Part 2

With characteristic energy and foresight Dr. McLoughlin soon established at and near Fort Vancouver a large farm on which were grown quantities of grain and vegetables. It was afterwards stocked with cattle, horses, sheep, goats, and hogs. In 1836 this farm consisted of 3,000 acres, fenced into fields, with here and there dairy houses and herdsmen's and shepherd's cottages. In 1836 the products of this farm were, in bushels: 8,000 of wheat; 5,500 of barley; 6,000 of oats; 9,000 of peas; 14,000 of potatoes; besides large quantities of turnips (rutabaga), pumpkins, etc.[4] There were about ten acres in apple, pear, and quince trees, which bore in profusion. He established two saw mills and two flour mills near the fort. For many years there were shipped, from Fort Vancouver, lumber to the Hawaiian Islands (then called the Sandwich Islands) and flour to Sitka. It was not many years after Dr. McLoughlin came to the Oregon Country until it was one of the most profitable parts of North America to the Hudson's Bay Company. For many years the London value of the yearly gathering of furs, in the Oregon Country, varied from $500,000 to $1,000,000, sums of money representing then a value several fold more than such sums represent today.

Fort Vancouver was a parallelogram about seven hundred and fifty feet long and four hundred and fifty broad, enclosed by an upright picket wall of large and closely fitted beams, over twenty feet in height, secured by buttresses on the inside. Originally there was a bastion at each angle of the fort. In the earlier times there were two twelve pounders mounted in these bastions. In the center of the fort there were some eighteen pounders; all these cannon, from disuse, became merely ornamental early in the thirties.[5] In 1841, when Commodore Wilkes was at Fort Vancouver, there were between the steps of Dr. McLoughlin's residence, inside the fort, two old cannon on sea-carriages, with a few shot. There were no other warlike instruments.[6] It was a very peaceful fort.

The interior of the fort was divided into two courts, having about forty buildings, all of wood except the powder magazine, which was constructed of brick and stone. In the center, facing the main entrance, stood the Hall in which were the dining-room, smoking-room, and public sitting-room, or bachelor's hall. Single men, clerks, strangers, and others made the bachelor's hall their place of resort. To these rooms artisans and servants were not admitted. The Hall was the only two-story house in the fort. The residence of Dr. McLoughlin was built after the model of a French Canadian dwelling-house. It was one story, weather-boarded, and painted white. It had a piazza with vines growing on it. There were flower-beds in front of the house. The other buildings consisted of dwellings for officers and their families, a school-house, a retail store, warehouses and shops.

A short distance from the fort, on the bank of the river, was a village of more than fifty houses, for the mechanics and servants, and their families, built in rows so as to form streets. Here were also the hospital, boat-house, and salmon-house, and near by were barns, threshing-mills, granaries, and dairy buildings. The whole number of persons, having their homes at Fort Vancouver and its vicinity, men, women, and children, was about eight hundred. The Hall was an oasis in the vast social desert of Oregon. Fort Vancouver was a fairy-land to the early travellers, after their long, hard journeys across the continent. Thomas J. Farnham was a traveller who came to Oregon in 1839. He was entertained by Dr. McLoughlin at Fort Vancouver. In his account of his travels, which he subsequently published, he gives the following description of the usual dinner at Fort Vancouver:

"The bell rings for dinner; we will now pay a visit to the 'Hall' and its convivialities.... At the end of a table twenty feet in length stands Governor McLoughlin, directing guests and gentlemen from neighboring posts to their places; and chief-traders, traders, the physician, clerks, and the farmer slide respectfully to their places, at distances from the Governor corresponding to the dignity of their rank in the service. Thanks are given to God, and all are seated. Roast beef and pork, boiled mutton, baked salmon, boiled ham; beets, carrots, turnips, cabbage, and potatoes, and wheaten bread, are tastefully distributed over the table among a dinner-set of elegant queen's ware, burnished with glittering glasses and decanters of various-coloured Italian wines. Course after course goes round, ... and each gentleman in turn vies with him in diffusing around the board a most generous allowance of viands, wines, and warm fellow-feeling. The cloth and wines are removed together, cigars are lighted, and a strolling smoke about the premises, enlivened by a courteous discussion of some mooted point of natural history or politics, closes the ceremonies of the dinner hour at Fort Vancouver."

