424 
[Nov. i§, 1004. 
Trails of the Pathfinders*— XIX. 
Ross Cox, 
On the 17th of October, 1811, the ship Beaver, 
Captain Cornelius Sowles, sailed from New York for 
the mouth of the Columbia River. She carried one 
partner, six clerks, and a number of artisans and 
voyageurs, of the Pacific Fur Company, an association 
of which John Jacob Astor was the chief proprietor. 
Among the clerks on this ship was Ross Cox, who, 
some years later, published a work in two volumes, 
called, "The Columbia River, or Scenes and Adventures 
During a Residence of Six Years on the Western Side 
of the Rocky Mountains among Various Tribes of In- 
ians Hitherto Unknown, Together with a Journey 
Across the American Continent." 
Cox was a British subject, but, like many of his com- 
patriots, was eager to secure an appointment among 
Mr. Astor's company, for he was captivated with the 
love of novelty, and with the hope of speedily realizing 
an independence in the new country that was being 
opened. 
It will be remembered that, for about a hundred years 
after its charter had been granted, the Hudson's Bay Com- 
pany made little effort to extend into the interior the 
trading posts which it, alone, had the privilege of es- 
tablishing on the shores of the Hudson's Bay and its 
tributary rivers. True, trading posts had been estab- 
lished in the interior, but chiefly by the French traders, 
who had practically possessed the country until the 
close of the French and Indian War. Then came the 
founding of the Northwest Fur Company of Canada, 
before long a formidable rival to the Hudson's Bay 
Company. It was conducted on the wiser plan of 
giving each one of its employes the chance to rise and 
become a partner, provided only his success justified 
the promotion. The Hudson's Bay Company, on the 
other hand, hired its men, paid them regularly, but 
offered no inducements to extra exertion on the part 
of its officers. The result could not be doubtful; and 
as we all know, consolidation at length took place be- 
tween the two companies. 
In the early part of the last century, John Jacob 
Astor, whose fur trade with the interior had not been 
altogether satisfactory, determined to explore the north- 
west coast, and proposed to the Northwest Company 
to join with him in establishing a trading post on the 
Columbia River. The proposition was declined. Never- 
theless, in 1809 Astor formed the Pacific Fur Company, 
and needing able and experienced traders, he induced 
a number of men connected with the Northwest Com- 
pany to leave that establishment and join him. Among 
these were Alexander M'Kay, who had been a companion 
of Sir Alexander Mackenzie in earlier days. 
Astor's plan was to establish posts on the . north- 
west coast, to which each year a vessel should carry 
goods for the Indian trade, and having discharged her 
cargo at the mouth of the Columbia River, should take 
on board the furs of the year's trade, and thence pro- 
ceed to China; selling her furs there, she should load 
with the products of that country and return to New 
York. 
The first vessel fitted out by the Pacific Fur Company 
was the ill-fated Tonquin, commanded by Capt. Jona- 
than Thorne. She sailed from New York in 1810, 
with a number of partners, clerks and artisans, and 
with a large cargo of goods for the Indian trade; and 
about the, same time a party under W. P. Hunt 
and Donald Mackenzie left St. Louis to cross the con- 
tinent to the mouth of the Columbia. 
The Beaver was the next of these annual ships to 
sail. She rounded the Horn, and touched at the Sand- 
wich Islands, where a number of the natives were 
shipped as laborers for the post, and on the 8th of 
May the ship's company found themselves opposite the 
mouth of the Columbia River. They crossed the bar 
without accident, and after a voyage o|, six months 
and twenty-two days, cast anchor in Baker's Bay. 
The accounts which they received from their friends 
at Astoria were very discouraging. Here they learned 
of the loss of the ship Tonquin, with all on board at the 
time. There had been almost constant quarreling be- 
tween the captain and his passengers. The captain was 
a man of great daring, but harsh and arbitrary _ in 
manner, and very ready to quarrel with, the British 
subjects whom he carried as passengers. His obstinacy 
resulted in the loss of several men at the mouth of the 
Columbia ; and the chief mate of the vessel, in consequence 
of a dispute with the captain, left her, and obtained an 
assignment to command a little schooner built by the 
company. The Tonquin, with M'Kay and Lewis, one 
of the clerks on board, dropped down to the mouth 
of the Columbia and proceeded northward, to go as 
far as Cooke's River, on a trading excursion. 
