McLoughlin and the Willamette

Fort George [Astoria] where James Birnie spent many years in the service of the HBC. Image from Library and Archives Canada, number C-040856, and used with their permission. This, by the way, was painted in 1844.

For me, at least, I have a lot of difficulty in sorting out the story of Chief Factor John McLoughlin’s time at the Willamette Falls, a set of falls on the Willamette River of Oregon. (I believe its two falls, am I right?) No, that’s not quite true (or it may have been true when I began writing this post, but it is no longer.) The difficulty now begins in figuring out when he left Fort Vancouver and went, on furlough, to the Willamette Falls.

The Willamette Falls part of the story begins in the early days of McLoughlin’s arrival at Fort Vancouver, when he and Governor George Simpson were still on good terms. In 1828, the two men travelled down the Willamette River to view the falls, and both were impressed by their power. They thought the Falls would be important to the HBC Company because of the potential for water power that could be harnessed to run saw mills or grist mills. Improvements were made: McLoughlin blasted away some of the rocks in the river, and erected a small house on what he called the “portage,” on an island in the river. For a while, that was enough. Nothing was done in the way of setting up a grist or saw mill, as the Fort Vancouver mills were working sufficiently well to take care of all the sawing and milling that Fort Vancouver needed. 

Over the fall and winter of 1841-1842, as we know, there arose some major disagreements between Simpson and McLoughlin. The two men disagreed on whether fixed trading posts were better than movable ships for trading up and down the coast (of course, Simpson won this argument.) Debra Komar, author of The Bastard of Stikine, says that Simpson and McLoughlin “almost came to blows over a single vessel, the S.S. Beaver, a hulking steamship Simpson had commissioned in hopes of “overawing the natives,” but which Dr. McLoughlin dismissed as “a travelling circus.””

At the same time, the London Committee also became concerned about the amount of support McLoughlin was giving to the new American settlers who now arrived in the district via the Oregon Trail — assistance that encouraged them to remain in the district. McLoughlin provided settlers with tea, agricultural tools, seeds, and cattle so that they could survive. The Committee thought that if he did not help the settlers, they would go away: McLoughlin considered that if he did not help them, they would attack the storehouses at Fort Vancouver (which actually did happen a few years later), and take what they needed.

Another concern that Simpson and the London Committee had was that Chief Factor McLoughlin had made expensive improvements on the land that he had claimed at Willamette Falls: claimed for himself as well as for the Company, with (he thought) Governor Simpson’s approval. There was no place that anyone could register an official land claim, and so the claims remained verbal commitments only, until such time as there was an official registrar. In August 1841, Simpson visited the Willamette and, seeing the Americans’ intrusions into HBC space, gave permission for McLoughlin to erect the grist and sawmill machinery that was on its way from England to Fort Nisqually. In March 1842, Simpson directed McLoughlin to to take possession of and occupy the land on behalf of the Company. In December, McLoughlin had the land surveyed and subdivided, and laid out the town of Oregon City. Then in March 1843, McLoughlin wrote a letter to Simpson, advising him of his inability to claim land in the company’s name, and asking if he should claim it in his own. He got no useful response to his question from Simpson. But the reality was that Simpson no longer supported McLoughlin’s project at Willamette Falls, mostly because he did not believe the company would be able to hold the land once the Boundary Line went through. It also appeared that, in the United States, no corporation (and especially no foreign corporation) could acquire land by preemption.

And so, McLoughlin’s solution to this problem was to publicly claim the land in his own name, but to privately claim it for the Company. And, secondly, even if the company could not claim it, he would keep it as his own.

McLoughlin built the buildings for the grist mill and saw mill and installed their machinery. In November 1843, Douglas described the buildings at Willamette Falls: “The site at Wallamette Falls is now occupied by a saw Mill and the materials of a flour mill which is in course of erection. It is held in Mr. McLoughlin’s own name, as the Company’s right would not be respected one moment. The people here are well aware that the claim of an English Corporate Body to lands in the Wallamette would not be established in the American Court, and it is clearly imprudent in the Company to engage in any land speculation south of the Columbia.” He had advised McLoughlin to abandon the Falls, but McLoughlin was emotionally unable to do so. 

