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

by Stark, Peter

  289 “It was [Astor’s] great misfortune”: Ibid., p. 498.

  291 “the crafty M’Dougall”: Franchère, Narrative, p. 227.

  “charge of treason will always be attached”: Ibid., p. 204.

  293 “I have not had so quiet and delightful a nest”: Gebhard, The Life and Adventures of the Original John Jacob Astor, p. 288. Gebhard includes an illustration of Hell Gate.

  for whom Astor happily sent: Stanley T. Williams, The Life of Washington Irving (New York: Oxford University Press, 1935), p. 83.

  “occupation and amusement”: Irving, Astoria, pp. xix–xx.

  294 “old gentleman’s”: Irving, Astoria, pp. xix–xx.

  “What the vague term of the ‘whole country’ ”: Ross, Adventures, p. 259.

  “[W]hile I breath & so long as I have a dollar to spend”: Porter, John Jacob Astor, Business Man, p. 239.

  Soon Mackenzie came under Astor’s suspicions: Ronda indicates Astor and Mackenzie had a falling-out in the fall of 1814. Ronda, Astoria & Empire, p. 304.

  295 “Had our place and our property been fairly captured”: Irving, Astoria, p. 485.

  Astor later estimated: Letter from Astor to James Monroe, August 17, 1815, in Porter, John Jacob Astor, Business Man, p. 585.

  “If I was a young man”: Letter from Astor to Gallatin dated December 30, 1818, quoted in Ronda, Astoria & Empire, p. 315.

  “I remember well having invited”: Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Astor, May 24, 1812, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 5 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 74.

  296 “I learn with great pleasure the progress you have made”: Letter from Jefferson to Astor, November 9, 1813, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Retirement Series, vol. 6, p. 603.

  297 But on October 22, 1812: Rollins, The Discovery of the Oregon Trail, pp. 163–66.

  298 Astor pressed the U.S. government through Albert Gallatin: Letter from Gallatin to Astor, August 5, 1835, reprinted in Irving, Astoria, pp. 507–509.

  American politicians strived to bring the region solely to U.S. control: For a detailed account of this, see Ronda, Astoria & Empire, pp. 330–36.

  “The settlement of the Oregon”: Floyd quoted in ibid., p. 333.

  “Not an American ship will be able to show itself beyond Cape Horn”: Benton, quoted in ibid., p. 334.

  299 Among them was an elderly Marie Dorion: J. Neilson Barry, “Madame Dorion of the Astorians,” Oregon Historical Quarterly 30, no. 3 (September 1929): 275.

  “She, from various traditions”: T. C. Elliott, “The Grave of Madame Dorion,” Oregon Historical Quarterly 36, no. 1 (March 1935): 104.

  300 “It is no flight of fancy”: Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West, vol. 1, p. 227.

  301 “[W]hen California came into our hands”: Charles M. Harvey, “Our Lost Opportunity on the Pacific,” North American Review 193, no. 664 (March 1911): 402.

  which ranks him fourth: See http://www.forbes.com/2007/09/14/richest-americans-alltime-biz_cx_pw_as_0914ialltime_slide_5.html.

  At his death, John Jacob Astor came under criticism: Porter, John Jacob Astor, Business Man, pp. 1096–97.

  which went to found the Astor Library: Ibid., pp. 1094–97.

  ended with Vincent Astor: Axel Madsen, John Jacob Astor: America’s First Multimillionaire (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001), p. 292.

  302 The ten-foot-long, thousand-pound anchor: See Robinson and Griffiths, “Investigations of a Potential Shipwreck Site, Templar Channel, Clayoquot Sound, B.C.”

  304 “Let him but visit these regions of want and misery”: Stuart journal entry, in Rollins, The Discovery of the Oregon Trail, pp. 157–58.

  FATE OF THE ASTORIANS

  305 Wilson Price Hunt: T. C. Elliott, “Wilson Price Hunt, 1783–1842,” Oregon Historical Quarterly 32, no. 2 (June 1931): 132.

  Duncan McDougall: Dictionary of Canadian Biography, s.v. “McDougall, Duncan,” http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?id_nbr=2538.

  Ramsay Crooks: Dictionary of Canadian Biography, s.v. “Crooks, Ramsay,” http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/crooks_ramsay_8E.html.

  Chinook Nation: John Robinson, “From Boston Men to the BIA: The Unacknowledged Chinook Nation,” in Recognition, Sovereignty Struggles, and Indigenous Rights in the United States, ed. Amy E. Den Ouden and Jean M. O’Brien (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), pp. 263–86. For Christopher Stevens, see “Slain Ambassador Was Member of Local Chinook Tribe,” Chinook Observer, September 13, 2013.

  306 Clayoquot Nation: See http://www.tla-o-qui-aht.org/.

  Robert Stuart: Rollins, The Discovery of the Oregon Trail, p. xl.

  Donald Mackenzie: Dictionary of Canadian Biography, s.v. “Mackenzie, Donald,” http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=4075.

  Alfred Seton: Seton, Astorian Adventure, introduction and pp. 176–77.

  307 Joseph Miller: Rollins, The Discovery of the Oregon Trail, pp. c–ci, 86.

  Robert McClellan: Ibid., pp. xci–xcv.

  Alexander Ross: Dictionary of Canadian Biography, s.v. “Ross, Alexander,” http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/ross_alexander_8E.html.

  308 Ross Cox: Dictionary of Canadian Biography, s.v. “Cox, Ross,” http://www

  .biographi.ca/en/bio/cox_ross_8E.html.

  308 Gabriel Franchère: Dictionary of Canadian Biography, s.v. “Franchère, Gabriel,” http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/franchere_gabriel_9E.html.

  Baptiste Dorion: See http://www.oregonpioneers.com/JeanBaptisteDorion

  .htm.

  John Day: Chittenden, The American Fur Trade of the Far West, vol. 2, p. 889; Rollins, The Discovery of the Oregon Trail, p. xcvii.

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