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About East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 25, 1915)
East Oregnnian Pound-Up Souvenir Edition Pendleton, Orego-, Saturday, September 2S, 1915 Twenty Paget I .INFLUENCE OF CAfNADIAfS AND SCOTCH UPON THE EARLY NORTHWEST Original Fur Traders in Oregon Country Came Largely From Scotch Highlands-Canadian Influence Upon the Country Was Marked. Parf Two KY JOHN MJNTO. Thin year of 1SH Is the centennial Jfr .f the ahundonment of Fort As tor, fo-raJIril by the employes of John Jacnh Aftor. It was Fort George from 1S13 to IMS. The chance of the national master was the reirull of the vlit of H. M. tHonp-ot-War Kai-oon It caused the uKititutlon of the British for the American flasr. The men In charge held a meeting and resolved to go back to Fort William and their na tive Canada It may he stated her that there were already two distinct classes of men In the fur trade be ginning as a direct trade In furs to China. The first were a class of Highland Scots who had already be come prominent in the fur trade. aohnsetts. and eight Alexander Ross Ionald -MoOillis, Wide de Montigny, Francis B. Pilot. Donald McLennan. William Wallace. Thomas McKay and Gabriel Franchere three Canadian French and five Scotch Canadians; of boatmen and mechanics, eighteen in number; thirty rank and file, all Canadians and ex-Xorth-Westers. These, had they not been used to dis cipline, would have klljed Captain Thorn at Terra del Fuego. These men of all the grades of the fur trade they covered were used to obey ing the orders of their superiors. Fur hunting was a pursuit of chances of feast or famine, the latter from 1810 to 1SS0 much predominat ing. From Franchere's narrative I learn the North-Westers at Post Oka- voyageurs to meet the Isaac Todd leaded In London with goods for the North-West Company. The month of May was employed In preparing tor return to Canada but Clarke and Stuart (wintering partners! said there was not time to prepare, so It went over to 1814, and thus for an other ten years no preparation would be made on the Pacific slope to give local support of agriculture to the profitable collection of furs and pelt ries. It is hard to find when and by whom agriculture locally was used In the drainage basin of the great Co lumbia valley. Experience had al ready proven that a New York mer chant, however able, could not com pletely conduct the fur business In a Clarke and David Stuart, said should not be undertaken till 1814. Mr. Hunt, who had gone up the North West coast on August 4, 1S1J, re turned In May, lglj, from Sandwich Islands. A man of great energy, he had been to Sitka and to East Kam chatka, and had collected 80,000 skins of fur seals. But owing to the loss of the Tonquln and Alexander Mc Kay, his presence at Astoria had been greatly needed. He welcomed them now with salt beef, pork, rice and taro root which he had brought with mm. nut his order to continue on was not obeyed, and he will be held largely responsible for Astor's, or the Pacific Fur Company's failure. His neglect to provide for Fort Astoria, when he first arrived there overland, SNAPSHOTS TAKEN DURING A FORMER ROUND-UP J-TV: ' - ? J . Lf ,-J I into union with the Hon. Hudson's Bay Company. Then" Astoria was re stored, but called Fort George. The company was now filled with men of business education, from North Brit ain largely, but there was need for the most capable man they had to supervise the field service of the Ore gon country, and It found him In Dr. John McLoughlln, chief trader at Fort William on Lake Superior. He was chosen chief by an association "which was composed and controll ed by very active, practical and force ful men." I choose and endorse the words of F. V. Holman. Dr. John McLoughlln was chosen In 181 to rule over such men at Fort George, or Astoria, and came to the appoint ment tn the fall of 1824. The labor ers were chiefly Canadian French trappers, and voyageurs, with a. few Bcomsn Highlanders and less Ha wanan islanders. The Scots were best for Individual trust, and In dl reeling Kanakas handling lumber or wheat; the French to catch and care for fur and peltries. There never were men more docile to do and to endure movement by land or water, fatigue, cold or hungr. A comparison of the songs used In their traffic will do. A few lines by Thomas Moore, the Irish' poet, will give the spirit of the Canadians: "Faintly as toll the evening chime Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time. Soon, as the woods on the shore grow dim, We'll sing at Saint Ann's our parting hymn. Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast, The rapids are near and the daylight past. Why should we yet our sail unfurl. There Is not a breath, the blue wave to curl But when the wind blows oK the shore, Sweetly we'll rest our weary oar. Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast; The rapids are near and the day light's past. Ottawa's tide this trembling moon Shall see us float o'er thy surge soon. Saint of Ihls green isle, hear our prayers Oh! grant us cool heavens and fa voring airs. Blow, breezes, blow, the stream run fast; The rapids are near, and the day light's past." A Gaelic Canadian boat song, sung on the St. Lawrence by a crew of Scotch Canadians, and taken by a re tiring Hudson's Bay Company's of ficer to Scotland In 1824 and trans lated by John Wilson. The crew were six pullers and captain steerer. Listen to me as when we heard our fathers Sing long ago the songs of other; shores. Listen to me, and then la chorus gather All your strong voice, as you pull the oars. Fair these broad meads, these hoary wood are grand, But we are exile from our Father, land. From the lone Skellln, on th misty Island, "(Continued on pageTlhre.) from which Mr. Astor chose some of his partners. These were already hare owner of the Canadian North West Company. The men with "Mc" prefixed to their names as McKay, McDougall, McKenzle were of High land Scotch lineage, probably promi nent by the natural selection of cir cumstances, as Alexander McKay was the most notable man of the North West Company, whom Astor chose as a partner in his Pacific Association. HI life wa sacrificed through the folly of Captain Thorn' treatment of the native on the Tonquln. There were men not Highland born, as tho Stuarts, Manson, Birnle, Black, Doug las, Simpson, Tolmie and Ogden men of business education; men whom it was not Intended to feed on the flesh of horses or dogs. Of the men we suppose John Jacob Astor selected from the North-West Company as partners, all were from Canada, as follows: Alexander Mc Kay, Duncan, McDougall, David and Robert Stuart; of clerks, there were eleven three Amerlcans,James Lew is and William W. Matthews, of New York, and Russell Farnham of Mass- nogan ate the flesh of ninety dogs during the winter of 1812-12. Messrs. Wallace and Halsey formed winter camps in the Willamette valley to re lieve the stringency for food at As toria, and even then Mr. Franchere was detailed to fish for sturgeon in the Columbia river, and mentions the relief so obtained from such contri butions as apparently preventing the agonies of death by starvation. The overland arrival of Wilson P. Hunt conduced to make Astoria the gathering point of the needy west ot the Rocky mountains, and of the up casts of the Pacific ocean, though the debris from the various posts and parties of Canadian North-Westers seem to have caused accessions to the number fed at Astoria. The sick with scurvy were sent to Franchere's camp. Franchere notes under date March 20 that Reed and Seaton led, a starving band from Astoria to the hunting camps of Wallace and Halsey, on me niameiie, ana returned 10 Astoria with a supply of dried ven ison. April 11, McTavIsh and La Roche arrived at Fort fenn?A with nlnetAen humane manner. It Is proposed to follow these Canadians to the ruling power of their own organization. We will follow Mr. Franchere's party, us ing his Inimitable narrative, from Fort George, or Astoria ,to the place and the tactics that furnished per manent food supply. There Is one point that I press upon the attention of my readers. It Is that the great majority of the ruling class of the I North-West Company in the field service were either Scotch by birth or descent, and largely Highlanders. From the time of the break up of clans by the military order against the McDonalds, there was time for resolute men to place themselves In a chosen line of effort, and to that influence I ascribe the large propor tion of Highland Scots named in the Canadian North-West Company. Aft er Prince Rupert's Colony was form ed, McKenzle, a trader whose cache had been found and looted at the mouth of the stream now calied for him, spent May, 1814, collecting sal mon, dried on the skin and baled for food, in the journey back to Can ada, which the wintering partners, was little short of ot criminal on Hunt's part. It Is to the credit of the Canadians that they refused to continue occu pants ot Fort Astoria, and when Ir- ving's romance is decayed, interna' tlonal good-will will Increase. Ninety men left on April 4, 1814, and six days later bought four horses and 80 dogs for food.- On July 14, 1814. they reached Fort William, head quarters of the Canadian North-West Company, encompassed by well cul tivated grain fields under promising crops of "barley, peas and oats." Franchere notes the successful culti vation of potatoes at Astoria, also the farming and livestock extending west from Fort William towards Winnipeg, and the strife already beginning for the food from the field. We hear or see little history of As toria, or Fort George,' for ten years after Franchere's narrative leaves It. The replacement of the American flag only causes a laugh by the occupiers in 1818, but a historical event is nev er a proper subject of laughter. Ten years' time was needed to compress the Canadian North-West Company OUR PLUMBING NEVER BUCKS We use the best materials and emrJov the most comne tent plumbers. 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