The Willamette River first appears in the records of outsiders in 1792, when it was seen by British Lieutenant William Robert Broughton of the Vancouver Expedition, led by George Vancouver. From the 18th to the mid-19th century, much of the Pacific Northwest and most of its rivers were involved in the fur trade, in which fur trappers (mostly French-Canadians working for the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company, which later merged) hunted for beaver and sea otter on rivers, streams, and coastlines. The pelts of these animals commanded substantial prices in either the United States, Canada or eastern Asia, because of their "thick, luxurious and water-repellent" qualities.
Fur trade
Willamette River
Willamette River | Fur trade
French-Canadians working for the Hudson's Bay Company Historically the trade stimulated the exploration and colonization of Siberia, northern North America, and the South Shetland and South Sandwich Islands. From the 18th to the mid-19th century, much of the Pacific Northwest and most of its rivers were involved in the fur trade, in which fur trappers (mostly French-Canadians working for the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company, which later merged) hunted for beaver and sea otter on rivers, streams, and coastlines. French-Canadians working for the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company.
where is the headwaters of the willamette river
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Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest region of North America
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who were the first people to inhabit the area along the above-mentioned river?
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Native American community
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what was the major trade done on this river?
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Fur trade
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who traded this, to whom?
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Fur traders heavily exploited the Willamette River and its tributaries. During this period, the Siskiyou Trail (or California-Oregon Trail) was created. This trading path, over long, stretched from the mouth of the Willamette River near present-day Portland south through the Willamette Valley, crossing the Cascades and the Siskiyou Mountains, and south through the Sacramento Valley to San Francisco.
Willamette River | Fur trade
The Willamette River first appears in the records of outsiders in 1792, when it was seen by British Lieutenant William Robert Broughton of the Vancouver Expedition, led by George Vancouver. From the 18th to the mid-19th century, much of the Pacific Northwest and most of its rivers were involved in the fur trade, in which fur trappers (mostly French-Canadians working for the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company, which later merged) hunted for beaver and sea otter on rivers, streams, and coastlines. The pelts of these animals commanded substantial prices in either the United States, Canada or eastern Asia, because of their "thick, luxurious and water-repellent" qualities.
Willamette River | Fur trade
The Willamette Trading Post or Willamette Fur Post was a fur trade facility owned by the North West Company established near the Willamette River in what would become the French Prairie in Oregon Country. Established around 1813 in what is now the state of Oregon in the United States, the post was a small fur station where trappers working in the Willamette Valley could exchange their pelts and hides for other trade goods.
Willamette Trading Post | Introduction
Later the HBC would start the Puget Sound Agricultural Company to supply food staples to the venture. By the 1830s the Hudson's Bay Company was worried about American expansion into the region and, in an attempt to forestall it, made a policy that fur trapping brigades operating south of the Columbia River, especially in the drainages of the Snake River and Willamette River, would work to create so-called "fur deserts", where beaver stocks were rapidly and deliberately depleted. This policy, although successful in making beaver rare in the Willamette Valley, did not prevent American settlement.
Oregon pioneer history | Fur trade
The fur industry was important in the region. The Tucannon River provided a profitable area for beaver and otter trapping, which were abundant. F. A. Shaver's 1906 book, "An Illustrated History of Southeastern Washington", said that prior to 1834 the British Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) (the British fur-trading company) personnel were "undisputed occupants since 1829." A party was led by John Work, who served as an agent of the HBC. Starting from Fort Nez Perce in September 1831, Work and a 56-person party followed the Nez Perce Trail to the Upper Snake River country.
Tucannon River | British fur trade
Starting with the arrival of the "Tonquin" and foundation of Fort Astoria in March 1811, the American Pacific Fur Company (PFC) gradually established a commercial presence along the Columbia River. The primary product sought by the company for sale in the Qing Empire were the fur pelts of the North American beaver. After the initial work was finished on Fort Astoria, additional trade posts were ordered to be established throughout the Pacific Northwest. At the time, the Willamette Valley had a sizable population of beaver, making it a suitable location for a secondary station.
Wallace House (fur-trade post) | Background
Built as a trade depot, the post was used by the North West Company for trading and as a game relay spot in support of their main outpost Fort George at the mouth of the Columbia River. In 1821, the North West Company was merged into the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) and the HBC took control of the fur post. The HBC then used the facility as a rendezvous point for their traders forming fur brigades before traveling to points to the south. The Willamette Trading Post remained in use until the mid-1830s. In later years, former North West Company and HBC employee Pierre Belleque settled a land claim and began farming at the site around 1833.
Willamette Trading Post | Operations
The English responded by sending agents inland. In 1756-58 Joseph Smith and Joseph Waggoner made two trips to the Swan River and upper Assiniboine.
Assiniboine River fur trade | French Period
As the Columbian Plateau became included in the expanding North American fur trade, additional materials and goods additionally altered their means of living. Regional trade was focused on Fort Nez Percés, a Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) post. These transactions didn't include livestock as the HBC station maintained a policy of keeping its supply of animals. Settlers from the United States of America began to emigrate to the Willamette Valley in the 1830s and traveled through the plateau. Small numbers of ox and cattle were purchased from them, adding to the large horse herds already established. Marcus Whitman reported to his superiors being lent two oxen from a Cayuse noble to establish Waiilaptu in 1836.
Walla Walla expeditions | Background
Thompson and four fellow fur traders arrived in 1808 to trade with the Lower Kootenais. The local natives gave Thompson's party dried fish and moss bread. Thompson returned the next year and established a trading post on Lake Pend Oreille. He was followed in 1846 by Jesuit Priest Father DeSmet, a missionary to the Kootenai Tribe. The Oregon Question was settled by Oregon Treaty of 1846 which established the 49th Parallel north as the boundary between the US and British North America. Government surveyors of the Boundary Commission came in 1858 to establish the border between the United States and British Columbia.