At Fort Vancouver Dr. John McLoughlin lived and ruled in a manner befitting that of an old English Baron in feudal times, but with a graciousness and courtesy, which, I fear, were not always the rule with the ancient Barons. Dr. McLoughlin was a very temperate man. He rarely drank any alcoholic beverages, not even wines. There was an exception one time, each year, when the festivities began at Fort Vancouver on the return of the brigade, with the year's furs. He then drank a glass of wine to open the festivities. Soon after he came to Oregon, from morality and policy he stopped the sale of liquor to Indians. To do this effectually he had to stop the sale of liquor to all whites. In 1834, when Wyeth began his competition with the Hudson's Bay Company, he began selling liquor to Indians, but at the request of Dr. McLoughlin, Wyeth stopped the sale of liquors to Indians as well as to the whites. In 1841 the American trading vessel Thomas Perkins, commanded by Captain Varney, came to the Columbia River to trade, having a large quantity of liquors. To prevent the sale to the Indians, Dr. McLoughlin bought all these liquors and stored them at Fort Vancouver. They were still there when Dr. McLoughlin left the Hudson's Bay Company in 1846.

Dr. McLoughlin soon established numerous forts and posts in the Oregon Country, all of which were tributary to Fort Vancouver. In 1839 there were twenty of these forts besides Vancouver. The policy of the Hudson's Bay Company was to crush out all rivals in trade. It had an absolute monopoly of the fur trade of British America, except the British Provinces, under acts of Parliament, and under royal grants. But in the Oregon Territory its right to trade therein was limited by the Conventions of 1818 and 1827 and by the act of Parliament of July 2, 1821, to the extent that the Oregon Country (until one year's notice was given) should remain free and open to the citizens of the United States and to the subjects of Great Britain, and the trade of the Hudson's Bay Company should not "be used to the prejudice or exclusion of citizens of the United States engaged in such trade."[7] Therefore, as there could be no legal exclusion of American citizens, it could be done only by occupying the country, building forts, establishing trade and friendly relations with the Indians, and preventing rivalry by the laws of trade, including ruinous competition. As the Hudson's Bay Company bought its goods in large quantities in England, shipped by sea, and paid no import duties, it could sell at a profit at comparatively low prices. In addition, its goods were of extra good quality, usually much better than those of the American traders. It also desired to prevent the settling of the Oregon Country. The latter purpose was for two reasons: to preserve the fur trade; and to prevent the Oregon Country from being settled by Americans to the prejudice of Great Britain's claim to the Oregon Country.

For more than ten years after Dr. McLoughlin came to Oregon, there was no serious competition to the Hudson's Bay Company in the Oregon Country west of the Blue Mountains. An occasional ship would come into the Columbia River and depart. At times, American fur traders entered into serious competition with the Hudson's Bay Company, east of the Blue Mountains. Such traders were Bonneville, Sublette, Smith, Jackson, and others. They could be successful, only partially, against the competition of the Hudson's Bay Company. Goods were often sold by it at prices which could not be met by the American traders, except at a loss. Sometimes more was paid to the Indians for furs than they were worth.

