Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival

by Stark, Peter

  When the combined Overland Party, with Archibald Pelton among them, arrived at Astoria in the winter of 1812, it marked only the second time in recorded history that a party of Americans had crossed the North American continent. Hunt’s consensus style of leadership—his relatively gentle touch compared to that of authoritarian Captain Thorn and the subsurface machinations of fur trader and partner McDougall—had maintained morale and led his party out of the western wilderness. But Hunt’s leadership had come at a heavy cost—including getting them lost in the first place, the endless delays that allowed winter to catch them in the mountains, nearly starving them all to death, and the several failing men they’d left far behind.

  Even as his party finally arrived at Mr. Astor’s new emporium on the shores of the Pacific, two thousand miles after leaving the known Lewis and Clark route up the Missouri for fear of the Blackfeet, Hunt’s toughest leadership challenges still lay ahead. To make the West Coast empire successful, he would need to know exactly where to put his energy. And, in the face of yet more daunting challenges, he would need to grasp just how deeply Astor backed the grand venture.

  It wasn’t clear that Hunt was capable of either.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A NEW SENSE OF OPTIMISM ARRIVED AT ASTORIA WITH the coming of spring in 1812. The half-starved members of the Overland Party recovered their vitality and muscle mass, feasting on the spring runs of fat-rich candlefish that now swarmed up the Columbia and were harvested by the Chinook and brought to the traders. The reports from the inland tributaries such as the Okanagan and the Willamette indicated rich harvests of furs, the Okanagan post alone trading less than $200 worth of merchandise to the Indians for $10,000 worth of furs. Astoria’s thin ranks, defended by McDougall’s smallpox-in-a-bottle, was now, after the arrival of the Overland Party, suddenly bustling with nearly one hundred men. Here was Astor’s vision taking shape in reality—the beginnings of his great emporium on the Pacific Rim.

  Hunt brought a renewed energy to the leadership of Astoria. Taking command from McDougall—much to the relief of voyageurs, Hawaiians, and clerks who toiled under the Scotsman—Hunt immediately put to good use his business management skills. He intended to make a success of the grand enterprise, as instructed, despite the shocking setbacks they had all suffered so far. The men knew that Astor’s great resources backed their venture, and that he would keep a stream of supply ships arriving at the emporium on the Pacific.

  Hunt now laid out his priorities. First, get messages back to Mr. Astor as quickly as possible via the overland route, as this would be faster than waiting for an Astor supply ship that would then sail for Canton. Second, via canoe, deliver supplies upriver to the new fur posts in the interior, and establish more posts, over a still broader swath of terrain. If necessary, the Astor posts would compete directly with the North West Company, whose traders had crossed the Rocky Mountains and established a few small posts high on the northern tributaries of the Columbia. Finally, a party should recover the tons of cached trade goods and traps left at Caldron Linn.

  Hunt wasted no time. In March, as spring snowmelts began to swell the river, and barely a month after his arrival, he dispatched canoes up the Columbia to carry out these three tasks. Robert Stuart would lead the party resupplying his uncle David Stuart at the Okanagan River post and bring back that post’s winter harvest of furs. To carry out the second task—returning to the caches at Caldron Linn—Hunt sent two clerks, Farnham and McGillis, a guide, and a party of eight voyageurs to travel by canoe and on horses to be purchased from upriver Indians.

  The third mission—the long trek back across the North American continent with messages for Mr. Astor—would be led by clerk John Reed, an Irishman, along with hunter Ben Jones. Despite its sufferings, Hunt’s Overland Party had discovered a plausible route across the continent south of the Lewis and Clark route and Blackfeet territory—a viable “line of communication” across the continent. The Astorians would now employ this line of communication by sending a message back to Astor in New York. The true significance of this major geographical accomplishment wouldn’t become clear until decades later.

  Believing he was taking an extra precaution, Reed ordered a waterproof tin box soldered together by the metal workers at Astoria. In this he would carry the precious letters to Astor strapped to his back. Removing it only to sleep, willing to part with the tin case only upon death, Reed, as Irving described him, possessed the “zeal of a true Irishman” as well as an Irishman’s “want of forethought.” As it turned out, the shiny metal box would be a terrible liability.