Bonners Ferry, Idaho | History
The HBC then named Dr. John McLoughlin as Chief Factor for the region the HBC called the Columbia District which encompassed much of the drainage of the Columbia River. In 1822, McLoughlin had a new post built near where the confluence of the Willamette River and the Columbia. On the north shore of the Columbia a new headquarters, Fort Vancouver, became the centerpiece of a multi-post system where furs and supplies were funneled in and out of Fort Vancouver. Brigades of fur trappers would spend months in the wilderness trapping animals, then return with the pelts to fur posts such as Fort George, Fort Umpqua, Fort Walla Walla, Fort Nisqually, Fort Okanogan, and Fort Boise.
Oregon pioneer history | Fur trade
This trade outpost was established around 1813 by the North West Company, a British owned fur trading concern. It was built southeast of the current city of Newberg on the eastern shore (or southern due to an east-west stretch of the river at this location) of the Willamette River. The location was a few miles west of Champoeg.
Willamette Trading Post | Founding
In 1832 Wyeth decided to proceed on his own with an independent expedition. With a company of 70-100 men, he intended to establish a fishery and trading post on the Columbia River near its confluence with the Willamette River (part of present-day Portland, Oregon). Related plans were to supply trade goods to trappers in the Rocky Mountains and possibly slaughter and dry bison for export to Cuba. A major investor in the fishery/trading post enterprise was Henry Hall, a partner of the Boston firm Tucker & Williams & Henry Hall. In addition to fur trading, they planned to export salmon to New England and Hawaii.
Fort Hall | Oregon Country
The fur trade envisioned by the American Pacific Fur Company and put into practice by the North West Company, and later Hudson's Bay Company, was a triangular trade that sent furs to China, Chinese goods such as tea to England, and manufactured goods to the Pacific Northwest for trade with the Native Americans. In 1813, during the War of 1812, the Pacific Fur Company representatives at Fort Astoria sold the fort and all other company assets in Oregon to the British-owned North West Company. This happened under threat from a British warship and without the confirmation of John Jacob Astor.
Oregon pioneer history | Fur trade
The fur trade era was from 1825-1840. It was caused by the popularity of beaver skin hats on the east coast of the United States and Europe. In response to the high demand fur trappers and traders headed west to hunt for beaver. In the fall and winter the beavers would be hunted and their pelts would be scraped, stretched and salted for shipment. Then in the spring and summer these trappers would travel over 1,000 miles one way to St. Louis so they could sell their product for supplies. The suppliers decided it would be more effective coming to the mountain men and trading supplies for the furs there instead of St.
Fort Bridger Rendezvous | History
Their journals described lands amply stocked with thousands of buffalo, beaver, and river otter; and also an abundant population of sea otters on the Pacific Northwest coast. In 1807, explorer Manuel Lisa organized an expedition which would lead to the explosive growth of the fur trade in the upper Missouri River country. Lisa and his crew traveled up the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, trading manufactured items in return for furs from local Native American tribes, and established a fort at the confluence of the Yellowstone and a tributary, the Bighorn, in southern Montana. Although the business started small, it quickly grew into a thriving trade.
Missouri River | Fur trade
In 1821 the North West Company was absorbed by the giant London-based Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). Fort Vancouver, built in 1824, replaced Fort Astoria as the regional fur trade headquarters. The HBC's trading network made extensive use of the Columbia River. The rapids of the Columbia River at The Dalles was the largest and longest of the four "great portages", where fur trading boats had to unload and transship their cargoes. Sometimes, during high water, boats traveling downriver would "shoot the rapids" instead of portaging, although the practice was dangerous and many people died as a result over the years.
The Dalles, Oregon | Fur trade
Despite only having six traps, the men were able to gather 80 beaver skins. The post was abandoned after that season, with no record of it until 1832, when Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth depicted it on a map of the Willamette Valley. In the early 1840s, the Methodist Mission in Oregon began work on the Oregon Institute in vicinity of where Wallace House was located.
Wallace House (fur-trade post) | North West Company
Farmers would grow wheat in the Willamette Valley, then bring it by wagon to river ports where it would be bagged and loaded onto steamboats bound downriver to Portland. One of the key centers to the wheat trade was the now-abandoned town of Lincoln, Oregon, in Polk County. Originally known as Doak's Ferry, Lincoln was about south of Salem, Oregon. Lincoln, was once the most important wheat port on the Willamette, as historian Corning describes:
Ruth (sternwheeler 1895) | The wheat trade
Following the French victory over the Natchez in 1731 which resulted in the destruction of the Natchez people, the French were able to begin fur trading down the Arkansas river and greatly expanded the Arkansas Post to take advantage of the fur trade.
North American fur trade | Mississippi river valley
In the fall of 1824, Work accompanied Governor George Simpson and Chief Factor John McLoughlin down the Columbia River to the company's headquarters at Fort George (now Astoria, Oregon). In November 1824, Work joined an expedition led by Chief Trader James McMillan that explored the lower Fraser River looking for a site to establish a major trading post. On the return trip, his party discovered the Cowlitz Portage, which became an important route between the Columbia River and Puget Sound. In the spring of 1825, Work helped move the company's headquarters from Fort George to the newly established Fort Vancouver on the north bank of the Columbia facing the mouth of the Willamette River.
John Work (fur trader) | Career
Dakota and Ojibwe men would kill and skin the animals, while the women would prepare the hides by stretching and drying them. The hides were typically regarded as the women's property, so they would arrange the sales with the clerk of the trading post. In return, the clerks would supply the Indians with trade goods, such as firearms, blankets, and cooking utensils. The fur trade, which had been going on for more than 100 years further east, was mutually beneficial, since the Indians received the products of early industrialization. The furs were sold to Europeans who made felt hats and fur coats.
