SOMETHING OF THOMPSON'S LIFE.

125

Fort Astoria, where he arrived the 15th of July,

1811.20

20 David Thompson was an entirely different order of man from the orthodox fur-trader. Tall and fine looking, of sandy complexion, with large features, deep-set studious eyes, high forehead and broad shoulders, the intellectual was well set upon the physical. His deeds have never been trumpeted as those of some of the others, but in the westward explorations of the Northwest Company no man performed more valuable service or estimated his achievements more modestly. Unhappily his last days were not as pleasant as fell to the lot of some of the worn-out members of the company. He retired almost blind to Lachine House, once the head-quarters of the Company, where Mr Anderson encountered him in 1831 in a very decrepid condition. Mr Twiss, Or. Ques., 14, pronounces Mr Thompson a highly competent man. Cox, Col. River, i. 85, believes the chief object of the expedition to have been the planting of an establishment at the mouth of the river before Astor's party should reach it. Ross, Adv., 177, says that Donald Mackenzie about this time used to start from Montreal and reach the mouth of the Columbia River, or Great Bear Lake the same season,' but he speaks carelessly. Gray, Hist. Or. 17, with his usual inaccuracy first brings Thompson to Fort Astoria in 1813.

CHAPTER VI.

WILLIAMS IN THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS, HENRY ON SNAKE RIVER, AND WINSHIP ON THE COLUMBIA.

1807-1812.

BIG WHITE'S VISIT TO WASHINGTON-HIS ESCORT HOME-EZEKIEL WILLIAMS ON THE YELLOWSTONE AND PLATTE-HIS PARTY CUT IN PIECES BY THE SAVAGES-TWO OF THE PARTY REACH LOS ANGELES-ALEXANDER HENRY BUILDS A FORT WEST OF THE MOUNTAINS-LA SALLE'S SHIPWRECK AT FALSE BAY-HIS JOURNEY FROM THE PACIFIC OCEAN TO THE RED RIVER OF LOUISIANA-PROJECT OF THE WINSHIP BROTHERS-THE 'ALBATROSS' SAILS FROM BOSTON AND ENTERS THE COLUMBIA-WINSHIP AND SMITH, HIS MATE, SURVEY THE RIVER-CHOOSE A SITE FOR SETTLEMENT ON OAK POINT-BEGIN BUILDING AND PLANTING-THEIR GARDEN DESTROYED BY THE FLOOD-MOVE DOWN THE RIVER-HOSTILE ATTITUDE OF THE NATIVES-ABANDONMENT OF THE ENTERPRISE.

As in the north, following Mackenzie's track, Scotch and English trappers from Canada and the Canadian north-west crossed the mountains and located establishments on the western slope, so through the middle and southern passes, after Lewis and Clarke had told their story, reckless hunters from the United States frontier found their way, and made the first move toward sweeping those forests of their primitive inhabitants.

Big White, chief of the Mandans, on the return of Captain Lewis from the Pacific, promised to accompany him with his wife and son to Washington, only upon a sacred promise that an escort should see him safely home. This pledge the government of the United States did not fail to redeem. Chosen for this purpose were twenty hardy Missourians, who under command of Ezekiel Williams set out from

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THE EFFERVESCENT BORDER LAND.

127

St Louis on the 25th of April 1807 with a two years' outfit, intending to trap on the upper Missouri and beyond the mountains. They were a bold, brave band, inured to hardships, and led by an experienced frontiersman of patient and unflinching energy. Of the party was a wild, impetuous youth, constantly losing himself when out hunting, and running into every manner of danger, not having sense enough to know what fear was. His name was Carson, not Christopher, although he might easily have been taken for his brother. On reaching the Platte, William Hamilton, of the company, sickened and died in the delirium of fever, his mind being filled with home and the loved ones there.

By exercising due vigilance the hostile Sioux were passed in safety; and great was the joy of the Mandans to find their chief restored to them. The word of the white man, how bright and strong a thing it was with these savages! Would it might always have remained so.

After a week's rest Williams and his party left the Mandan village, ascended the Yellowstone until they reached the country of the Blackfoot where beaver were plenty, and there set traps. Most unfortunate was it, indeed, the killing of one of these savages by Lewis and Clarke, for a half century of bloodshed followed it. Unluckily, also, a prowling redskin one day was caught in a beaver-trap, and although he easily made his escape the accident tended in no wise to allay the hate already raging. Shortly after, while making the rounds of their traps, the white men were surprised by over a hundred mounted Blackfoot and five of their number killed, the savages losing but one man. That night the survivors escaped into the Crow country. Captivated by the Crow maidens, and by the thought of establishing there a harem, one of the party named Rose concluded to remain. Rose was a desperado of the most villainous type. With robbery and murder he was on familiar terms, having indulged

in piracy on the islands of the Mississippi as a profession. By such an one was European civilization destined to be first represented among the friendly Crows.

