home.
[57] This schooner was found too small for the purpose. Mr. Astor had no idea of the dangers to be met at the mouth of the Columbia, or he would have ordered the frame of a vessel of at least one hundred tons. The frames shipped in New York were used in the construction of this one only, which was employed solely in the river trade.—Franchère.
[58] John Stuart was a well-known “Nor’Wester,” who was in the Athabasca department as early as 1799. In 1803 he was with David Thompson on Peace River, and from 1806-08 with Simon Fraser on his voyage of discovery which resulted in the descent of Fraser River. Stuart built a fort somewhere west of the mountains, which he maintained until 1811. The following year found him upon the Columbia, and he made part of the North West force at Fort George until 1814. Remaining in the employ of the company at different stations until 1821, he then entered the Hudson’s Bay service, and was their chief factor at Little Slave Lake (1828). He finally returned to England, where he died in 1846.—Ed.
[59] For the Christinaux (Kristeneaux) Indians, see J. Long’s Voyages, vol. ii of our series, note 75.—Ed.
[60] Finnan McDonald was chief clerk, under David Thompson, (see following note), of the North West Company at various places on the Saskatchewan, in the Rocky Mountains, and upon the headwaters of the Columbia (1806-12). See Henry-Thompson Journals. Thompson and McDonald had several posts on the upper waters of the Columbia—one on Lake Pend d’Oreille, two on the Kootenay, and still another on the Spokane. Fraser River was long known as the Tacoutché Tessé; but as its upper reaches were at first thought to be the Columbia, the misuse of the name was common. The aboriginal name for the Columbia has not been satisfactorily determined.—Ed.
[61] David Thompson was one of the most interesting and remarkable men of the fur-trading coterie. Born in London in 1770, and educated at Christ’s Hospital, he went to America (1789) as employé of the Hudson’s Bay Company. He was greatly interested in science, and during his extensive travels made meteorological and astronomical observations. The company by whom he was first employed discouraged geographical pursuits; Thompson therefore went over to the North West Company (1797) as affording more scope to his talents. During the winter of 1797-98 he visited the Mandan Indians, on the Missouri, and the following summer explored the sources of the Mississippi. By 1801 he had pushed his explorations to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, whither in 1806 he sought for the waters of the Columbia. During the next four years he collected furs and explored on the upper Columbia, building several posts, and reaping a rich harvest among tribes hitherto unexploited. After his failure to seize the mouth of the Columbia for the British, Thompson went back to his Columbia posts, but finally abandoned the upper country in 1812. He lived in Lower Canada until his death in 1857, occupied in surveys for boundary lines, and astronomical pursuits. His last years were spent in poverty and neglect.—Ed.
[62] William McGillivray was a “Nor’Wester” who had been in the employ of that company from its formation, and had served his apprenticeship in the field. In 1787-88 he was in charge of the post on English River, and in 1790 became one of the wintering partners. Upon the death of Simon McTavish, McGillivray succeeded to the position of chief agent of the house at Montreal, frequently coming up to meet the “winterers” at the rendezvous at Fort William (Grand Portage), which was named in his honor. In 1821 he signed the agreements for union with the Hudson’s Bay Company, and soon after returned to Scotland, where he died about 1825.—Ed.
[63] Mr. Thompson had no doubt been sent by the agents of the Northwest Company, to take possession of an eligible spot at the mouth of the Columbia, with a view of forestalling the plan of Mr. Astor. He would have been there before us, no doubt, but for the desertion of his men. The consequence of this step would have been his taking possession of the country, and displaying the British flag, as an emblem of that possession and a guarantee of protection hereafter. He found himself too late, however, and the stars and stripes floating over Astoria. This note is not intended by the author as an after-thought: as the opinion it conveys was that which we all entertained at the time of that gentleman’s visit.—Franchère.
[64] The strait of Juan de Fuca, separating Washington from Vancouver Island, was named from a Greek navigator, in the Spanish service, who claimed as early as 1592 to have found a large inlet on the Northwest Coast in latitude 49°. The narrative of his voyage was published in England in 1602, but is now discredited by historians. The fact that a great strait was found near this point by the English navigator Barclay (1787), revived the old story of Juan de Fuca’s discovery, and resulted in the latter’s name being attached to the inlet. Gray’s Harbor, upon the coast of Washington, was named by Vancouver in honor of the American Captain Gray (see note 1, ante); this bay must be distinguished from Gray’s Bay, within the mouth of Columbia River.—Ed.
[65] Chehalis (Tchikeylis, Shahalas) is a collective term for the Salishan tribes of the coast of Washington, where a large county takes this name. A few of these Indians are still living upon the Puyallup reservations, in Washington.—Ed.
[66] This Captain Ayres was probably the same officer who is reported (in 1814, in the sloop “Mercury”) as engaged in kidnapping Indians as slaves, to sell to the Russians at Sitka. See Lyman, History of Oregon (New York, 1903), ii, p. 289.
It is disputed by historians whether Sir Francis Drake, in his voyage around the world (1577-80), entered the harbor of San Francisco, or Bodega Bay lying to the north. The evidence leans to the latter view.—Ed.
[67] The Tillamook (Klemook, Killamuck) Indians inhabited the sea-coast south of the Columbia, within the county now bearing their name. They were of the great Salishan family, separated from their northern kindred by the Chinook tribe. A few Tillamook existed upon the Grande Ronde Reservation, Oregon, within recent years.—Ed.
[68] Russian explorations of the Northwest Coast of America began early in the eighteenth century, under the lead of Vitus Bering. In 1781 a company was formed to exploit the fur-trade; but because of its cruelty to the natives this was dissolved, and the Russian-American Company organized in 1799. The headquarters of the latter were established at New Archangel, or Sitka (Chitka), built 1799.—Ed.