Snake River Fur Post | History
It was an anchor roughly a quarter of the way to either California or Oregon on the famous Oregon Trail. To the west, the common trail leaving Fort John-Laramie later spins off to the Mormon and California trails further west along the road to the Rogue River Valley. The main trail passed northwest to Oregon's Willamette Valley and Oregon City. One of the early principal owner-trappers was William Sublette, and the fort was called Fort William before being sold to the American Fur Company in 1841. (John Jacob Astor, the founder, had left his company a decade before.) The name was changed to Fort John after John B.
Fort Laramie National Historic Site | The fur trade
In search of furs, explorer David Thompson sent out two trappers, Jacques Raphael Finlay and Finan McDonald, to construct a fur trading post on the Spokane River in Washington and trade with the local Indians. In operation from 1810 to 1826, it was ran by the British North West Company and later the Hudson's Bay Company, and the post was the headquarters of the fur trade between the Rocky and Cascade mountains for 16 years.
Economy of Spokane, Washington | Trade
In the late 1830s the HBC instituted a policy intended to destroy or weaken the American fur trade companies. The HBC's annual collection and re-supply Snake River Expedition was transformed to a trading enterprise. Beginning in 1834, it visited the American Rendezvous to undersell the American traders—losing money but undercutting the American fur traders. By 1840 the fashion in Europe and Britain shifted away from the formerly very popular beaver felt hats and prices for furs rapidly declined and the trapping almost ceased.
Oregon Trail | Fur traders, trappers and explorers
In October 1856, "Portland" was taken from the lower Willamette river around Willamette Falls, to run on the upper river to serve in the trade between Canameh and Dayton, on the Yamhill river "Portland" was able to reach Dayton most of the year, except when there was extreme low water on the Yamhill river bar, where the Yamhill flowed into the Willamette.
Portland (sidewheeler 1853) | Transfer to upper Willamette river
Unable to succeed commercially against the powerful Hudson's Bay Company, he sold both fur trading posts to it in 1837. At the time, both Great Britain and the United States had fur trading companies, settlers and others in the Pacific Northwest. After they settled the northern boundary in 1846, both forts were considered part of the United States and its territories. After returning to Boston, Wyeth managed his business affairs and amassed a considerable fortune. The Fort Hall site has been designated a National Historic Landmark and is considered the most important trading post in the Snake River Valley through the 1860s.
Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth | Introduction
All four vessels had a common agent, Capt. Theo. Wygant. In November 1859, when the water level in the river permitted, one of the lines boats would depart Canemah twice a week for Corvallis, and, once a week, for Eugene City. This arrangement continued until July 1860.
Relief (sternwheeler 1858) | Transfer to upper Willamette River
With attrition along the route, they delivered 630 cattle to the Willamette Valley settlement.
John Turner (fur trapper) | Willamette Cattle Company
Europeans mainly traded along the coast of North America with Indigenous people. The early fur trade with Indigenous people, which developed alongside the coasts of North America, was not limited to beaver pelts. Beavers were not particularly valued and people preferred "fancy fur" or "fur that is used with or on the pelt". The fur trade was viewed as secondary to fishing during this era. The earliest North American fur trading did not include long distance transportation of the furs after they were obtained by trade with the First Nations; it started with trading near settlements or along the coast or waterways accessible by ship.
Voyageurs | History
As early as the 18th century, fur trappers entered the extreme northern basin of the Missouri River in the hopes of finding populations of beaver and river otter, the sale of whose pelts drove the thriving North American fur trade. They came from many different places – some from the Canadian fur corporations at Hudson Bay, some from the Pacific Northwest ("see also": Maritime fur trade), and some from the midwestern United States. Most did not stay in the area for long, as they failed to find significant resources. The first glowing reports of country rich with thousands of game animals came in 1806 when Meriwether Lewis and William Clark returned from their two-year expedition.
Missouri River | Fur trade
In the late 18th century, a private American ship became the first non-indigenous vessel to enter the river; it was followed by a British explorer, who navigated past the Oregon Coast Range into the Willamette Valley. In the following decades, fur trading companies used the Columbia as a key transportation route. Overland explorers entered the Willamette Valley through the scenic but treacherous Columbia River Gorge, and pioneers began to settle the valley in increasing numbers. Steamships along the river linked communities and facilitated trade; the arrival of railroads in the late 19th century, many running along the river, supplemented these links.
Columbia River | Introduction
The Chinook territory encompassed the lower Columbia River valley and significant stretches of the Pacific coast on both the north and the south side of the Columbia's mouth. At times, however, the Chinook territory extended even farther south in the Willamette Valley. The total native population was estimated at about 15,000. The indigenous peoples of the Willamette River practiced a variety of life ways. Those on the lower river, slightly closer to the coast, often relied on fishing as their primary economic mainstay. Salmon was the most important fish to Willamette River tribes as well as to the Native Americans of the Columbia River, where white traders traded fish with the Native Americans.
Willamette River | First inhabitants
The Willamette River flows northwards down the Willamette Valley until it meets the Columbia River at a point from the mouth of the Columbia. In the natural condition of the river, Portland was the farthest point on the river where the water was deep enough to allow ocean-going ships. Rapids further upstream at Clackamas were a hazard to navigation, and all river traffic had to portage around Willamette Falls, where Oregon City had been established as the first major town inland from Astoria.
Steamboats of the Columbia River | Willamette River
The axle of the trade was Fort Tecumseh built where the Teton River merges with the Missouri. The company's posts were supplied from its headquarters at Lake Traverse.
