S moke S ignals
OCTOBER 1, 2017
11
LaBonte eventually settled for good in 1836
LABONTE continued
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the winter of 1813-14.
Manangan said she found the list
of Astorians – as the Pacific Fur Co.
men were colloquially known at the
time – in her papers after having
received it originally in 2007 from
a friend who is a history buff.
“Gosh, I was so happy about
it,” Manangan says. “It has Louis
LaBonte’s name and probably his
brother. Years ago … 1800s. He
was a carpenter and a fur trapper.”
LaBonte was listed as a carpenter
who was stationed at Fort George,
the name that Fort Astoria adopted
after proprietor Duncan McDougal
sold the entire enterprise to the Ca-
nadian North West Co. on Nov. 12,
1813, after learning of the outbreak
of the War of 1812.
Also on the list of employees who
wintered was J. Bte. LaBonte –
Jean Baptiste – Louis’ brother.
Famed New York City merchant
John Jacob Astor founded the
American Fur Co. and its subsid-
iary, the Pacific Fur Co., which
competed against the North West
Co., in June 1810.
Astor’s plan to establish Pacific
Fur Co. posts in the distant Oregon
country to improve his fur trade
with China was two-pronged: He
dispatched employees overland
following the Lewis and Clark
Expedition route and also sailed a
contingent around South America’s
Cape Horn.
According to the reminiscences of
Louis LaBonte Jr. published in the
June 1900 Quarterly of the Oregon
Historical Society, his father ac-
companied St. Louis businessman
Wilson Price Hunt on the overland
journey to the Pacific coast that
LaBonte eventually settled for good in
1836 when he filed a land claim near
present-day Dayton. He died on
Sept. 30, 1860, at 80 years of age.
occurred from 1810-12.
Hunt, who received five shares of
Astor’s company, recruited employ-
ees between May and July 1810 in
Montreal for the overland journey.
Hunt, who had no previous outback
experience, was charged by Astor to
lead the party.
Hunt and his party reached
Mackinac Island in current-day
Michigan on July 28, 1810. After
hiring more men, Hunt led his par-
ty to St. Louis, arriving on Sept. 3.
LaBonte, who had moved there four
years earlier, was among the men
who signed contracts to join the
overland party in St. Louis.
They left St. Louis on Oct. 21,
1810, for Fort Osage and traveled
450 miles up the Missouri River
before establishing winter camp
on Nodaway Island in what is now
Andrew County, Mo.
Hunt’s expedition broke win-
ter camp on April 21, 1811, and
reached a major Omaha village in
early May. While continuing up
the Missouri River, they encoun-
tered a large group of Yankton and
Lakota Sioux and after explaining
that they were traveling to the
Pacific Ocean and had no interest
in trading with neighboring Indian
Nations that were at war with the
Sioux, they were allowed to proceed
farther north.
Continuing westward toward the
Continental Divide, the Pacific Fur
Co. party followed the Wind River,
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crossed the divide and followed
the Gros Ventre River, reaching
Fort Henry near present-day St.
Anthony, Idaho, on Sept. 8.
At Fort Henry, canoes were
carved to take the party down
Henry’s Fork to the Snake River
and eventually to the Columbia.
The last members of Hunt’s par-
ty reached Fort Astoria on Jan.
18, 1812, while those who sailed
around South America had an eas-
ier sojourn, arrived in the spring
of 1811 after stopping in Hawaii to
pick up provisions.
According to LaBonte Jr.’s rec-
ollections, his father married the
daughter of Clatsop Indian Chief
Kobayway and a Tillamook prin-
cess, Kil-akot-ah or Little Songbird.
LaBonte Jr. was born in 1818 near
Astoria.
His father, after the demise of
the Pacific Fur Co. in 1813, took a
job with the rival North West Fur
Co., which was absorbed into the
Hudson’s Bay Co. in 1818.
LaBonte Sr. worked for Hudson’s
Bay for six years: three at Spokane
and three at Colville. He then
returned to Fort Vancouver and
asked to be dismissed in 1828 and
be allowed to remain in Oregon.
According to his son’s memoir,
this was against Hudson’s Bay
policy because the company did not
want any of its trappers to become
settlers or free laborers in its ter-
ritory. But LaBonte was “an astute
Frechman” and argued that he was
entitled to stay in Oregon since
he was not employed by Hudson’s
Bay when he came to the area, so
it wasn’t an infraction of company
policy.
Despite his ingenious argument,
his request was refused, which
forced him to return to Montreal,
where he received his dismissal
papers and he immediately began
the journey back to Oregon, arriv-
ing again in November 1830.
“This shows him to have been an
independent and determined man,
and a good husband and father.
It may also have had much more
bearing than has yet been credited
as to the settlement of Oregon,”
LaBonte Jr.’s reminiscences state.
LaBonte ended up moving to
French Prairie along with Joseph
Gervais, another member of the
Astorians of the Pacific Fur Co.
LaBonte helped him raise wheat
and build a barn.
“They formed a little company
of comrades and became the first
group of independent Oregon peo-
ple,” the reminiscences state.
LaBonte eventually settled for
good in 1836 when he filed a land
claim near present-day Dayton. He
died on Sept. 30, 1860, at 80 years
of age.
Louis LaBonte Jr. and his wife,
Caroline Montour, had a son, Al-
exander, born in 1851. LaBonte Jr.
walked on in 1911 and his son, Alex-
ander, died in 1896 in Grand Ronde.
Alexander LaBonte and his wife,
Clementine Agnes LaChance, had
11 children. The ninth of those 11,
John Baptiste LaBonte, is Rosetta
Manangan’s father. Her mother
was Esther Mary Jones LaBonte, a
full-blooded Native American, who
walked on in 1987 and is buried at
the Tribal Cemetery.
Grand Ronde resident Gene La-
Bonte is the grandson of Manan-
gan’s uncle, Bartholomew LaBonte.
Also on the list of Astorians of the
Pacific Fur Co. given to Manangan
is another familiar name to Ore-
gonians – John Day – for which a
town, dam and river are named.
Day’s infamous claim to fame in Or-
egon history is being a trapper who
was robbed and stripped naked by
Natives on the Columbia near the
mouth of the river that now bears
his name in eastern Oregon.
(Editor’s note: This article in-
cludes information from Wiki-
pedia, the Oregon Historical
Society, oregonencyclopedia.
org, historylink.org, nativeam-
ericannetroots.net and June
Olson’s research into the family
tree of Eugene Joseph LaBonte.)
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