Fort Victoria Ships

A Sailing ship in a bottle, from early 1900’s

The years between 1844, when Charles Ross died, and 1846, when the Fort Victoria journals begin, are a bit of a wasteland so far as information re: the workings of the fort goes. For me, the only way I can determine what actually happened at Fort Victoria is to look at it in pieces: to break the information into pieces. In this “piece,” I will attempt to cover all the Ships that sailed into Fort Victoria’s harbour during that time. So let’s go:

As we know, the steamer Beaver arrived on the coast, at Fort Vancouver, on the Columbia River, in June 1836: Here is the story of her journey across the Atlantic and Pacific, in eight posts (!) beginning here: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/steamship-beaver/ The Steamer Beaver was a regular visitor at Fort Victoria, but only until 1840, when many of the northwest coast posts were closed down and the steamer took their place. I don’t think I have any information on the steamer’s visits to Fort Victoria during 1844 to 1845, but we will see what I turn up.

The ships on the Pacific coast at this time (1844-1845) were: the Steamer Beaver, as I said above; the London ship, Columbia, which arrived at Fort Vancouver on May 12, 1843, and remained on the coast until December 1844; the tiny ship, Cadboro, which helped bring men and supplies down from Fort Durham, on the northwest coast, to construct Fort Victoria in 1843, and who was a regular visitor to Fort Victoria in the years that followed; the Cowlitz, which arrived at Fort Vancouver on July 16, 1844, after entering the Columbia River June 8; and the Vancouver, which reached London from the Pacific coast on June 11, 1844, and in Autumn 1844 was instructed to go direct to Fort Victoria on her next journey. Then there is the HMS [???] Discovery, which I haven’t learned much about; and the HMS America. Finally, the HMS Modeste arrived in the Columbia River from the Sandwich Islands on July 9, 1844. Here is the story of the Modeste: https://nancymargueriteanderson.com/modeste/ 

Lets begin with the Cowlitz: The London Ship, Cowlitz, arrived at Fort Vancouver in July of 1844. On June 8, 1844, Thomas Lowe notes that “the Barque Cowelitz is in the river.” [Thomas Lowe aways spelled the name of the Cowlitz this way]. She would leave Fort Vancouver again in December 1845, so she spent some time on the coast. Did she visit Fort Victoria? I don’t know that yet. On August 3, 1844, she sailed for the northwest coast, according to Thomas Lowe. I have little information on where she was for the remainder of 1844, except that in December the furs were barged upriver to Fort Vancouver from the Cowlitz, which was now ready to sail for California and the Sandwich Islands. 

She returned to the Columbia River, as on June 22, 1845, “the barque Cowelitz reached the anchorage in front of the fort,” according to Thomas Lowe. On July 18, she is delivering lumber to the Sandwich Islands, and probably she sailed for Fort Victoria without coming back to the Columbia River, as Thomas Lowe’s journal tells us that on his return from Fort Victoria, Douglas said that he had dispatched the Cowlitz to London on December 18th, 1845. 

Next, the Columbia: The Columbia, as I said above, arrived at Fort Vancouver on May 12, 1843. She did visit Fort Victoria: one year after her arrival on the coast, on May 21, 1844, before sailing with a load of wheat for the Russian American Co. in Sitka, and supplies for Forts Nisqually and Langley. The Fort Langley goods she dropped at Fort Victoria, as she was far too large to sail up the Fraser River. On September 17, 1844, the Columbia entered the Columbia River, but because of the Easterly winds did not reach Fort Vancouver until October 7. [This was the year of the Fort Vancouver fires, spread by those same Easterly winds that hindered the Columbia’s upriver journey.] On November 13, 1844, the Columbia left Fort Vancouver for London after an extended stay on the coast. She crossed the bar on in early December, 1844, and arrived in London on May 4, 1845.

And then there is the Modeste: The HMS Modeste left Fort Vancouver for Forts Nisqually and Victoria, and then sailed for Fort Simpson, on the northwest coast. She had arrived at Fort Vancouver on July 15, 1844, and departed it again on August 3, 1844. She had some trouble making her way out of the Columbia River, and she reportedly arrived at Fort Victoria soon after the departure of the HMS America in October 1844 [well, actually the American did not anchor in the harbour, so it was easy to miss her]. She spent the winter of 1844-45 in the Sandwich Islands, and if I remember correctly she was on the California coast after that. In November 1845 she returned to her Fort Vancouver anchorage, where she spent the next seventeen months. 