Columbia Fur Company | Operations
It was California's early fur trade, more than any other single factor, that opened up the West, and the San Francisco Bay Area in particular, to world trade. The Spanish, French, English, Russians and Americans engaged in the California fur trade before 1825, harvesting prodigious quantities of beaver, river otter, marten, fisher, mink, fox, weasel, harbor and fur seals and sea otter. When the coastal and oceanic fur industry began to decline, the focus shifted to California's inland fur resources. Between 1826 and 1845 the Hudson's Bay Company sent parties out annually from Fort Astoria and Fort Vancouver into the Sacramento and the San Joaquin valleys as far south as French Camp on the San Joaquin River.
Alhambra Creek | Beavers
Funds provided by Astor established several major trading stations across the Pacific Northwest. While intended to gain control of the regional fur trade, the Pacific Fur Company would ultimately flounder. This came from a variety of issues, many caused by the tumultuous diplomatic relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States. The destruction of the "Tonquin" left Fort Astoria under supplied and heavily reliant upon neighboring Chinookans for sustenance. Competition from the interior based North West Company threatened to the loss of major fur producing Oregon Country regions. The Overland Expedition would arrive many months later than planned by Astor.
Pacific Fur Company | Liquidation
He lived in the former building for a time, as his wife was related to an HBC officer.
Willamette Trading Post | Operations
The Lewis and Clark Expedition helped expand interest in the Pacific Northwest. Although seaborne traders had been engaged in the fur trade along the coastline for many years, Lewis and Clark's news and descriptions of the region spurred others in the United States to seek fortunes in the fur trade business in Oregon Country. The first Americans to return were members of John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company as part of an expedition that established Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River in 1811. However, some of the first British traders overland include members of the North West Company that crossed the Rocky Mountains in 1808 and traveled down what they named the Fraser River in modern British Columbia.
Oregon pioneer history | Fur trade
In 1825, Governor Simpson suggested that Work marry the daughter of a Cayuse Indian chief, to secure good relations with the Native Americans living in along the Columbia River. Work did not follow the governor's advice. Instead, he married Josette Legace, a mixed-blood woman from the Spokane tribe in 1826. Work's wife accompanied him on many of his trading expeditions. In addition, she and their younger children lived with him at Fort Simpson from 1836 until 1849, while their older children attended school at Fort Vancouver and then at the Methodist mission school on the Willamette River near what is now Salem, Oregon.
John Work (fur trader) | Family
The rage with which our seamen were possessed to return to Cook's River, and buy another cargo of skins, to make their fortunes, at one time, was not far off mutiny. King's practical suggestions in "A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean" of the possibilities of a fur trade between the North West Coast and China and Japan revealed the riches to be gained from this trade:
James Hanna (trader) | The North West Coast Fur Trade
Despite the initial work of the company, the PFC folded due to the War of 1812 and its assets were sold to the North West Company (NWC). In October 1813, Lucier joined the NWC and became a trader for them. He then married an Indigenous woman and moved to the Willamette Valley in the same year. After the merger of the NWC into the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) in 1821, he became an employee of the HBC. Lucier shortly afterwards made a land claim on what is now Portland, Oregon.
Étienne Lucier | Fur trade
Gray was the first to do so. He named the river after his ship. The event was later used by the United States in support of their claims to the Pacific Northwest. Other notable American maritime fur traders include William F. Sturgis, Joseph Ingraham, Simon Metcalfe and his son Thomas Humphrey Metcalfe, Daniel Cross, John Boit, and James Magee, among many others. One of the most successful American firms involved in the Northwest Trade was Perkins and Company.
Maritime fur trade | United States
Lisa's men started construction of Fort Raymond, which sat on a bluff overlooking the confluence of the Yellowstone and Bighorn, in the fall of 1807. The fort would serve primarily as a trading post for bartering with the Native Americans for furs. This method was unlike that of the Pacific Northwest fur trade, which involved trappers hired by the various fur enterprises, namely Hudson's Bay. Fort Raymond was later replaced by Fort Lisa at the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone in North Dakota; a second fort also called Fort Lisa was built downstream on the Missouri River in Nebraska.
Missouri River | Fur trade
Young and Kelley arrived at the Hudson's Bay Company post Fort Vancouver on October 17, 1834, center of the Columbia District. The HBC was the preeminent economic force in the region's fur trade. At the time the Oregon Country was jointly occupied by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the United States of America. Young decided to settle permanently on the west bank of the Willamette River, near the mouth of Chehalem Creek, opposite Champoeg. His home is believed to be the first house built by European Americans on that side of the river. Dr. John McLoughlin of the HBC tried to discourage American settlers in the region.
Ewing Young | Oregon Country
Calhoun, then Secretary of War, while somewhat interested in Floyd's considered bills, gave his opinion to that the HBC was an economic threat to American commercial interests in the west. ... so long as the traders of the British Fur Company have free access to the region of the Rocky Mountains from the various posts ... they will in great measure monopolize the Fur Trade West of the Mississippi, to the almost entire exclusion in the next few years of our trade.
Oregon boundary dispute | John Floyd
Robert Gray, captain of the ship "Columbia" rediscovered the mouth of the Columbia River in 1792 on his second voyage to the Pacific Coast. Although the Spanish explorer Bruno de Heceta came to the river's mouth in 1775, no other explorer or fur trader had been able to find it since. By the 1790s American ships dominated the coastal fur trade south of Russian America. In fact, Bostonian ships dominated the fur trade between California and China through the 1820s, when the sea otter supply was exhausted, and well before the first American mountain man, Jedediah Smith pioneered overland to California in pursuit of beaver pelts in 1826.
