WILLIAM A. MOWRY. 39 
hold some claim to it; but we always claimed it. In 
1792 a Boston Yankee, Captain Gray, attempted to enter 
Columbia River, but failed, and sailed away ; he met 
Van Couver’s vessel off shore, and informed that worthy 
of his belief of the existence of the large river. Van 
Couver scouted the idea, and insisted that no such river 
existed. Captain Gray at once returned to the mouth of 
the river, with difficulty passed its bar, and sailed up the 
stream, planted a flag, and claimed the country by right 
of discovery. Jefferson, before acquiring the north- 
western territory, projected a survey west of the Missouri, 
and Lewis and Clark started in 1804 to make it, and in 
1805-6 the government held the region. In 1810 Astor, 
with two detachments, proceeded to the region and 
established trading posts on the Columbia with outposts 
extending to the Missouri. The history of ‘‘ Astoria”’ 
is full of the most interesting personal and _ political in- 
cidents. Astor had taken English, Scotch and Canadian 
partners, who became traitors to Astor but were loyal to 
Great Britain, and sold Astor out, and raised the English 
flag over the fort there. In the then wara Captain Black 
was sent from England to capture this Yankee fort, and 
after a nine month’s voyage to batter it down, was sur- 
prised to see the cross of St. George flying, and to be 
hailed with ‘‘ what’s the news from ’ome?”’? The farce 
of raising the American flag and pulling it down was 
played, and the region was listed as among ‘‘all places 
captured during war.”’ 
We never, before 1819, claimed full title through 
Spain’s treaty with us. We gave up Texas, and Spain 
gave up Oregon. The Hudson Bay Company dotted the 
district with stations in 1842. A missionary letter, 
starting three hundred miles from the Pacific Coast, 
taken by a whaler to Rhode Island, thence to Boston, 
gave warning of the designs of the Hudson Bay com- 
pany. Whitman called the missions to meet at Walla 