Dr. McLoughlin was the autocrat of the Oregon Country. His allegiance was to his Country and to his Company. He knew the Americans had the legal right to occupy any part of the Oregon Country, and he knew from the directors of his Company, as early as 1825, that Great Britain did not intend to claim any part of the Oregon Country south of the Columbia River. The only fort he established south of the Columbia River was on the Umpqua River. I do not wish to place Dr. McLoughlin on a pedestal, nor to represent him as more than a grand and noble man, ever true, as far as possible, to his Company's interests and to himself. To be faithless to his Company was to be a weakling and contemptible. But he was not a servant, nor was he untrue to his manhood. As Chief Factor he was "Ay, every inch a King," but he was also ay, every inch a man. He was a very human, as well as a very humane man. He had a quick and violent temper. His position as Chief Factor and his continued use of power often made him dictatorial. And yet he was polite, courteous, gentle, and kind, and a gentleman. He was an autocrat, but not an aristocrat. In 1838 Rev. Herbert Beaver, who was chaplain at Fort Vancouver, was impertinent to Dr. McLoughlin in the fort-yard. Immediately Dr. McLoughlin struck Beaver with a cane. The next day Dr. McLoughlin publicly apologized for this indignity.

_Punishment of Indians._

The policy of the Company, as well as that of Dr. McLoughlin, was to keep Americans, especially traders, out of all the Oregon Country. The difference was that he believed that they should be kept out only so far as it could be done lawfully. But he did not allow them to be harmed by the Indians, and, if the Americans were so harmed, he punished the offending Indians, and he let all Indians know that he would punish for offenses against the Americans as he would for offenses against the British and the Hudson's Bay Company. Personally he treated these rival traders with hospitality. In his early years in Oregon on two occasions he caused an Indian to be hanged for murder of a white man. In 1829, when the Hudson's Bay Company's vessel, William and Ann, was wrecked on Sand Island, at the mouth of the Columbia River, and a part of her crew supposed to have been murdered and the wreck looted, he sent a well armed and manned schooner and a hundred voyageurs to punish the Indians.

Jedediah S. Smith was a rival trader to the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1828 all his party of eighteen men, excepting four, one of which was Smith, were murdered by the Indians, near the mouth of the Umpqua River. All their goods and furs were stolen. These four survivors arrived at Fort Vancouver, but not all together. They were all at the point of perishing from exhaustion and were nearly naked. All their wants were at once supplied, and they received the kindest treatment. When the first one arrived Dr. McLoughlin sent Indian runners to the Willamette chiefs to tell them to send their people in search of Smith and his two men, and if found to bring them to Fort Vancouver, and Dr. McLoughlin would pay the Indians; and also to tell these chiefs that if Smith, or his men, was hurt by the Indians, that Dr. McLoughlin would punish them. Dr. McLoughlin sent a strong party to the Umpqua River, which recovered these furs. They were of large value. Smith at his own instance sold these furs to the Hudson's Bay Company, receiving the fair value for the furs, without deduction. Dr. McLoughlin later said of this event that it "was done from a principle of Christian duty, and as a lesson to the Indians to show them they could not wrong the whites with impunity." The effect of this Smith matter was far-reaching and long-continued. The Indians understood, even if they did not appreciate, that the opposition of Dr. McLoughlin to Americans as traders did not apply to them personally.

Dunn, in his _History of the Oregon Territory_, narrates the following incident:[8] "On one occasion an American vessel, Captain Thompson, was in the Columbia, trading furs and salmon. The vessel had got aground, in the upper part of the river, and the Indians, from various quarters, mustered with the intent of cutting the Americans off, thinking that they had an opportunity of revenge, and would thus escape the censure of the company. Dr. McLoughlin, the governor of Fort Vancouver, hearing of their intention, immediately despatched a party to their rendezvous; and informed them that if they injured one American, it would be just the same offence as if they had injured one of his servants, and they would be treated equally as enemies. This stunned them; and they relinquished their purpose; and all retired to their respective homes. Had not this come to the governor's ears the Americans must have perished."

