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Show T f T A The Westernmost Outpost of W A 'LXvIjTX a Far-Flung Empire of Fur By ELMO SCOTT WATSON ONE hundred and twenty-five years ago this month, an event of historic importance occurred in what is now the state of Oregon. RTL On April 12, 1811, the little ship, Tonquin, dropped anchor in one of the bays which form the mouth of ' the Columbia river. Seven months earlier she had set sail in New York harbor and pointed her prow toward Cape Horn. Now, after a voyage filled with danger and dissension, she had reached her objective. On board her was a strangely-assorted company of men who had come on an important mission. Here on the distant shores of the Pacific they were about to establish the westernmost outpost out-post in the far-flung empire of fur which John Jacob Astor, merchant-prince of New York, was building throughout North America. A party of 16 men had already ' gone ashore and when the Tonquin Ton-quin came to anchor, she was "saluted with three volleys of musketry and three cheers. She returned the salute with three cheers and three guns." Thus writes Washington Irving, the earliest chronicler of this incident inci-dent in American history. He continues : "All hands now set to work cutting down trees, clearing away thickets and marking out the place for the residence, storehouse and powder magazine, maga-zine, which were to be built of logs and covered with bark. Others landed the timbers intended in-tended for the frame of the coasting vessel and proceeded to put them together, while others prepared a garden spot and sowed the seeds of various vegetables. "The next thought was to give a name to the embryo metropolis; the one that naturally natur-ally suggested itself was that of was delayed by Ice In Chesapeake bay for several weeks and young Astor Improved the time by talking with a countryman, who was in the fur business, and learning all about that important Industry. Arriving In New York Astor became be-came a clerk for a fur dealer. After a while he was sent Into the Iroquois Iro-quois country to buy from the Indians, In-dians, and soon he was In business for himself, first handling musical Instruments, then musical Instruments Instru-ments and furs, and finally furs alone. At first he went on foot, with a heavy pack on his back, camping out or living in the lodges of the Indians. He went to Montreal Mon-treal and from Montreal followed the fur traders westward, pushing beyond Lake Superior into the prairie prai-rie country. In the year that Astor sailed from England several of the principal merchants of Montreal had organized organ-ized the Northwest company to compete com-pete with the powerful Hudson's Bay company, and soon had a virtual vir-tual monopoly over the fur business busi-ness in the Great Lakes region. Their success encouraged the founding found-ing of other companies and resulted result-ed in the organization of a new association of British merchants to , ' - ASTORIA AS IT WAS IN 1813 the projector and supporter of the whole enterprise. It was accordingly called ASTORIA." They little dreamed how shortlived short-lived this "embryo metropolis" was to be nor that history would write down the Astor project as a "magnificent "mag-nificent failure." If It hnd been a success, the course of American history his-tory might have been profoundly affected af-fected by their labors. For, In the words of a recent historian Arthur Ar-thur D. llowden Smith, author of "John Jacob Astor Landlord of New York" (Lipplncott) the significance sig-nificance of Astoria was this: "There is a tinge of epic quality in the affair, all the more human, and therefore the more Interesting, Interest-ing, for the failure which dogged it The stake was the coastlands of North America, from the borders of the Spanish Crown to the fiords of Alaska, where Count Baronhoff ruled for the czar. Had Astor won, Canada would have been barred from the Pacific, and who can say what might have been the resulting result-ing effect upon the relations between be-tween the United States and their northern neighbor? "Canada, denied a western seaport, must have been urged to closer ties with American industrialism: all the wealth of timber, minerals and agriculture agri-culture that flow to Vancouver contributing con-tributing to American prosperity; a railroad linking Puget Sound with Alaska the possibilities are limitless limit-less and fruitless to discuss. For Astor didn't win. "But even In failing, and despite the errors of his course, he established estab-lished the American title to Ore-gon Ore-gon and its hinterland, and so helped secure an empire sufficiently ample to satisfy most Americans, except the rabid breed who presently commenced com-menced to shout: 'Manifest Destiny!' Des-tiny!' By which cryptic utterance they implied a conviction that Divine Di-vine Providence favored the extension exten-sion of the Eagle's sway the length and breadth ot the continent. We have them with us yet." The story of John Jacob Ator Is a familiar one to most Americans liow the sixU'oiiyenr-oUl son of n butcher In Waldorf, tiormany. lefl home In lTT'.t, and worked In l.on don for four years before he had enough money to buy a stoerage to Baltimore; how he Invested