At the end of July 1845, when Thomas Lowe visited Willamette Falls property, he described the buildings that McLoughlin had constructed there:

…arrived at the Willamette Falls at eight o’clock [in the morning]. Took breakfast at the Company’s mess table there, and went through the town in the forenoon, visiting the Doctor’s Saw and Grist Mills, the latter is a splendid building, and has the finest machinery of any in the Country. 

Note that there is an HBC Mess at Willamette Falls. To McLoughlin, this place remained, in his mind, HBC property. 

So, why was McLoughlin so determined to hold onto the Willamette Falls? in the years before 1845, McLoughlin had already been angered by the loss by closure of his northwest coast posts, under Simpson’s orders. It had been decided that Forts McLoughlin and Durham would be closed down in spring 1843, and Stikine a year or so later. At the same time, Fort Victoria would be constructed on southern Vancouver Island. Then, while McLoughlin was still arguing with Simpson about these forced closures, he learned of the death of his son who was murdered by his own men at Fort Stikine in April, 1842. It was too much for him to tolerate, and he couldn’t think clearly. Grief-stricken and guilt-ridden, his letters and reports to the London Committee were now filled with recriminations and accusations against Governor Simpson that could only destroy his own career. It went on for years: everyone was sick of listening to him, and Governor Pelly was apparently unnerved by John McLoughlin’s erratic behaviour. The decision was finally made, and on November 30, 1844, the London Committee wrote the letter that terminated McLoughlin’s superintendency of the Columbia District.

The Doctor was told “he would no longer be in charge west of the mountains, and he was on furlough and leave of absence from mid-1846.” [Quote from Debra Komar, The Bastard of Fort Stikine, p. 193].

The London Committee’s letter would not reach Fort Vancouver for some time, and so the story continues. 1845 was an especially bad time for the Chief Factor. His son-in-law, William Glen Rae (then in charge of the California post) entered his wife’s bedroom and shot himself in the head. The date of this horrific event was January 19, 1845, but no one at Fort Vancouver heard of the suicide before the Cowlitz (which had been sent to the California post in March) returned with the news of Rae’s death. And once again, McLoughlin blamed Simpson for his son-in-law’s death, saying that “Sir George Simpson’s Visit here in 1841 has cost me Dear.” [Debra Komar, The Bastard of Fort Stikine, p. 192].

So what did all this have to do with John McLoughlin’s interest in the Willamette Falls, you ask? Well, nothing, and everything. McLoughlin’s belief that the Willamette was the most valuable piece of land in the district, and his desire to keep it became an obsession that compounded the burden of guilt and horror that he already suffered from: it contributed to his breakdown. He was unsupported by his superiors: he was disappointed, heart-broken, exhausted by the burden of work he was already carrying. He was isolated, alone, and abandoned by his friends at Fort Vancouver, who were now sick of his complaining and who now tried to stay out of his way. He was burned out. 

Archibald Barclay, Secretary of the London Committee, spoke for the Hudson’s Bay Company when he wrote the letter to John McLoughlin that advised him of the Committee’s decision to remove him from his post. The letter, written on November 30, 1844 (this date cannot be correct, as the London ship left England September 8, 1844) reached Fort Vancouver on March 8, 1845 (according to Thomas Lowe that is when the packet from the London Ship reached Fort Vancouver). However the letter arrived at Fort Vancouver, It read, in part, “the advantages… which the Governor and Committee had hoped would be derived from placing the Columbia District under the charge of one person” had “not been realized.” [E.E. Rich, ed., The Letters of John McLoughlin from Fort Vancouver, 1844-46, p. lviii]. It went on to explain that the Committee was dividing the Columbia district into two or more districts, thus ending the extra annual payments of £500 that McLoughlin received for that superintendency. The London Committee was seriously displeased: McLoughlin would no longer have complete and unfettered control over Fort Vancouver and the Columbia district. 

And this is where I got stuck! But let us struggle on:

McLoughlin’s problems did not end there. At the June 1845 Annual Meeting of the HBC at Red River, the Governor and Chief Factors decided that a Board of Management would be set up that would take McLoughlin’s place at Fort Vancouver: the three members of that Board would be Peter Skene Ogden, James Douglas (already at Fort Vancouver), and John McLoughlin himself, who they planned to send to the east side of the Rocky Mountains after he returned from the furlough they expected he would take in 1846-47. Ogden was at Red River when he heard of the plans, and he left on June 15, apparently just after the Annual Meeting ended. He arrived at Fort Vancouver on August 26, 1845. (Ogden also left Red River a day before the letter to the Board of Management was written by Governor Simpson on June 16. That letter would arrive in the fall with the incoming York Factory Express.)