In 1842 the Indians in the Eastern Oregon Country became alarmed for the reason that they believed the Americans intended to take away their lands. The Indians knew that the Hudson's Bay Company and its employees were traders and did not care for lands, except as incidental to trading. At this time some of the Indians desired to raise a war party and surprise and massacre the American settlements in the Willamette Valley. This could have been done easily at that time. Through the influence of Dr. McLoughlin with Peopeomoxmox (Yellow Serpent), a chief of the Cayuses, this trouble was averted. In 1845 a party of Indians went to California to buy cattle. An American there killed Elijah, the son of Peopeomoxmox. The Indians of Eastern Oregon threatened to take two thousand warriors to California and exterminate the whites there. Largely through the actions of Dr. McLoughlin the Indians were persuaded to abandon their project.

John Minto, a pioneer of 1844, in an address February 6, 1889, narrated the following incident. In 1843 two Indians, for the purpose of robbery, at Pillar Rock, in the lower Columbia, killed a servant of the Hudson's Bay Company. One of the Indians was killed in the pursuit. The other was taken, after great trouble. There was no doubt as to his guilt. In order to make the lesson of his execution salutary and impressive to the Indians, Dr. McLoughlin invited the leading Indians of the various tribes, as well as all classes of settlers and missionaries, to be present. He made the arrangements for the execution in a way best calculated to strike terror to the Indian mind. When all was ready, and immediately prior to the execution, with his white head bared, he made a short and earnest address to the Indians, showing them that the white men of all classes, Englishmen, Americans, and Frenchmen, were as one man to punish such crimes. In a technical sense Dr. McLoughlin had no authority to cause Indians to be executed or to compel them to restore stolen goods, as in the William and Ann matter and the Jedediah S. Smith case.

Under the act of Parliament of July, 1821, the courts of judicature of Upper Canada were given jurisdiction of civil and criminal matters within the Indian territories and other parts of America not within the Provinces of Lower or Upper Canada, or of any civil government of the United States. Provisions were made for the appointment of justices of the peace in such territories, having jurisdiction of suits or actions not exceeding two hundred pounds, and having jurisdiction of ordinary criminal offenses. But it was expressly provided that such justices of the peace should not have the right to try offenders on any charge of felony made the subject of capital punishment, or to pass sentence affecting the life of any offender, or his transportation; and that in case of any offense, subjecting the person committing the same to capital punishment or to transportation, to cause such offender to be sent, in safe custody, for trial in the court of the Province of Upper Canada. As to how far this law applied to Indians or to others than British subjects or to residents of the Oregon Country under joint-occupancy, it is not necessary here to discuss. It certainly did not apply to citizens of the United States. So far as I can learn, Dr. McLoughlin was never appointed such a justice of the peace, but he caused his assistant James Douglas to be so appointed, at Fort Vancouver.

As under joint-occupancy it was doubtful if either the laws of the United States or of Great Britain were in force in the Oregon Country, it was necessary for some one to assume supreme power and authority over the Indians, in the Willamette Valley, until the Oregon Provisional Government was established, and over the remainder of the Oregon Country, at least, until the boundary-line treaty was made. It was characteristic of Dr. McLoughlin that he assumed and exercised such power and authority, until he ceased to be an officer of the Hudson's Bay Company. He did so without question. It is true that this might have been an odious tyranny under a different kind of a man. Under Dr. McLoughlin it was a kind of despotism, but a just and beneficent despotism, under the circumstances. It was a despotism tempered by his sense of justice, his mercy, his humanity, and his common-sense. No man in the Oregon Country ever knew the Indian character, or knew how to control and to manage Indians as well as Dr. McLoughlin did. The few severe and extreme measures he took with them as individuals and as tribes were always fully justified by the circumstances. To have been more lenient might have been fatal to his Company, its employees, and the early white settlers in the Oregon Country. They were of the few cases where the end justifies the means. The unusual conditions justified the unusual methods.