The London Ship, Vancouver: In the autumn of 1844, the Governor and Committee instructed the London ship, Vancouver, to go to Fort Victoria on her next journey, and not to Fort Vancouver. Important changes were in the air! Under Captain Mott, the Vancouver sailed from Gravesend, near London, on September 8, 1844, and arrived at Fort Victoria on February 18, 1845, after a passage of 5 months and 10 days.

But the Vancouver did not ignore the Columbia River: she was reported to be in the river on March 22, 1845, and anchored off the fort on March 27. In early May the Vancouver sailed for Fort Victoria once more, although Thomas Lowe says she sailed for Sitka and the northwest coast — and she did; but she must have visited Fort Victoria on the way. She left Sitka on July 25, 1845, and it took her until October 19, 1845, to reach Fort Vancouver! As Thomas Lowe said, she had a very protracted voyage from Sitka. 

Finally, on December 11, 1845, the Vancouver proceeded down the Columbia River on her way to California, with Dugald Mactavish on board. Mactavish would be dealing with the fallout from Chief Trader William Glen Rae’s suicide at the California post, while David McLoughlin (who was also aboard the ship) planned to bring Rae’s wife (his sister) back to Fort Vancouver. Rae had committed suicide on January 19, 1845, and James Alexander Forbes, the British Vice Counsel, moved into the post to prevent looting until it was finally closed down in March 1846. Does it feel like it took a long time to get things done? yes, it did. The HBC did not have enough ships on the coast, and the long delay caused by the Vancouver‘s “protracted journey” down the coast interfered with everyone’s schedule. In fact I suspect that there were many HBC men who were very concerned about that ship’s temporary disappearance, fearing for the worst.

What ship is the Discovery? She is apparently connected with the America, and in November 1845, James Douglas accompanied William Peel [son of Rt. Honorable Sir Robert Peel] and Captain Parke — both members of the America‘s crew — onto the Discovery, and sailed to Fort Victoria. Surely, this is not Captain Vancouver’s lead ship? It can’t be: but I don’t yet know who she is. Nevertheless, she clearly visited Fort Victoria.

The America, mentioned just above, was definitely a visitor at Fort Victoria, or at least, Captain Gordon was [the ship anchored on the opposite side of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, as Gordon did not want to anchor in Esquimalt Harbour, it not being listed on his map as a harbour.] Roderick Finlayson, who was then in charge of Fort Victoria, wrote about the captain of that ship, who was titled “Captain Honorable C Gordon” by Warre and Vavasour. [These two military spies met Captain Gordon at Fort Victoria in October, 1845.] Here is what Finlayson said of Gordon’s two week long visit to Fort Victoria: 

Here we made several excursions in the district on horseback, and in the vicinity of Cedar Hill fell in with a band of Deer, which we pursued until they got into a thicket and were thus disappointed in the hunt. Capt. Gordon, being a noted deer stalker in the Scottish Highlands, got much disappointed at not getting the deer, and on our return riding through an open field country, with the native grass to the horses knees, I happened to make the remark, “What a fine country this is,” to which he replied that he “would not give one of the barren hills of Scotland, for all he saw round him.” Another day he was preparing his fishing rod to fish for salmon with a fly, when I told him the Salmon would not take the fly, but were fished here with a bait. I then prepared fishing tackle with bait for him, after which he went in a boat to the mouth of the harbor and fished several fine salmon with the bait. His exclamation on his return was: “What a country, where the salmon will not take the fly.” 