Leaving there the renegade Rose, the party proceeded to the head-waters of the Platte where they were again attacked by the savages, and five more killed. Caching their furs they set out to leave the country, but on reaching the Arkansas, all but three, Williams, Workman, and Spencer, were cut off by the Comanches. Not knowing where they were, a difference of opinion arose as to the best course to pursue, whereupon they separated, Williams descending what he supposed to be Red River, while the two others ascended it, hoping to reach the Spanish country. After many adventures, Williams reached Cooper's Fort, on the Missouri, where he procured aid and returned for his cached furs. Workman and Spencer on reaching the Rocky Mountains crossed to the Colorado, which they descended until coming to a well travelled trail leading them away to the eastward. Shortly afterward they met a Mexican caravan, consisting of forty men or more, on their way from Santa Fé to Los Angeles in California. Accompanying them they wintered there, 1809-10. With their Mexican friends they went to Santa Fé the following summer, where they remained fifteen years before returning to the United States.1

At St Louis, in 1808, as already mentioned in the chapter on the United States fur-trade in the preceding volume of this series, was formed the Missouri Fur Company2 with a capital of forty thousand dollars.

1David H. Coyner, The Lost Trappers, tells this and much more in a homely but truthful and direct way which commands the reader's respect and confidence. Besides the adventures of these trappers about the sources of the Platte and Colorado, he has much to say of California, and of the Santa Fé trade. Mrs Victor, River of the West, 37-8, places erroneously the number of men killed at twenty-seven, and all at the hands of Blackfoot.

The chief partners at this time were Manuel Lisa, Pierre Chouteau Sr., William Clark, Sylvester Labadie, Pierre Menard, and Auguste P. Chouteau.

Among their first movements was to send an expedition to the upper Missouri and the Yellowstone under Alexander Henry, who was not only to establish posts on those streams, but was to cross the Rocky Mountains and open traffic with the nations of the western slope. Erecting an establishment at the forks of the Missouri, Mr Henry there made his head-quarters, but being dislodged by the Blackfoot the following year, he passed over the great divide, and built a house on the north, or Henry branch, of Snake River, one day's journey above its junction with the south or Lewis branch. This cabin, called Henry Fort, built in 1809, was the first establishment erected in this latitude west of the Rocky Mountains.3

Mention is made of one La Salle, said to have been wrecked in 1809, in the ship Sea Otter, at a place called False Bay, one hundred miles south of the entrance to the Columbia River, and who journeyed thence overland to the source of the Red River of Louisiana; but so vague and incoherent is the statement that nothing can be made of it.*

The story of the Winship brothers has already been

This from an address by Thomas Allen at an anniversary celebration, in February 1847, of the founding of St Louis, printed in De Bo's Industrial Resources, iii., 516. Mr Allen's statements are loosely made, it being impossible to determine the meaning of some of them, or the dates of his incidents. Such, however, of his data as can be dated and fixed, constitute the highest authority as material for history. Waldo, Critiques, MS., says he knew all about these people. Irving, Astoria, 140, quoting without credit from Franchere's Nar., 146, gives 1810 as the date of establishing Fort Henry. Greenhow, Or, and Cal., 292, states that the post on the branch of Lewis River was abandoned by Mr Henry in 1810. Hunt found the fort vacant in 1811. The Missouri Fur Company being dissolved in 1812, two years later we find Mr Henry in charge of a post in the Willamette Valley, engaged in curing venison for the Northwest Company at Fort Astoria, and finally a prominent partner in the Northwest Company. He was drowned in company with Donald McTavish, shortly after the arrival of the Isaac Todd at Astoria. See Franchere's Nar., 221-3, and Evans' Hist. Or., MS., 87.

The story lies between Henry R. Schoolcraft and George Gibbs, the former having obtained it from some ship's log. La Salle describes certain earthworks on a river called Onalaskala, and the natives inhabiting the country the Onalas, which names smack strongly of the extreme north, though Schoolcraft thinks the word 'denotes the Mollala of the Willamette,' which is absurd. See Oregon Statesman, Jan. 1, 1853. There is Cape Foulweather on the coast one hundred miles below the mouth of the Columbia, but no False Cape..

HIST. N. W. COAST, VOL. II. 9