In the meantime the overland parties, under the 
command of Mackenzie, M'Lellan, Hunt and Crooks, 
after great suffering, reached the fort. 
The fate of the Tonquin was learned in the month 
of August, 1811, from a party of Indians from Gray's 
Harbor. They came to the Columbia for fishing, and 
told the Chinooks that the Tonquin had been cut off 
by one of the northern tribes, and every soul mas- 
sacred. This is what seems to have happened. The 
Tonquin, somewhere in the neighborhood of Nootka, 
cast anchor, and M'Kay began to trade with the natives, 
who were perfectly willing to part with their furs. 
One of the principal men, however, having been de- 
tected in some small theft, was struck by the captain, 
and in revenge the Indians formed a conspiracy to take 
possession of the vessel. The interpreter learned of 
this, and told M'Kay, who warned the captain of the 
intended attack; but he only laughed at the information, 
and made no preparations for it. The Indians continued 
to visit the ship, and without arms. The day before 
the vessel was to leave, two large canoes, each con- 
taining about twenty men, appeared alongside. They 
had some furs in their canoes and were allowed to come 
on board. Soon three more canoes followed; and the 
officers of the watch, seeing that a number of others 
were leaving the shore, warned Capt. Thorne of the 
circumstances. He immediately came on the quarter- 
deck, accompanied by Mr. M'Kay and the interpreter. 
The latter, on observing that they all wore shot cloaks 
or mantles of skin, which was by no means a general 
custom, at once knew their designs were hostile, and 
told Mr. M'Kay of his suspicions. That gentleman 
immediately apprised Captain Thorn of the circum- 
stances, and begged him to lose no time in clearing the 
ship of intruders. This caution was, however, treated 
with contempt by the captain, who remarked, that 
with the arms they had on board they would be more 
than a match for three times the number. The sailors 
in the meantime had all come on the deck, which was 
crowded with Indians, who completely blocked up the 
passages, and obstructed the men in the performance 
of their various duties. The captain requested therri to 
retire, to which they paid no attention. He then told 
them he was about going to sea, and had given orders 
to the men to raise the anchor; that he hoped they 
would go away quietly; but if they refused, he should 
be compelled to force their departure. He had scarcely 
finished, when, at a signal given by one of the chiefs, 
a loud and frightful yell was heard from the assembled 
savages, who commenced a sudden and simultaneous 
attack on the officers and crew with knives, bludgeons 
and short sabres, which they had concealed under their 
robes. 
"M'Kay was one of the first attacked. One Indian 
gave him a severe blow with a bludgeon, which par- 
tially stunned him; upon which he was seized by five 
or six others, who threw him overboard into a canoe 
alongside, where he quickly recovered and was allowed 
to remain for some time uninjured. 
"Captain Thorn made an ineffectual attempt to reach 
the cabin for his fire-arms, but was overpowered by 
numbers. His only weapon was a jack-knife, with 
which he killed four of his savage assailants by ripping 
up their bellies, and mutilated several others. Covered 
with wounds, and exhausted from the loss of blood, he 
rested himself for a moment by leaning on the tiller 
wheel, when he received a dreadful blow from a weapon 
called a pautumaugan, on the back part of the head, 
which felled him to the deck. The death-dealing knife 
fell from his hand, and his savage butchers, after ex- 
tinguishing the few sparks of life that still remained, 
threw his mangled body overboard. 
"On seeing the captain's fate, our informant, who 
was close to him, and who had hitherto escaped un- 
injured, jumped into the water and was taken into a 
canoe by some women, who partially covered his 
body with mats. He states that the original intention 
of the enemy was to detain Mr. M'Kay a prisoner; 
and after securing the vessel, to give him his liberty, 
on obtaining a ransom from Astoria. But on finding 
the resistance made by the captain and crew, the former 
of whom had killed one of their principal chiefs, their 
love of gain gave way to revenge, and they resolved 
to destroy him. The last time the ill-fated gentleman 
was seen, his head was hanging over the side of a canoe, 
and three savages, armed with pautumaugans, were bat- 
tering out his brains. 