You may not think that this, above, is important, but it is. This man, who is so unimaginative, and so dismissive of any experience that differed from what might be experienced in the highlands, was Captain John Gordon, brother of the Earl of Aberdeen, who was at that time the Foreign Secretary of Great Britain. Also on the America was Lieutenant William Peel, son of Sir Robert Peel, the Prime Minister of Great Britain, who with Captain Parke visited Forts Nisqually and Vancouver. It was these two men — Peel, and Gordon, who would carry their impressions of this wild country back to home to England, and present them to the powerful government men they were closely related to. I don’t know how sour William Peel was, and how much he did not want to protect the HBC men in the Columbia, but clearly, Captain John Gordon was the sourest man possible, and the least likely to want to save a country where the deer did not oblige by allowing themselves to get shot, and the salmon were caught by trolling, not by casting. Charles Lillard, who wrote the book, Seven Shillings a Year: The History of Vancouver Island, says it best:

Humorous as these anecdotes are now, they may have played a less than funny part in the subsequent report Gordon filed. One of his charges on this coast was “to examine and give a report of the country,” according to Finlayson, which he was to the pass on to his brother the Earl of Aberdeen — at the time Prime Minister of Great Britain. The report was so misleading and negative that it changed the course of the Oregon Territory negotiations, much to the surprise and delight of the Americans.

Or the Foreign Secretary: as you see, my sources disagree on what position the Earl of Aberdeen held. It’s a good argument, though, and quite believable. Henry James Warre and Mervin Vavasour are often blamed for the failure of the British government to negotiate to protect the HBC men in Oregon Territory, and their report may have helped (especially as they met Captain Gordon aboard his ship on their return to Fort Vancouver). But their report reached Great Britain too late to have much effect: it was Captain Gordon’s report that did the damage.

To continue with the ships that visited Fort Victoria: I haven’t included much information about the little Cadboro, mostly because she is running circles around the other ships on this coast! She is constantly on the run, sailing from Fort Nisqually to Fort Langley to Fort Victoria and back again! Here is a short example of her busy schedule. James Douglas actually made a note of her departures and arrivals over the summer of 1844:

May 17, 1844. the Cadboro leaves Fort Vancouver, according to James Douglas. June 10, 1844. The Cadboro leaves Baker’s Bay (a month long wait because of bad weather is normal on this coast). June 18, the Cadboro reaches Fort Victoria, according to James Douglas. June 20, the Cadboro leaves Fort Victoria. July 10, 1844, the Cadboro arrives at Fort Langley, according to James Douglas. July 16, the Cadboro leaves Fort Langley. July 19, the Cadboro arrives at Fort Victoria, according to James Douglas. July 25, the Cadboro leaves Fort Victoria. August 1, the Cadboro arrives at Fort Langley. August 6, the Cadboro leaves Fort Langley. August 14, the Cadboro arrives at Fort Victoria, according to James Douglas. August 19, the Cadboro leaves Fort Victoria. August 22, the Cadboro arrived at Fort Nisqually. August 27, the Cadboro leaves Fort Nisqually. September 1, the Cadboro arrives at Fort Victoria. September 12, the Cadboro leaves Fort Victoria. September 22, the Cadboro arrives at Fort Langley. September 25, the Cadboro leaves Fort Langley. October 7, the Cadboro arrives at Fort Victoria. October 12, the Cadboro leaves Fort Victoria. October 17, 1844, the Indians report that the Cadboro has arrived in the Columbia River from Fort Victoria, according to Thomas Lowe. November 15, the Cadboro arrives at Fort Vancouver, according to James Douglas.

Thomas Lowe says that the Cadboro has spent almost all her time this summer at Forts Victoria and Nisqually, but that’s not quite true. She went to Fort Langley more often than she visited Nisqually, unless her Fort Nisqually visits remain unmentioned, which is possible. On November 25, 1844, Thomas Lowe records that the Cadboro is to be hauled ahsore for extensive repairs. Well, good. I think she needs a rest!

So there you go — the little Cadboro is busy busy busy!! And I presume you all know that she is a tiny ship, in comparison with the rest — only… well, I don’t know. Bruce Watson doesn’t give her length, but she is a schooner of seventy-one tons, with one deck and two masts, and six guns. She was said to be smaller than many Northwest Coast Indian canoes, but she was never attacked, although she was threatened. The Captain of this busy ship during this period of time, 1844, was James Allen Scarborough.

Copyright, Nancy Marguerite Anderson, 2024. All rights reserved.: 

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