292 FIRST TRADING POSTS ON THE COLUMBIA. [1810. 



% 



the principal traders in that part of America, by which posts were 

 established on the Upper Mississippi, the Missouri, and even beyond 

 the Rocky Mountains. The trading post founded by Mr. Henry, 

 one of the agents of the Missouri Company, on a branch of the Lewis 

 River, the great southern arm of the Columbia, appears to have been 

 the earliest establishment of any kind made by people of a civilized 

 nation in the territory drained by the latter stream ; the enmity of 

 the savages in its vicinity, and the difficulty of obtaining provisions, 

 however, obliged Mr. Henry to abandon it in 1810. 



In that year, an attempt was made by Captain Smith, the com- 

 mander of the ship Albatross, from Boston, to found a post for trade 

 Math the Indians at a place called Oak Point, oil the south bank of 

 the Columbia, about forty miles from its mouth. For this purpose a 

 house was built and a garden was laid out and planted there ; but 

 the site was badly chosen in all respects, and the scheme was aban- 

 doned before the close of the year. 



In the same year, 1810, an association was formed at New York, 

 for the prosecution of the fur trade in the central and north-western 

 parts of the continent, in connection with the China trade, of which 

 a particular account will be presented, as the transactions attend 

 ing the enterprise led to important political results. 



This association was called the Pacific Fur Company.* At its 

 head was John Jacob Astor, a German merchant of New York, 

 who had been for many years extensively engaged in the commerce 

 of the Pacific and China, and also in the trade with the Indian coun- 

 tries in the centre of the American continent, and, by his prudence 

 and skill, had thus accumulated an immense fortune, ere he passed 

 the meridian of life. He devised the scheme ; he advanced the 

 capital requisite for carrying it into execution, and he directed all 



* The following account of the proceedings of the Pacific Fur Company is derived 

 chiefly from — Adventures on the Columbia River, &c, by Ross Cox. London, 1831. 

 — Relation d'un Voyage a la Cote Nord-Ouest, de l'Amerique Septentrionale, dans les 

 Annees 1810-14, par Gabriel Franchere. Montreal, 1820. [Franchere went out 

 with the first party in the Tonquin ; Cox went out in the Beaver, and they both 

 returned to Canada by way of the lakes.] — Astoria, or Anecdotes of an Enterprise 

 beyond the Rocky Mountains, by Washington Irving, Philadelphia, 1836 ; the latter 

 author gives the most complete account of the circumstances, particularly of the 

 adventures of the parties under Hunt, Crooks, and Stuart, derived from their state- 

 ments and the papers in the possession of Mr. Astor, to which he had access. In addi- 

 tion to these authorities, several letters and papers, addressed by Mr. Astor to the execu- 

 tive of the United States, have been examined, and some communications have been 

 personally received from that gentleman. One of his letters, containing a summary 

 of the circumstances connected with his enterprise, will be found among the Proofs 

 and Illustrations, at the end of this volume, under the letter G. 