the rest of his money, after paying his passage, in seven Utiles, from the sale of which he expected to l:ty the foundation of his fortune In the new country ; how the vessel exploit the region south of the Great Lakes, an almost untapped reservoir reser-voir of wealth In peltries. The principal prin-cipal post or "factory" of this company com-pany was historic Michillimackinac, from which place the new company took its name of the Mackinaw-company. Mackinaw-company. In the meantime young Jacob As tor had been Industriously building build-ing up his own fur business. At first he shipped his furs to London, Lon-don, but as soon as he discovered that China was a good market for fine peltries he embarked upon a venture Into the Orient. He first chartered, theu bought or built ships to carry furs to China and bring back tea until, as he said, he "had a million dollars afloat which represented rep-resented a dozen vessels." When the treaty of 1705 between Great Britain and America opened up a chance for direct commercial intercourse in-tercourse between Canada and the United States, Astor embarked upon this trade but soon found himself balked by the power and Influence of the Mackinaw company. "So John Jacob Astor, fur trader, gave place to the American Fur company, Incorporated In New York April G, 1S0S," writes his biographer, biog-rapher, Arthur D. llowden Smith. "The capital of $1,000,000 was entirely en-tirely subscribed by himself, which gives an inkling of the wealth he had acquired ... It Is obvious, too, that he still intended to make his business a one-man affair. He had a very definite plan in view. He'd stretch out his chain of posts along the Great Lakes to the Mississippi as far as St. Louis, running a second sec-ond string along the Missouri westward west-ward to the Rockies. Intermediate posts in the mountains would link the Missouri chain with a third chain down the Columbia to the 1'aciHc. "The main distributing and collecting col-lecting center for the east-bound trade would he at St. Louis. A fort at the mouth of the Columbia would afford a haven for his China ships, which would load there direct for Canton. A post in the Sandwich Islands would he a stopping place both on the voyage to Canton and from New York to the Columbia. "This was a grandiose scheme, but sound. IVveloped logically, It must assure him control of the entire region. His brigades would be so situated that they could repel re-pel any Invaders, while the com-Mb'tnentary com-Mb'tnentary arrangements for marketing mar-keting the catch would give him an east and west dispersion, guaranteeing guar-anteeing a maximum of economy. He'd be able to buy furs cheaper, and sell them at a lower price. "But he wasn't contented with the arrangements already outlined. The Russian Fur company, In Alaska, practically a government subsidiary, worked under several difficulties. It lacked transportation facilities at sea, and was opposed by the Northwesters. Astor conceived the idea of joining forces with the Russians, so that their furs, too, should pass through his hands. "He contemplated eventual dominance dom-inance of the fur trade of the continent. con-tinent. "He carried the idea to Washington. Washing-ton. 'I considered it a great public pub-lic acquisition,' President Jefferson stated later, 'the commencement of a settlement on that point of the western coast of America . . ,' "American free trappers and traders trad-ers west of the Mississippi weie quite as jealous of Astor's company as they were of the Northwest men. in 1S09, Manuel Lisa, one of the ablest of the Missouri traders, organized or-ganized the St Louis-Missouri Fur company, known historically as the Missouri Fur company. "It Is difficult to understand why Astor didn't effect a combination with Manuel Lisa and his men. Instead, In-stead, he turned to the Northwest company, to men who were Canadians, Cana-dians, active trade enemies, who very readily might become national enemies, in the troubled state of public opinion." For at this time relations between America and England were strained and it was apparent to every one except Astor, who seems to have been strangely blind to the dangers threatening his enterprise that war between the two nations was inevitable. in-evitable. Heedless of this fact, Astor As-tor went ahead with his plans, and on June 23, 1810, organized the Pacific Pa-cific Fur company, the first subsidiary subsidi-ary of the American Fur company, with a capital stock of $200,000, all of which he furnished. Personal risks, however, were to be borne by ten partners, five of whom were former for-mer Northwest company factors-Alexander factors-Alexander McKay, Donald McKen-zie. McKen-zie. Duncan McDougal, David Stuart, and his nephew, Robert Stuart. Another was Wilson Price Hunt, a native of New Jersey, who was to be Astor's chief agent. Astor's plan was to send two expeditions ex-peditions west, one by land and one by sea, with the expectation that they would arrive on the Columbia Co-lumbia the following year at about the same time. Hunt was to lead the expedition overland and for the ocean voyage he secured. the ship, the Tonquin, and placed in command of it Jonathan Thorn, a lieutenant in the United States navy, then on leave of absence. As