California Fur Rush | Coastal or maritime fur trade
French fur traders had settled seasonally in the Willamette Valley by the beginning of the 19th century. Their settlements were concentrated in the "French Prairie" community in Northern Marion County but may have extended south to the Eugene area. Having already developed relationships with Native communities through intermarriage and trade, they negotiated for land from the Kalapuyans. By 1828 to 1830 they and their Native wives began year-round occupation of the land, raising crops and tending animals. In this process, the mixed race families began to impact Native access to land, food supply, and traditional materials for trade and religious practices.
Eugene, Oregon | Settlement and impact
Upper-river tribes caught steelhead and salmon, often by building weirs across tributary streams. Tribes of the northern Willamette Valley practiced a generally settled lifestyle. The Chinooks lived in great wooden lodges, practiced slavery, and had a well-defined caste system. People of the south were more nomadic, traveling from place to place with the seasons. They were known for the controlled burning of woodlands to create meadows for hunting and plant gathering (especially camas).
Willamette River | First inhabitants
In 1818, Belleque signed up with the British North West Company, and became an employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) in 1821 when the two companies were forced to merge. Around 1830 he claimed some land on the French Prairie in the Willamette Valley.
Pierre Belleque | Fur trade
that a deal was reached whereby People's would stay off the Columbia river, O.S.N. would stay off the Willamette, People's would get a cash subsidy from O.S.N., and the two companies would swap boats, O.S.N. to receive People's boats on the Columbia, and People's to gain O.S.N.'s boats on the Willamette, which included "Onward".
Onward (sternwheeler 1858) | Transfer to People's Transportation Company
Starting in 1792 the NWC had beaver furs shipped to China by American firms. After the acquisition of Fort George (Astoria) in 1815 the NWC began to supply the Columbia District by sea through the Boston-based firm of Perkins and Company. After arriving at Fort George the American ship took a cargo of NWC beaver furs to Canton, exchanged them for China goods and conveyed them to Boston for sale. Even though Perkins and Company took 25% of the proceeds the arrangement was still about 50% more profitable than using British ships and selling furs in Canton through the EIC for bills payable on London and returning from China with no cargo.
Maritime fur trade | Hudson's Bay Company
In June 1910, when low water barred navigation on the Willamette River above Newberg, Oregon, and government dredging operations had ceased, there was talk among the farmers along the river between Newberg and Wheatland of securing the steamer "Etna", then running on the Lewis River, to carry freight on the Willamette.
Etna (sternwheeler) | Proposed transfer to Willamette River
Posts on the Assiniboine and lower Red River Distances are approximate straight-line distances from the previous entry.
Assiniboine River fur trade | List of trading posts
The increasing penetration near English ports now meant that the Aboriginals had more than one place to sell their goods.
North American fur trade | Indigenous Peoples' response to French–English competition
The residency of the HBC trader was made to be wide by long. Along with two minor buildings, there was a small warehouse. While ordering a lowering of exchange rates for skins in 1829, Chief Factor John McLoughlin focused on maintaining commercial ties with the Chinookan peoples through "forcing our Competitors to reduce their prices." This continued value placed in the Chinookans by the British subjects went extended beyond a major source of fur pelts. For instance, the surrounding tribes of Fort George were frequently employed to man the post canoes.
Fort Astoria | British Fur Companies
The 270-pound bundle of furs would be placed in a large press and wrapped in elk or bear hide to create overseas fur bales. The large 270-pound bales were then placed on boats on the Columbia River for shipment to London via the Hudson's Bay Company trade routes. The furs would then be auctioned off to textile manufacturers in London. A large demand came from hatters who produced popular beaver felted hats.
Fort Vancouver | Fur trade operations
On this trip, Work began keeping a travel journal. It is a detailed record of his journey to the Columbia River via the Athabasca River and Athabasca Pass. His party reached a site known as Boat Encampment on the Columbia on 13 October, and proceeding down the river with the Hudson Bay Company trading brigade that had been sent to meet them. The party reached the Spokane River on the 21 October. At that point, Ogden and Work traveled overland to their winter quarters at Spokane House in what in now eastern Washington state. During the 1824 trapping season, Work helped Finan McDonald extend the company's fur trade into the Flathead country of Montana.
John Work (fur trader) | Career
American traders developed the "Golden Round" trade route around the world. Ships sailed from Boston to the Pacific via Cape Horn, then to the North West Coast, arriving in the spring or early summer. They would spend the summer and early autumn fur trading on the coast, mainly between Sitka and the Columbia River. In late autumn they sailed to the Hawaiian Islands, where they typically spent the winter, then from Hawaii to Macau on the Pearl River Delta, arriving in autumn. Trading in Canton did not begin until November, when tea shipments were ready. The Americans had to hire pilots to take their ships up the Pearl River to Canton's "outport" of Whampoa.
Maritime fur trade | American methods and strategies
Coming down river Miller charged 50 cents a bushel to carry out the farmers' wheat. His chief expenses were the salaries of his First Nations crew, which were $16 per man for each trip.
James D. Miller | Flatboat navigation on the Willamette
Wyeth and crew attempted various commercial interests from their outpost in the Pacific Northwest. They cut lumber and exported it to the Hawaiian Islands, built boats and canoes, and built a -long building to use in processing fish. They intended to ship salmon to the East and to Hawaii. Wyeth and his employees also attempted to trap animals in the Deschutes River watershed of central Oregon. They were unsuccessful and the young company was unable to survive against the HBC and, in the Rocky Mountains, the American Fur Company, made a monopoly by John Jacob Astor. John Ball, one of Wyeth's men, wrote that they were no match for the HBC, which up fur trade prices as much as ten to one whenever any American trader appeared on the lower Columbia River.