  The three parties set out together from Astoria by canoe on March 22. The first obstacle lay about 150 miles upriver where the Columbia squeezes past Mount Hood and channels through the Cascade Mountains. Here they approached the section of the Columbia called the Narrows (today known as The Dalles) and the Indian village of Wishram. This was a prime fishing spot where the Wishram and Wasco tribes erected platforms that projected from the riverbanks over the narrow, foaming chutes of rushing water. Standing on scaffolding and using hooplike nets on long poles like butterfly nets, the tribal members swept the frothing waters to catch the salmon fighting upstream toward their spawning beds. On a good day, noted Robert Stuart in his journal, an experienced net handler could scoop up one or two fish with every downstream sweep and by day’s end bring in more than five hundred fish—a stunning amount of food. It was then dried, pounded into a fine powder, and packed into reed bags lined with dried salmon skins that made weighty packages about one foot wide by two feet long. The people of Wishram traded this ch-lai to other tribes in return for dried buffalo meat and other goods, making Wishram and the Narrows a regional Native American marketplace.

  But as the people of Wishram captured salmon swimming upriver, they also levied whatever tolls they could from canoes wanting to pass through the Narrows, where the parties, whether native or white, had to portage rapids and waterfalls. This trading and toll-taking presumably had gone on from time immemorial—by some archaeological estimates the villages at the Narrows are among the oldest continuously inhabited human settlements in North America, lived in for eleven thousand years or more.* It was no different for them when the first canoes of white traders, such as Robert Stuart, wanted to pass through the Long Narrows and Falls of the Columbia. The Indians no doubt viewed the white parties as an incursion on their territory and a threat to their tremendous wealth of salmon. The young Scotsman Robert Stuart saw it differently. “[They] are saucy, impudent Rascals, [who] will steal when they can, & pillage whenever a weak party falls into their clutches. . . .”

  The shiny metal box on Irishman John Reed’s back became an object of particular attention. During the first leg of the portage at the Narrows, Stuart hired local Indians to help haul canoes and carry the heavy bales of trade goods. Portaging the goods on horses, a few of the Indians vanished up a rocky canyon with two bales of merchandise. Others threw rocks to damage a canoe hull, apparently hoping its leaks would maroon some of the Astorians and their trade merchandise on the riverbank, where it could be plundered. On the portage’s second leg, around the Falls of the Columbia (Celilo Falls), the white traders countered with stealth. Robert Stuart directed the 1:00 A.M. portage operation by moonlight while the Indians slept. At dawn, only two loads of goods remained at the portage’s lower end. John Reed and McClellan were standing guard over these last two loads when Reed, according to Stuart’s account, “very imprudently” refused the help of extra men to guard the merchandise.

  The moment the two were alone, canoes of warriors paddled from the opposite side of the river and went for the two loads of goods. McClellan, he of the quick trigger finger who had so wanted to shoot Manuel Lisa on sight back on the Missouri, told the gung ho Irishman Reed to pull back with him away from the goods and, as Stuart quoted McClellan, “they would give it to them while plundering.”

  Reed, however, had forgotten to remove the leather cover over his rifle’s firing mechanism. An Ind
ian tried to wrestle Reed’s rifle away. Another threw a robe over McClellan’s head and tried to stab him. McClellan untangled himself from the robe, raised his rifle, and shot the warrior dead through the chest. Another Indian struck Reed in the side of the head with a war club. He fell senseless to the riverbank. McClellan drew his pistol and shot that warrior, too. Several warriors still pressed forward. One struck Reed’s head with five quick tomahawk blows. McClellan rushed at them with his empty rifle raised as if to fire. He managed to push them back, quickly reloaded, and charged at them with a war cry. They dispersed, and McClellan went off chasing three warriors who made motions to return. Up at the head of the portage, Robert Stuart heard McClellan’s shots. He immediately sent men to the lower end. They found Reed wandering among the rocks, totally dazed. Soaked with blood from his five head wounds, he walked, as Stuart put it, “not knowing whither he went.”