it turned out both choices were unfortunate. Hunt had no western experience to qualify him for such a perilous overland journey and Thorn was a "petty tyrant and a martinet." Almost from the beginning of the voyage of the Tonquin there was friction between Thorn and Astor's Canadian partners. By the time they readied the Columbia they were on the verge of mutiny. Thorn hurried hur-ried the Astor men in their selection selec-tion of a site for their fort and In unloading the tools to build it and a part of their supplies. Then accompanied ac-companied by McKay, the most experienced ex-perienced of the Northwest men, be sailed away north to get ahead of the British rivals in trading with the Alaska Indians. Despite McKay's warnings about letting too many Indians aboard at one time, Thorn persisted in this dangerous practice. One day the Irascible captain became angered at the Indians .and struck one of their chiefs. The next day the red men came swarming on the ship again, ostensibly to trade, but In reality to avenge the Insult to their leader. There was a sudden attack greater part of the trading supplies and ammunition intended for the new trading post was an almost irreparable ir-reparable loss. When news of the tragedy came back to Astoria, the men there knew that the only thing for them to do was to hang on and await the coming of the overland expedition. Autumn passed, and still no sign of Hunt and his men. Despite the assistance of experienced men, such as Donald McKenzie and Ramsey Crooks, formerly associated with Lisa's Missouri Fur company, Hunt's poor leadership had resulted In innumerable in-numerable delays and a narrow escape es-cape from total failure. It was not until January, 1812, that the first contingent of the overland expedition, footsore and weary from the privations they had fair r --r lAya-wftTiidi iff.-.-.. JOHN JACOB ASTOR undergone, arrived at Astoria. During Dur-ing the next month some more straggled in. That summer the United States and Great Britain went to war, but it was not until the following December De-cember that news of the conflict reached Astoria, and It was brought by representatives of the Northwest company. In the meantime Astor had been pleading with President Madison to send a warship to protect pro-tect his outpost on the banks of the Columbia and help hold that region re-gion for the Americans. But Madison Madi-son was too harassed with more pressing problems near at hand, and Astor's plea went unheeded. Eventually his partners in the Pacific enterprise sold the property to the Northwest company at a heavy sacrifice to the firm, although they made good terms for themselves them-selves with the Canadian company, to which they had once belonged. "The Astor enterprise was at an end, . . . The ultimate responsibility responsibil-ity for the failure of the enterprise enter-prise rests on Astor himself, who entrusted the carrying out of the undertaking to a group of men almost al-most all of whom were British subjects sub-jects and who abandoned him when confronted with the crisis of war." The Astoria experiment had cost him dearly. He lost $800,000 in the venture, but as his biographer says, "he lost without whimpering, a sum in excess of the fortunes of all except ex-cept perhaps a score of individual Americans in 1815; nobody else saw the vision he glimpsed, however imperfectly, im-perfectly, and nobody else was willing will-ing to undertake the job after he failed at it. But for his blind stumbling stum-bling effort, our frontier, north of California might conceivably have terminated at the line of the Rockies. Rock-ies. "The Astoria venture might have furnished material for a splendid national saga. As matters fell out, the best we can say for it is that it dramatized Oregon for our people, peo-ple, fixing in the memories of a busy generation the fact that our flag had flown on the Pacific coast." After the War of 1S12 ended, the ownership of the Pacific Northwest BOULDER MARKING THE SITE OF ASTORIA The Inscription reads: "Site of Original Settlement of Astoria. Erection Erec-tion of a fort was begun April 12, 1811, by the thirty-three members of the Astor party who sailed around Cape Horn in the ship Tonquin and established here the famous fur-trading post which was the first American settlement west of the Rocky IVountains. Placed tiy Astoria chapter. D. A. R., October 6, 1924." and Thorn and McKay were killed at the first onslaught. A few sur vlvors managed to heat off the sav ages and took refuge holow decks The next morning the Indians camr hack to plunder the ship. Suddenly there was a loud explosion and tlv1 sea was covered with fragments of the ship and parts of human imdi'-s both red and white. The crow of the Tonquin had soM tln'ir lives dearly. The loss of the Tonquin with the was a subject for heated controversy contro-versy between England and America. Amer-ica. A treaty signed in 1 SI S provided pro-vided for joint occupation for a period of ton years. In lil, 3 a result of the cry of "."!-)0 or Fight!" another treaty was made which established the claim of the Unit c. I States In Hip Columbia river r.gion and the American f'.-g nu- p more tlontcj over Astoria. m- or t-be t-be lowered ag:iin. ft VVt.-:c-;n . .v. s r fr. n |