So, McLoughlin received the letter from Red River before the London Committee letter reached him with the London ship, the Columbia, in spring 1846. So when did McLoughlin leave Fort Vancouver for the Willamette Falls? I had thought the letter that ended his career would have reached him on March 18, 1845, if it came in with the London ship (which it couldn’t have done). Then I believed it must have come into the territory with Peter Skene Ogden on August 26, 1845, who then had to sit down with McLoughlin and give him the letter. But if it was sent by the London Ship to Hudson Bay, it would likely have reached York Factory in August, well after the time Ogden left Red River — so that didn’t work either. What actually happened is that that important letter, written November 30, 1844, sat in the Paper Box in the London Committee’s office until the next years ship sailed. The Columbia left London in October 1845, and arrived at Fort Victoria in April, 1846. This is the ship that carried that November 11 letter to John McLoughlin, at Fort Vancouver.  

So, on August 26, 1845, Peter Skene Ogden arrived at Fort Vancouver, surprising the HBC men there, who were not expecting him. McLoughlin had appeared at Fort Vancouver from the Willamette Valley on August 15, and left again for the Willamette the next day: in fact, he is spending most of his time in the Willamette (probably because the American citizens had complained he was not living on his land claim.) On August 30, Ogden set off for Fort George, and Thomas Lowe and James Douglas went riding on the plains outside the fort. On September 2, Douglas set off for the Willamette with Warre and Vavasour (who, as we remember, came in with Peter Skene Ogden), and returned on September 5. Although both he and Ogden knew what the future was for McLoughlin, neither of them broke the news to him. I think they just let him be in charge at Willamette, while Douglas did McLoughlin’s work at Fort Vancouver, and Ogden looked after the New Caledonia district from a distance. And why do I say that?

On October 3, 1845, Ogden headed up the Columbia River to New Caledonia to arrange for the exploration for and the building of a new brigade trail that would bring the New Caledonia furs out to the northwest coast, instead of through the Okanagan where the current trail led them [So sayeth Thomas Lowe]. A second choice may have been a trail via the Fraser River to Fort Langley. It wasn’t just an excuse to get out of town. At Red River, Ogden had received instructions from Governor Simpson that this new trail must be explored for, and that clerk A.C. Anderson, of Fort Alexandria, had already volunteered for the job of exploration. Although he didn’t have a lot of time, it is likely that Ogden consulted with with both John Tod of Kamloops, and John Lee Lewes of Fort Colvile, and in doing so he decided the trail should come to Fort Langley via Kamloops. His decision made, on October 22, 1845, Ogden wrote the letter that instructed Anderson to confer with Tod before exploring for a trail from Kamloops that would lead the brigades to Fort Langley. Ogden was at Fort Colvile when the incoming York Factory Express (now called the Columbia Express) arrived, and he came downriver with the boats. It arrived at Fort Vancouver on November 9, 1845, and it carried the papers that told John McLoughlin of the forming of the new Board of Management, and asking him to hand over the power to the other two members of the Board of Management.

This feeds directly into the Willamette puzzle I am trying to solve: the dates for the arrival of the all-important “letter” don’t really work, if it arrived with the London ship. According to John McLoughlin’s bio in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, McLoughlin reacted to the receipt of the London Committee’s November 30 letter by going on furlough and moving to Oregon City — in January 1846. On Tuesday, January 6, 1846, Thomas Lowe writes in his journal that “Dr. McLoughlin started for the Wallamette Falls in the Forenoon, where he is to remain for some time.” So that part of the story seems to be confirmed.

However, the incoming York Factory Express had arrived at the post on November 9, 1845, so it wasn’t an immediate move, and the London Committee letter would probably not have been part of this bunch of correspondence — or was it? It is possible (although no one says so) that there was a copy of the London Committee’s November 30 letter included with the correspondence sent to McLoughlin from Red River via the Express. Certainly Governor Simpson could easily have received a copy from the London Committee in the six months after it was written and before he left Lachine for the meeting at Red River. Is this what happened? It is the only way I can explain it!

Obviously, I need some help here. Maybe one of you wickedly smart Fort Vancouver historians can clear this up for me, so I can write this part of the chapter I am now working on. Thanking you in advance. 

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

• ← Dairy Fields
• Harrison River →