  Missing in the melee was the shiny tin box of messages for Mr. Astor that John Reed had carried on his back.

  At the upper end of the portage, they climbed into their canoes, Reed having fainted. McClellan bandaged the five, two-inch tomahawk gashes in Reed’s head. A short distance upstream, a force of 120 mounted warriors gathered at a narrow point of the river to stop them. The Stuart party tied their canoes together and moored to a rock just offshore, guns at the ready. The war chief was paddled out to the Stuart armed flotilla. The families of the two fallen warriors demanded revenge, the war chief told them. It could be satisfied simply by handing over the body of Reed (who the Indians assumed was dead), which would be cut into pieces. After that, promised the chief, in Stuart’s account of the conversation, “the greatest harmony would prevail for the future.”

  “Our answer was NO, the man you wounded is our Brother and you must destroy [all of] us before you get him—We are prepared and ready for your Warriors, bring them on and we will teach you a more serious lesson than you learned this morning.”

  The chief returned to the shore to consult. It was finally negotiated that the blood debt could be settled with three blankets, “to cover the dead,” as well as tobacco, “to fill the Calumet of Peace.”

  Once beyond the Narrows and its gauntlet of warriors, the three combined parties paused. They had to decide: Where to proceed from here? Reed was now in no shape to trek overland back to the United States with messages for Mr. Astor. Nor did he possess any messages to deliver. All parties decided to turn back to Astoria. First, however, the combined group paddled farther up the Columbia to the high tributary where Robert’s uncle, David Stuart, had established his post on the Okanagan River.

  Heading upriver beyond the Narrows, and past Mount Hood and the Cascade Range, the terrain opened on both riverbanks into dry plains and sagebrush—the Columbia Plain. This huge expanse of desertlike landscape lies like a giant valley between the rainy, snowy peaks of the Cascades, which catch the moisture-heavy storms blowing in off the Pacific, and the distant spine of the Rockies.

  The group arrived at the Okanagan post on the Columbia River on April 24, a month after leaving Astoria. With this post, David Stuart had staked a claim for John Jacob Astor to the trading territory on the river’s northern reaches. A kind of testing and jostling was under way between Astor’s company and the North West Company over the huge and still only partially explored Columbia Basin. When David Thompson of the North West Company had canoed down the Columbia the previous summer to Astoria, he had tried to convince the tribes that controlled the “Forks” of the Columbia that the river’s northern branch should be his company’s trading territory, while the southern fork (the Snake River) he apparently suggested could be Astor’s. He had erected a British flag and posted a message at the Forks—where the Snake joined the Columbia—claiming the region for the North West Company. But immediately after Thompson’s posting, David Stuart had come upriver from Astoria and convinced the same Indians at the Forks to let him trade on those same northern branches for Astor.

  David Stuart had accrued a rich harvest of beaver furs during the winter by trading with the friendly Sinkaietk Indians on the Okanagan—they had 2,500 furs, according to Alexander Ross, who served as Stuart’s clerk. Here was more evidence of the potential of Astor’s West Coast empire.

  That “good old soul” David Stuart, as Alexander Ross described his boss, joined his nephew Robert Stuart for the return trip to Astoria for a visit, having last seen his colleagues at the Columbia’s mouth the previous summer, in 1811, when they had landed together from the Tonquin. Leaving the Okanagan post on April 27, the Stuart flotilla, which included Reed, McClellan, and others, had by early May descended the Columbia some two hundred miles and reached the mouth of the Umatilla River—still about three hundred miles upriver from Astoria. Just past sunrise one early May morning they were paddling their four canoes downstream where the river cut a trough across the big, arid Columbia Plain when they passed a camp of Indians on the riverbank.

  They heard a shout.

  “Come onshore!”

  It sounded like English. They drew their canoes alongside each other. They paused. The big craft drifted together on the current. The men listened closely.

  “Come onshore!” the shout echoed across the water.

  They stroked for the riverbank. To their amazement, they found standing on the shore among the Indians their lost colleagues—Ramsay Crooks and John Day.

  “[S]o changed and emaciated were they,” writes Ross, “that our people for some time could scarcely recognize them to be white men.”

