270 EARLY HISTORY OF OREGON. 



Clarke at its confluence with, the Lewis. Here they separated 

 at about the forty-seventh parallel of latitude. Captain Lewis 

 then struck across the country northward to the Rocky 

 Mountains, and crossed them so as to reach the head-waters 

 of the Maria River, which empties itself into the Missouri, 

 just below the Falls. Captain Clarke, on the other hand, 

 followed the Clarke River towards its source,, in a southward 

 direction, and then crossed through a gap in the Rocky Moun- 

 tains, so as to descend the Yellow Stone River to the Missouri. 

 Both parties united once more on the banks of the Missouri, 

 and arrived in safety at St. Louis in September, 1806. 



The reports of this Expedition seem to have first directed 

 the attention of traders in the United States to the hunting- 

 grounds of Oregon. The Missouri Fur Company was formed 

 in 1808, and Mr. Henry, one of its agents, established a 

 trading post on a branch of the Lewis River, the great southern 

 arm of the Columbia. The hostility, however, of the natives, 

 combined with the difficulty of procuring supplies, compelled 

 Mr. Henry to abandon it in 1810. The Pacific Fur Com- 

 pany was formed about this time at New York, with the object 

 of engaging in the fur commerce between China and the north- 

 west Coast of America. The head of this association was 

 John Jacob Astor. He had already obtained a charter from 

 the Legislature of New York, in 1809, incorporating a Com- 

 pany, under the name of the American Fur Company, to 

 compete with the Mackinaw Company of Canada, within the 

 Atlantic States, of which he was himself the real representar 

 tive, according to Mr. Washington Irving — his board of Dir 

 rectors being merely a nominal body. Mr. Astor engaged nine 

 partners in his scheme, of whom six were Scotchmen, who 

 had all been in the service of the Northwest Company, and 

 three were citizens of the United States. 