The Oregon Provisional Government was not a government in the true meaning of the word, it was a local organization, for the benefit of those consenting. It had no true sovereignty. And yet it punished offenders. It waged the Cayuse Indian war of 1847-8, caused by the Whitman massacre. It would have executed the murderers if it had caught them, although the scenes of the massacre and of the war were several hundred miles beyond the asserted jurisdiction of the Oregon Provisional Government. And it would have been justified in case of such executions. The war was a necessity, law or no law. Every act of punitive or vindicatory justice to the Indians by Dr. McLoughlin is greatly to his credit. These acts caused peace in the Oregon Country and were beneficial to the Indians as well as to the whites, both British and American, and, in the end, probably saved numerous massacres and hundreds of lives. Dr. McLoughlin was a very just and far-seeing man. I shall presently tell how Dr. McLoughlin saved the immigrants of 1843 from great trouble and probable massacre by the Indians.

_Early French Canadian Settlers._

After the death of Dr. McLoughlin there was found among his private papers a document in his own handwriting. This was probably written shortly prior to his death. It gives many interesting facts, some of which I shall presently set forth. This document was given to Col. J. W. Nesmith by a descendant of Dr. McLoughlin. It was presented to the Oregon Pioneer Association by Col. Nesmith in 1880. It was printed at length in the _Transactions_ of that Association for that year, pages 46-55. I shall hereinafter refer to this document as "the McLoughlin Document." In the McLoughlin Document he says: "In 1825, from what I had seen of the country, I formed the conclusion, from the mildness and salubrity of the climate, that this was the finest portion of North America that I had seen for the residence of civilized man." The farm at Fort Vancouver showed that the wheat was of exceptionally fine quality. Dr. McLoughlin knew that where wheat grew well and there was a large enough area, that it would become a civilized country, especially where there was easy access to the ocean. Thus early he saw that what is now called Western Oregon was bound to be a populous country. It was merely a question of time. It was evidently with this view that he located his land claim at Oregon City in 1829. If settlers came he could endeavor to have them locate in the Willamette Valley, and thus preserve, to a great extent, the fur animals in other parts of the Oregon Country, and especially north of the Columbia River.

The Hudson's Bay Company was bound, under heavy penalties, not to discharge any of its servants in the Indian country, and was bound to return them to the places where they were originally hired. As early as 1828 several French Canadian servants, or employees, whose times of service were about ended, did not desire to return to Canada, but to settle in Oregon. They disliked to settle in the Willamette Valley, notwithstanding its fertility and advantages, because they thought that ultimately it would be American territory, but Dr. McLoughlin told them that he knew "that the American Government and people knew only two classes of persons, rogues and honest men. That they punished the first and protected the last, and it depended only upon themselves to what class they would belong." Dr. McLoughlin later found out, to his own sorrow and loss, that he was in error in this statement. These French Canadians followed his advice. To allow these French Canadians to become settlers, he kept them nominally on the books of the Hudson's Bay Company as its servants. He made it a rule to allow none of these servants to become settlers unless he possessed fifty pounds sterling to start with. He loaned each of them seed and wheat to plant, to be returned from the produce of his farm, and sold him implements and supplies at fifty per cent. advance on prime London cost. The regular selling price at Fort Vancouver was eighty per cent. advance on prime London cost. Dr. McLoughlin also loaned each of these settlers two cows, the increase to belong to the Hudson's Bay Company, as it then had only a small herd, and he wished to increase the herd. If any of the cows died, he did not make the settler pay for the animal. If he had sold the cattle the Company could not supply other settlers, and the price would be prohibitive, if owned by settlers who could afford to buy, as some settlers offered him as high as two hundred dollars for a cow. Therefore, to protect the poor settlers against the rich, and to make a herd of cattle for the benefit of the whole country, he refused to sell to any one.

In 1825 Dr. McLoughlin had at Fort Vancouver only twenty-seven head of cattle, large and small. He determined that no cattle should be killed, except one bull-calf every year for rennet to make cheese, until he had an ample stock to meet all demands of his Company, and to assist settlers, a resolution to which he strictly adhered. The first animal killed for beef was in 1838. Until that time the Company's officers and employees had lived on fresh and salt venison and salmon and wild fowl.