26 U. S. BUREAU OF FISHERIES. 
had established a station at Fort Hall, on the Lewis River, a branch 
of the Columbia. 
In 1833 Capt. Wyeth returned overland to Boston, while the rest of 
his party dispersed throughout the Columbia Valley. Far from dis- 
heartened by the disaster to his vessel, Capt. Wyeth dispatched the 
brig May Dacre, Capt. Lambert, laden with trading goods and sup- 
plies, to the Columbia River via Cape Horn, while he crossed overland 
with 200 men. He established a salmon fishery and fort at the lower 
end of Wappatoo (now Sauvies) Island, at the mouth of the Wil- 
lamette River. 
The salmon fishery did not prove successful and the brig sailed in 
1835 with only a half cargo of fish and did not come back. The same 
year Capt. Wyeth broke up both the establishment here and on the 
Lewis River and, disheartened, returned to Massachusetts, having 
found the competition of the Hudson Bay Co. too powerful for him. 
In August, 1840, Capt. John H. Couch, in command of the brig 
Maryland, which belonged to Cushing & Co., of Newburyport, Mass., 
arrived in the Columbia River. After taking a few salmon the vessel 
left in the autumn never to return. On April 2, 1842, Capt. Couch 
reappeared in the river with a new vessel, the Chenamus, named after 
the chief of the Chinooks. With his cargo of goods he established 
himself at the present site of Oregon City, the first American trading 
house to be established in the Willamette Valley. He also estab- 
lished a small fishery on the Columbia River. The vessel returned 
to Newburyport in the autumn. 
The next American vessel to come in established a far from enviable 
record. There is no record of her name, but she was commanded by 
a man named Chapman and entered the river April 10, 1842. She 
came for the purpose of trading and fishing and remained till autumn. 
During her presence in the river it is charged she sold liquor to the 
Clatsop and other savages, as a result of which much bloodshed and 
discord resulted. 
About 1857 John West began salting salmon in barrels at Westport, 
on the lower Columbia. 
In February, 1859, the Washington Legislature passed an act pro- 
hibiting nonresidents from taking fish on the peach of the Columbia 
between Point Ellis and Cape Hancock. 
Bancroft 7 states: 
On the 26th of January, 1861, J. T. Lovelace and W. H. Dillon were granted the 
exclusive right to fish in the Columbia for a distance of 1 mile along its banks and 
extending from low-water mark half a mile toward the middle of the stream. 
In 1861, H. N. Rice and Jotham Reed began packing salted salmon 
in barrels at Oak Point, 60 miles below Portland. The first season’s 
pack amounted to 600 barrels. The venture proved fairly profitable 
and was soon participated in by others. 
In the spring of 1866 William Hume, who had assisted in starting 
the first salmon cannery in the United States on the Sacramento 
River in 1864, finding the run of fish in the latter stream rather dis- 
appointing, started a cannery for Hapgood, Hume & Co. on the 
Columbia at Eagle Cliff, Wash., about 40 miles above Astoria. 
a History of the Pacific States, Washington, Idaho, and Montana, 1845-1889, vol. 26, p. 349. By Hubert 
Howe Bancroft. 