"In the meantime the devoted crew, who had main- 
tained the unequal conflict with unparalleled bravery, 
became gradually overpowered. Three of them, John 
Anderson; the boatswain, John Weekes; the carpenter, 
Stephen Weekes, who had narrowly escaped at the 
Columbia, succeeded, after a desperate struggle, in 
gaining possession of the cabin, the entrance to which 
was securely fastened inside. The Indians now became 
more cautious, for they well knew there were plenty 
of firearms below; and they had already experienced 
enough of the prowess of the three men while on deck, 
and armed only with hand-spikes, to dread approaching 
them while they had more mortal weapons at their com- 
mand. 
"Anderson and his two companions seeing their com- 
mander and the crew dead and dying about them, and 
that no hope of escape remained, and feeling moreover, 
the uselessness of any further opposition, determined 
on taking a terrible revenge. Two of them, therefore, 
set about laying a train to the powder magazine, while 
the third addressed some Indians from the windows, 
who were in canoes, and gave them to understand, that 
if they were permitted to depart unmolested in one of 
the ship's boats, they would give them quiet possession 
of the vessel without firing a shot; stipulating, how- 
ever, that no canoe should remain near them while 
getting into the boat. The anxiety of the barbarians 
to obtain possession of the plunder, and their disin- 
clination to risk any more lives, induced them to em- 
brace this proposition with eagerness, and the pinnace 
was immediately brought astern. The three heroes 
having by this time perfected their dreadful arrange- 
ments, and ascertained that no Indian was watching 
them, gradually lowered themselves from the cabin 
windows into the boat; and having fired the train, 
quickly pushed off toward the mouth of the harbor, no 
obstacle being interposed to prevent their departure. 
"Hundreds of the enemy now rushed on deck to seize 
the long-expected prize, shouting yells of victory; but 
their triumph was of short duration. Just as they had 
burst open the cabin door, an explosion took place, which, 
in an instant, hurled upward of two hundred savages into 
eternity, and dreadfully injured as many more. The 
interpreter, who had by this time reached land, states 
he saw many mutilated bodies floating near the beach, 
while heads, arms and legs, together with fragments 
of the ship, were thrown to a considerable distance on 
the shore. 
"The first impression of the survivors was, that the 
Master of Life had sent forth the Evil Spirit from the 
waters to punish them for their cruelty to the white 
people. This belief, joined to the consternation oc- 
casioned by the shock, and the reproaches and lamen- 
tations of the wives and other relatives of the sufferers, 
paralyzed for a time the exertions of the savages and 
favored the attempt of Anderson and his brave com- 
rades to escape. They rowed hard for the mouth 
of the harbor with the intention, as is supposed, of 
coasting along the shore to the Columbia; but after 
passing the bar, a head wind and flowing tide drove 
them back and compelled them to land late at ni^ht 
in a small cove, where they fancied themselves free 
from danger, and where, weak from the loss of blood 
and the harassing exertions of the day, they fell into a 
profound sleep." Here they were captured, and a little 
later killed. 
Such is Cox's account of the destruction of the 
ionqum, obtained, we may presume, from the inter- 
preter. Other accounts of the same event agree with 
it in its main facts, though there is some question as 
to who it was who blew up the ship, some narrators 
believing that it was Stephen Weekes, while Others 
think that it was Lewis, the clerk. 
As if the spirits of the newly-arrived traders had 
not been sufficiently dampened by the story of the 
Tonquin, an added misfortune followed the next day. 
This was the return of one of the parties that had 
started overland, some to trade, others to carry des- 
patches to the east. These men had been driven back 
by an encounter with Indians, and after great difficulties 
and much suffering, reached the post again. 
Cox has much to say of the situation of the fort, and 
its surroundings, of the natives, and of the bountiful 
supply of elk, wildfowl and fish, on which they sub- 
sisted. 
On the 28th of June, 1812, a party of nearly a hundred 
men, well supplied with trade goods, started in canoes 
up the Columbia. They went well prepared to meet 
the Indians, each man carrying a musket and forty 
rounds of ball cartridges, and each also wearing leathern 
armor, "a kind of shirt made out of the skin of the elk, 
which reached from the neck to the knees. It was 
perfectly arrow-proof; and at eighty or ninety yards 
impenetrable by a musket bullet. Besides the muskets, 
numbers had daggers, short swords and pistols; and 
when armed cap-a pie we presented a formidable ap- 
pearance." At the portage every precaution was taken 
to guard against surprises. Five officers were stationed 
at each end of the portage, and the remaining, with 
twenty-five men, were scattered along it at short dis- 
tances from one another. This was especially neces- 
sary at the foot of the first rapids, where the portage 
was three or four miles long, the path narrow and 
dangerous, and in some places obstructed. 