Fort William (Oregon) | Operation
The whole amount of the value, in specie and goods, that was got for the furs, in both ships, I am confident, did not fall short of two thousand pounds sterling. And it was generally supposed, that at least two-thirds of the quantity we had originally got from the Americans were spoilt and worn out, or had been given away, and otherwise disposed of, in Kamchatka. When it is remembered that the furs were at first collected without our having any idea of their real value, the first two Otter skins we had having been bought for six green glass beads, the greatest part of them having been worn by the Indians, from whom we purchased them; that they were afterwards preserved with little care, and frequently used for bed-clothes, and other purposes, during our cruise to the North; and that, probably we never received the full value for them in China; the advantages that might be derived from a voyage to that part of the American coast, undertaken with commercial views, appear to me of a degree of importance sufficient to call for the attention of the public...
James Hanna (trader) | The North West Coast Fur Trade
Cargoes often amounted to $150,000 in such as otter and beaver pelts, in addition to needed specie. Astor ordered the construction of the "Beaver" in 1803 to expand his trade fleet.
American Fur Company | China trade
Fort William and Grand Portage were the two starting points for the canoe route from the Great Lakes to Western Canada. For details of the route inland see Kaministiquia River.
Fort William, Ontario | Fur Trade era
In July 1854, Capt. A.S. Murray (1827-1914), Capt. Richard Hoyt, and the Brock & Ogden concern bought "Wallamet" and, on August 2, had the boat lined over Willamette Falls to the lower Willamette river. Just one man, Capt. George Jerome (1823-1886), was on board "Wallamet" while the dangerous lining operation was occurring, Once below the falls, "Wallamet" took the place of the "Lot Whitcomb" on the route from Portland to Astoria, Oregon. "Wallemet" ran in opposition to "Multnomah", which held the mail contract, and the competition between the vessels reduced rates on the Astoria route to $8 per passenger and the same for a ton of freight.
Wallamet (sidewheeler 1853) | Sent to lower river
American Fur spent years negotiating, and finally met McKenzie's demands in 1827 to buy Columbia Fur. It was renamed the "Upper Missouri Outfit" division of American Fur, and in 1828, McKenzie went up the river to lead the fur trade, building Fort Union near the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers. Fort Union was ideally situated to dominate the final years of the beaver pelt trade and the beginning of the buffalo hide trade, and many tribes dealt with McKenzie. In 1831, McKenzie succeeded in beginning trade with the native Piegan Blackfeet, eventually building Fort McKenzie in their territory as another trading post.
Kenneth McKenzie (fur trader) | Career
Although his primary focus was collecting sea otter pelts, Colnett explored the complex coastline in detail, apparently in hopes of finding the fabled Northwest Passage. His journal contains twelve maps of various channels, harbours, inlets, and other coastal features.
James Colnett | First fur trading voyage, 1786-1788
Fur trading on the Assiniboine River and the general area west of Lake Winnipeg began as early as 1731.
Assiniboine River fur trade | Introduction
The natives of the Red River district were primarily of the Saulteaux nation, known today as the northern or plains Ojibwa. They traded with both the NWC and HBC and, despite frequent attempts by the NWC to pit them against its rival, remained neutral in the dispute between the fur companies. The Red River District was also home to a small community of retired NWC voyageurs, called "freemen" because they were free of their contracts with the company.
Pemmican War | Pemmican trade
In the spring of 1850, Miller began running a flatboat between Canemah just above Willamette Falls on the Willamette River and Dayton, on the Yamhill River. Miller built a flatboat 65 feet long, which was capable of hauling 350 bushels of wheat. He hired four members of the Klickitat First Nation as crew and poled and rowed the boat up the Yamhill River to Dayton and Lafayette. It took two days to go up from Canemah, and one day to return. Miller charged $35 a ton to haul cargo to upriver farmers, mostly consignments from merchants on the lower Willamette (the part of the river below Willamette Falls).
James D. Miller | Flatboat navigation on the Willamette
When they returned, they brought a flotilla of Native Americans with fur pelts, beginning interest in the fur trade in the Lake Superior region. Conflicts between native tribes began to escalate toward war during this period when an alliance of Anishinaabe tribes was formed and defeated the Dakota in a battle west of Sault Sainte Marie in 1662. This warfare between the tribes along Lake Superior prevented European trade in the area for several years.
North Shore (Lake Superior) | Fur trade
Humans began living in the watershed over 10,000 years ago. There were once many tribal villages along the lower river and in the area around its mouth on the Columbia. Indigenous peoples lived throughout the upper reaches of the basin as well. Rich with sediments deposited by flooding and fed by prolific rainfall on the western side of the Cascades, the Willamette Valley is one of the most fertile agricultural regions in North America, and was thus the destination of many 19th-century pioneers traveling west along the Oregon Trail. The river was an important transportation route in the 19th century, although Willamette Falls, just upstream from Portland, was a major barrier to boat traffic.
Willamette River | Introduction
These explorers often claimed in the name of their respective governments sovereignty over the Northwest Coast. The knowledge of fur-bearing animal populations like the California sea lion, North American beaver and the Northern fur seal were used to create an economic network called the maritime fur trade. The fur trade would remain the main economic interest that drew Euro-Americans to the Pacific Northwest for decades. Merchants exchanged goods for fur pelts along the coast with indigenous nations such as the Chinookan people, the Aleuts and the Nuu-chah-nulth.
Oregon boundary dispute | Background
The Ewing Young party, and the first cattle introduced to Oregon, reached the Willamette Valley in October 1834. Less than a month later, Gale and a "picked up lot" were hired by Nathaniel Wyeth and traveled to Fort Hall in present-day Idaho. Gale was soon leading a "spring hunt" in the Rockies north of the Great Salt Lake. In the fall of 1835, Gale lead his party of men to the Gallatin River, where they had a bloody encounter with Blackfeet Indians. Gale and his party, Kit Carson, Joe Meek, and several others were fortunate to survive the encounter. Joseph Gale continued to work at Fort Hall for the next few years.