  Ramsay Crooks then told the remarkable tale of his and John Day’s ordeal, which Ross set down in his narrative.

  Some five months earlier, back in mid-December 1811, Hunt and his Overland Party had left Crooks and Day weakened and struggling upstream out of the Mad River gorge. The two had eventually reached the relative safety of a Shoshone camp near the lava plain. The Shoshone had treated them kindly, giving them shelter and sharing food when the Shoshone themselves had food. Eventually, however, the Shoshone packed up their encampment and moved on, leaving Crooks and Day to fend for themselves.

  They built a wigwam of grass and branches. They gathered firewood. Then John Day faltered. It may have been scurvy. He grew so weak he couldn’t stand up on his own. Ramsay Crooks tried to cook camas roots in the Shoshone style for sustenance. He mistakenly dug up what was apparently the “deathcamas” instead of the similar-looking camassia, which thrives in broad, moist mountain valleys and when baked resembles a sweet potato. He almost fatally poisoned both of them. Reduced to a “torpid” state by the steroid alkaloid toxins of the deathcamas, Crooks and Day let their fire die. Fireless, foodless, poisoned, and alone in the mountain valleys in the middle of winter, they would have died if two Shoshone Indians hadn’t strayed by their shelter, relit their fire, fed them, stayed with them for two days, and left them a two-pound piece of venison.

  Their next visitor was a wolf that hovered around outside the wigwam, perhaps sensing that death was imminent within. Despite his weakness, John Day remained a crack shot and managed to drop it. Pounding the marrow out of its bones, they made a nutritious broth and ate the wolf hide. Restored enough that they could walk, they started westward again, carrying a supply of dried wolf meat and hunting what little game they could find. They located the Hunt Party’s trail through the snow. They followed it for some days. Then they lost it in a broad and snowless prairie. They then spent much of the winter wandering, unsure where they were, probably in the valleys east of the Blue Mountains. By the end of March, the snow had melted enough to make the final crossing over the mountain crest. On the far side, they followed the Umatilla River downstream.

  In mid-April they reached the Columbia where the Umatilla River joins it near the Forks of the Columbia, or Great Bend. Here they found an Indian encampment and met a friendly and hospitable chief, Yeck-a-tap-am, who fed them and acted toward them “like a father.” Revived, they struck off on foot down the bank of the Columbia toward what they hoped was a settlement�
��Astoria—that their colleagues had established at its mouth, as planned. After nine days of walking, they had approached to within twenty miles of the Narrows and the village of Wishram. Crooks and Day were sitting on the riverbank one morning when a party of Indians came up, greeted them in the friendly manner that Crooks and Day had experienced upriver, sat with them, and, according to some accounts, offered them food.

  During this pleasant springtime encounter overlooking the Columbia, one of the Indians indicated he wished to measure the length of Crooks’s rifle. He picked it up and held his bow alongside it as a gauge. At the same moment, another picked up John Day’s rifle. The two ran off a distance, followed by the rest of the Indian party. They aimed the two rifles and drawn bows at the surprised Crooks and Day. With sign language, they communicated that a recent party of white men heading upriver in canoes (which, unbeknownst to Crooks and Day, was Stuart and Reed and McClellan’s group) had killed two of their warriors at the Narrows. Day drew his knife. He proposed to Crooks that he rush the warriors and grab back his gun. Crooks insisted that this would result in instant death.

  “The Indians then closed in upon us, with guns pointed and bows drawn, on all sides,” according to Ross’s recounting of Crooks’s story, “and by force stripped us of our clothes, ammunition, knives, and everything else, leaving us as naked as the day we were born. . . .”

  The Indians now debated heatedly among themselves—apparently over whether to kill Crooks and Day. In the midst of the argument, two or three elderly men intervened among the younger warriors, apparently warning them of the possible consequences of killing the two. They gestured for Crooks and Day to leave. Crooks and Day slowly turned, starting to walk back upriver, expecting at any moment to be killed. But when they dared look back the Indians instead were preoccupied in divvying up the clothing and other items they had stripped from the pair of white men.