The ascent of the river, over falls and rapids, was 
very laborious. The boats had to be dragged up part 
of the way, and the labor was hard and long-continued. 
A little negligence of some of the men who were at 
the upper end of the portage resulted in a small trouble, 
for wandering away a short distance from the goods, 
two Indians endeavored to carry off an entire bale. 
It was too heavy for them, and they were about to open 
and carry away the contents, when two men, carrying 
burdens, arrived and gave the alarm. The Indians at- 
tacked the men, but the disturbances called back the 
officers, and the Indians fled. "A shot was fired at 
them by our best marksman, who was told merely to wing 
one, which he did with great skill, by breaking his 
left arm, at upward of a hundred yards distance. The 
fellow gave a dreadful shout on receiving the ball, but 
still continued his flight with his comrade, until we lost 
sight of them." 
Keeping on up the rapids, they saw other Indians, 
some of whom were on horseback, and much more at- 
tractive to the eye than the canoe Indians seen further 
down the river. From the fishing Indians they pur- 
chased salmon in considerable numbers. 
Before this they had reached the high volcanic, tree- 
less country, and had found rattlesnakes; and here an 
odd incident happened to one of the men, named La 
Course, which might have been fatal. Cox says: "This 
man had stretched himself of the ground, after the 
fatigue of the day, with his head resting on a small 
package of goods, and quickly fell asleep. While in 
this situation I passed him, and was almost petrified at 
seeing a large rattlesnake moving from his side to his 
left breast. My first impulse was to alarm La Course; 
but an old Canadian whom I had beckoned to the spot 
requested me to make no noise, alleging it would merely 
cross the body and go away. He was mistaken, for on 
reaching the man's shoulder, the serpent deliberately 
coiled itself, but did not appear to meditate an attack. 
Having made signs to several others, who joined us, 
I was determined that two men should advance a little 
111 front to divert the attention of the snake, while one 
should approach La Course behind, and with a long stick 
endeavor to remove it from his body. The sna'kV, on 
observing the men advance in front, instantly raised its 
head, darted our its forked tongue, and shook its rattles ; 
ail indications of anger. Every one was now in a state 
of feverish agkation as to the fate of poor La Course, 
who still lay slumbering, unconscious of his danger; 
when the man behind, who had procured a stick seven 
feet in length, suddenly placed one end of it under the 
coiled reptile, and succeeded in pitching it upwards of 
ten feet from the man's body. A shout of joy was the 
first intimation La Course received of his wonderful 
escape, while in the meantime the man with the stick 
pursued the snake, which he killed. It was three feet six 
inches long." 
Toward the end of July the party camped at the mouth 
of the Walla Walla River, and met a number of Indians 
of that tribe. Twenty horses were purchased for Robert 
Stewart's party, and its eleven members left the next 
day for St. Louis. The Walla Wallas seem to have been 
friendly and attractive. They were kind and gentle, yet 
dignified; as were also the Indians of the Pierced-nose 
tribe, then called by the French Les Nez Perces, a name 
which they still retain. Their houses were large; some 
square, others oblong, and some conical; they were 
covered with mats fixed on poles, and varied from twenty 
to seventy feet in length. These people seemed well to do, 
and ownd many horses, twenty-five of which the traders 
bought; and from this time on some of them proceeded 
by land, while the others dragged, paddled or pulled the 
cances up the stream. It was at a Pierced-nose village, 
at no very great distance from the Columbia, on Lewis 
River, that the party left their boats and canoes, caching 
them in the willow brush, and leaving them in charge of 
the chief. Here they secured about fifty horses for pack 
animals, and a few for riding, but not nearly enough to 
give a horse to each man. Traveling along up the stream, 
the thirty-two men who were in Cox's company started 
for the country of the Spokanes. They had the usual 
incidents of travel— trouble with pack-horses, lack of 
grass for their animals, often lack of water for them- 
selves; but before they had gone very far an adventure 
happened to the author which made it impossible for him 
to chronicle the doings of his party. 
On the 17th of August they stopped for noon, and 