Joseph Gale | Fur trapper and trader
In this way, the fur trade empowered Cree and Ojibwe women while reducing the Northern Athabaskan women down to a slave-like existence.
North American fur trade | Delivery of goods by native tribes
His journals provide a detailed record of Pacific Northwest land features, native peoples, and the Hudson’s Bay Company’s fur trading business in the early 19th century.
John Work (fur trader) | Introduction
After many travels and amazingly accurate map-making in the area of the Clark Fork, Kootenai and Flathead rivers, Thompson left the region for good in 1812. Through Thompson's efforts and the continuing work of North West Company, and the later efforts of Hudson's Bay Company men like Alexander Ross and Peter Skene Ogden, this region came to be dominated by the British and Canadian fur trade for decades to come.
Fur trade in Montana | British and Canadian traders
In the spring of 1775 Primeau and Joseph Frobisher went north from Cumberland Lake to Frog Portage, where they intercepted a large number of furs destined for Hudson Bay. In the winter of 1776/77, Peter Pond and Thomas Frobisher were on Lac Île-à-la-Crosse. In 1778 Pond crossed the Methye Portage and wintered about 40 miles below Lake Athabasca. In 1781 the HBC decided to enter the Athabasca trade.
Pedlar (fur trade) | Northwest to Lake Athabasca
In particular, King's vivid account of the prices paid at Canton for the sea otter furs the crew had gathered on the American coast was repeatedly referred to in public discussion, being published in the London press in September 1785: During our absence [in Canton], a brisk trade had been carrying on with the Chinese for the sea-otter furs, which had, every day, been rising in their value. One of our seamen sold his stock, alone, for eight hundred dollars; and a few prime skins, which were clean, and had been well preserved, were sold for one hundred and twenty each.
James Hanna (trader) | The North West Coast Fur Trade
These bodies were later discovered by the local tribe. They retaliated the next year, attacking an American fur trapping party that passed through. Four of the eight European-Americans were killed; William J. Bailey and George Gay were two survivors. In 1837, as part of the Willamette Cattle Company, Bailey, Gay and others were herding cattle north to the Willamette Valley when Gay shot and killed a native boy. He was shot in revenge for earlier attacks against whites. The local Indians raided the cattle drive, but killed or drove off only a few cattle.
Rogue River Wars | Background
He continued to attend NWC meetings at Fort William until 1808.
Roderick Mackenzie of Terrebonne | Fur trade
A financial panic in 1837 resulted in a general slump in the fur and China trade, bringing an end to a half-century boom. During the 1840s, the HBC closed most of their coastal trading posts, leaving the coast trade to just Fort Simpson and the "Beaver", with the new depot at Fort Victoria anchoring the southern coast.
Maritime fur trade | American disadvantage
Throughout the 17th century, European fishermen and First Nations engaged in the fur trade. These fishermen would not trade directly with hunters. Rather, they would trade goods with First Nation middlemen. Prior to the HBC's formation, French settlers and Indigenous traders exchanged goods for furs near the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers. In 1670 England chartered the HBC. At that time, the company set up a number of trading posts, and by 1718, it had a monopoly on all trade in the basin of Hudson Bay. The British did not use a standardized currency for over 250 years after settling in Canada.
Made beaver | History
As men from the old fur trade in the Northeast made the trek west in the early nineteenth century, they sought to recreate the economic system from which they had profited in the Northeast. Some men went alone but others relied on companies like the Hudson Bay Company and the Missouri Fur Company. Marriage and kinship with native women would play an important role in the western fur trade. White traders who moved west needed to establish themselves in the kinship networks of the tribes, and they often did this by marrying a prominent Indian woman. This practice was called a "country" marriage and allowed the trader to network with the adult male members of the woman's band, who were necessary allies for trade.
North American fur trade | Métis people
Richardville began his career as a trader and operated a successful trading post at Kekionga (Miamitown), near present day Fort Wayne, Indiana, while his mother ran a trading post at the Forks of the Wabash. These two outposts along the Maumee River and Wabash Rivers dominated trade between the two waterways, which connected the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River Valley. Richardville and his mother made most of their income from the fur trade, but they also established a profitable business charging fees to transport goods over and control of a portage connecting the Maumee River to the Little River (known in the present-day as the Little Wabash River).
Jean Baptiste Richardville | Fur trader and entrepreneur
There is a lot about the economics of the trade, including the inability of many free trappers to get out of debt to the fur companies who both bought their furs and sold them their supplies. There is also a certain amount of political intrigue over the Oregon boundary dispute, with the novel depicting the several nations who had competing ambitions over present-day Oregon. DeVoto's opinions on the cultures of the various Native American tribes and their relations with the Mountain Men (for example that the Blackfeet are always belligerent and the Crow do everything better than all the other Plains peoples) might not meet current standards of politeness but are nonetheless interesting.
Across the Wide Missouri (book) | Description
The first use of the name "Dalles", according to "Oregon Geographic Names," appears in fur trader Gabriel Franchère's "Narrative", on April 12, 1814, referring to the long series of major rapids in the river. Starting in the 1810s, Americans and Europeans passed by what became The Dalles, active in the North American fur trade as employees of either the American Pacific Fur Company (PFC) or the Canadian North West Company (NWC). Men like NWC officer David Thompson voyaged both down and up the Columbia, traveling through Celilo Falls. The War of 1812 led to the 1813 liquidation of the PFC, its properties like Fort Astoria sold to the North West Company.
The Dalles, Oregon | Fur trade
Fur trappers, often working for fur traders, followed nearly all possible streams looking for beaver in the years (1812–40) the fur trade was active. Fur traders included Manuel Lisa, Robert Stuart, William Henry Ashley, Jedediah Smith, William Sublette, Andrew Henry, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Peter Skene Ogden, David Thompson, James Douglas, Donald Mackenzie, Alexander Ross, James Sinclair, and other mountain men. Besides discovering and naming many of the rivers and mountains in the Intermountain West and Pacific Northwest, they often kept diaries of their travels and were available as guides and consultants when the trail started to become open for general travel.
Oregon Trail | Fur traders, trappers and explorers
At the fort, AFC agents traded for furs with Indians from the surrounding area. The fort was abandoned in 1842, and later burned.
Tongue River (Montana) | The fur trading era
In 1822 Joshua Pilcher of the Missouri Fur Company built a fur trading post on the west bank of the Missouri River to trade with the local Native American tribes of Omaha, Otoe, Missouri and Pawnee. Fur trading in the United States was not regulated by governments, and fur traders competed madly for the lucrative business, enticing the American Indians with various trade goods and often liquor. At first Pilcher competed with John Jacob Astor's Cabanné's Post of the American Fur Company (AFC) north of Bellevue. In 1823 Astor bought Pilcher's, bringing it into his monopoly of the fur trade under the American Fur Company.
Fontenelle's Post | History
President Thomas Jefferson was contacted by the ambitious merchant as well. Astor gave a detailed plan of his mercantile considerations, declaring that they were designed to bring about American commercial dominance over "the greater part of the fur-trade of this continent..." This was to be accomplished through a chain of interconnected trading posts that stretching across the Great Lakes, the Missouri River basin, the Rocky Mountains, and ending with a fort at the entrance of the Columbia River. Once the pelts were collected from the extensive outposts they were to be loaded and shipped aboard ships owned by Astor to the Chinese port of Guangzhou, where furs were sold for impressive profits.
American Fur Company | Formation
The western fur trade collapsed during the British conquest of Canada but it was soon restored by English-speakers. These so-called "Pedlars" joined together to form the North West Company. The Hudson's Bay Company responded by building posts inland, starting with Cumberland House, Saskatchewan in 1774. Competition between the HBC and NWC led to a great expansion to trade and exploration until the merger of the two companies in 1821. Pedlars reached Lake Winnipeg by 1767 and Fort des Épinettes west of Lake Manitoba in 1768. By the 1770s they were on the lower Saskatchewan River. The NWC reached the Swan River in 1787 and in the 1790s many posts were built on the upper Assiniboine.
Assiniboine River fur trade | English Period
Fort Sturgeon was burnt in 1780 and Rocky Mountain House in 1860. Fort Pitt and Fort Carlton were burnt during the North West Rebellion in 1885.
Saskatchewan River fur trade | Overview
Most of the posts lasted less than ten years because the area became depleted of beaver and because the wooden stockades tended to rot. The major or permanent posts on the North Saskatchewan River were Cumberland House, Fort Pitt, Fort Carlton, Edmonton and Rocky Mountain House. Especially in the east there were a number of minor temporary posts that left few or no records. Until 1811, fur traders affiliated with the NWC and HBC maintained very amicable relations to the extent that the rival posts were often enclosed within the same palisades for mutual protections. After 1811, however, competition between the HBC and the NWC became increasingly intense (Blondal et al.
Saskatchewan River fur trade | Map and table
The fur trade business wound down to a very low level just as the Oregon trail traffic seriously began around 1840. In fall of 1823, Jedediah Smith and Thomas Fitzpatrick led their trapping crew south from the Yellowstone River to the Sweetwater River. They were looking for a safe location to spend the winter. Smith reasoned since the Sweetwater flowed east it must eventually run into the Missouri River. Trying to transport their extensive fur collection down the Sweetwater and North Platte River, they found after a near disastrous canoe crash that the rivers were too swift and rough for water passage.
Oregon Trail | Fur traders, trappers and explorers
Work chronicled his trading expeditions in sixteen meticulously kept journals, covering the period from July 1823 to October 1835 plus one additional trip in 1851. Although his journals are written as matter-of-fact business correspondence, they provide a detailed record of the Oregon Country in the early 19th century. His journals have survived intact, making them among the oldest first-hand accounts of land features, native peoples, and the Hudson's Bay Company fur trading operations in the Pacific Northwest. As such, they are important historical records. In addition, there are many geographical features in the Pacific Northwest named in honor of John Work.
John Work (fur trader) | Legacy
The center of the fur trade shifted north to the colder regions of southern Ontario, an area controlled by the Neutral and Huron tribes who were close trading partners with the French.
Beaver Wars | Beaver Wars begin
The post at the mouth of the Big Horn was abandoned by 1811 and Lisa's efforts ended in failure.
Fur trade in Montana | Manuel Lisa
Indians who were not able to pay their debt were often enslaved. The practice of enslavement extended to the wives and children of the Yamasees in debt as well.
North American fur trade | Beginning of the 18th century
They normally used the north side of the Platte River—the same route used 20 years later by the Mormon Trail. For the next 15 years the American rendezvous was an annual event moving to different locations, usually somewhere on the Green River in the future state of Wyoming. Each rendezvous, occurring during the slack summer period, allowed the fur traders to trade for and collect the furs from the trappers and their Native American allies without having the expense of building or maintaining a fort or wintering over in the cold Rockies. In only a few weeks at a rendezvous a year's worth of trading and celebrating would take place as the traders took their furs and remaining supplies back east for the winter and the trappers faced another fall and winter with new supplies.
Oregon Trail | Fur traders, trappers and explorers