William Henry McNeill, and his very old-fashioned conundrums

I found these conundrums in the British Columbia archives, in the front page of William Henry McNeill's sea log.
"Conundrums" are puzzles; and these puzzles are truly a puzzle -- the puzzle being is how anyone could have ever figured out the answers.
But these men were sailors, and long-distance or ocean sailing can be a very boring business (I know, I've been there).
The officers had time on their hands, and they used that spare time to create these terrible quizzes.
Here are the questions, for your enjoyment:

1. Why is a dandy like a haunch of venison?

2. Why are pens, Ink & Paper like fixed stars?

3. What word is that which by taking away the first letter makes you sick?

4. What is always invisible yet never out of sight?

5. Why is an empty room like a room of married people?

6. Where did Noah strike the first nail of the Ark?

7. What is smaller than a mite's head?

8. Why is a lover like a gooseberry?

9. Why is swearing like an old coat?

10. Where was Moses when his candle was blown out?

11. Why do ladies talk least in February?

So, who was William Henry McNeill?
First, he is the man after whom McNeil Island,in Puget Sound, was named.
McNeill was an American sea captain who joined the fur trade of the HBC.
According to Bruce Watson in Lives Lived West of the Divide, he was born in Boston, Mass., in 1801 or 1803.
He "started his sea-going career as an employee of Boston traders sailing between the Sandwich Islands and Boston. On October 16, 1824, he left Boston harbour in command of the Convoy, arriving back in Oahu the following year. By 1826, the command of the Convoy was given to John Dominis who along with McNeill, now in command of the Tally Ho traded at Norfolk Sound for the season. From 1830 he sailed the Lama from Boston and the following year was back on the Northwest Coast.
"In 1832, when McNeill brought the vessel to the Coast and heard from Dr. McLoughlin that the HBC was in search of such a vessel to replace the unservicable vessel, Vancouver, he quickly sailed to the Sandwich Islands where the Lama was purchased by Chief Factor Duncan Finlayson. Following this, on September 1, 1832, McNeill was hired on by the HBC in Oahu, an act to which the Governor and Committee reluctantly agreed, preferring an American to the incompetent English captains.
"In the early summer of 1834, McNeill ransomed three shipwrecked Japanese from the Cape Flattery Makah. In 1837, in command of the steamer, Beaver, he found Victoria harbour, a site which later that year McLoughlin rejected. In January 1838, when the crew of the Beaver mutinied against McNeill's discipline, John Work had to bring the vessel from Fort Simpson to Fort Nisqually with McNeill as a passenger. At that point he was ready to retire in 1838 but a promotion to Chief Trader in November 1839 induced him to stay on. In 1846 in response to the establishment of the international border, McNeill along with sixteen others, laid claim to 640 acres of land around Fort Nisqually, land to which the HBC/PSAC held possessory rights, a claim which never came to fruition.
"In 1849-1850 he superintended the construction of Fort Rupert and in 1854 he purchased a town lot in Victoria and in 1855, over 250 acres in the Victoria district. He took charge of Fort Simpson for eight years and became Chief Factor in 1856. When in 1861 he returned to the coast after a year's furlough, he was put in charge of Fort Simpson for two years before retiring. He settled on a farm near Gonzales Point, Vancouver Island, and in 1869 added his name to a petition to U. S. President Grant asking for annexation of British Columbia to the United States. for a time before his death in 1875, he commanded the HBC's steamer Enterprise."

McNeill was an interesting man and I didn't know all that about him.
He was also a man that the other fur traders disliked, and a difficult man to get along with.
At some point in time I uncovered, in the masses of information I have, that he and John Work had some problems working together, and that McNeill was jealous of Work's position in the Company.
On another occasion James Douglas thought of assigning McNeill to the charge of the Sandwich Islands.
That assignment was quickly cancelled on Governor Simpson's orders, and someone else took over the place -- it appears that Simpson did not think McNeill was the best man for the job.

However, James Robert Anderson, son of Alexander Caulfield Anderson, liked Captain McNeill, and had quite a bit to say about him in his Memoirs, written many years later.
He first met McNeill when he was a student at the school inside Fort Victoria in the early 1850's, and remembered that McNeill returned from the Sandwich Islands with oranges, which he gave out to the schoolchildren as a greatly appreciated treat.

As a grownup, James wrote: "The late Captain McNeill was born in Boston, Mass., in 1803; he came to the Coast in 1831 as Master of the American brig 'Llama', 144 tons, laden with merchandise for trading with the natives.
"Arriving on the Coast, he found that the Hudson's Bay Company was first in the field, and realizing that opposition to this powerful Corporation would result in possible serious loss, he, after some negotiations, wisely decided to sell ship and cargo to the Company and enter himself into the service of the Company and become a British subject.
"He was retained in command of the 'Llama' until 1837, when he succeeded Captain Home as Master of the 'Beaver."
"He was in Fort Nisqually in 1841, as he was mentioned by the late A.C. Anderson, who was then in charge of the Post, and by Commodore Wilkes, U.S.N of the 'Vincennes', then lying at that port.....
"Whilst in command of the 'Beaver' Captain McNeill made a survey of the southern part of Vancouver Island and reported favourably on the site of Victoria and Esquimalt.
"It was during the year 1833 that the brig 'Llama' under the command of Captain McNeill and the brig 'Dryad', Captain Kipling, conveyed the stores and material for the construction of Fort McLoughlin from Fort Nisqually and Fort Vancouver.....[see pages 34-39 of The Pathfinder for that story and McNeill's part in it.]
"In the year 1843 Captain McNeill resigned the command of the 'Beaver' to Captain charles Dodd and proceeded to England...
"After Captain McNeill's return from England he was for a short time put in charge of Fort Simpson and later given the command of the Hudson's Bay Company's brigantine 'Mary Dare', trading with Honolulu, whither was conveyed some of the products of the country such as salmon, potatoes, etc., bringing back sugar, molasses, etc.
"It was at this period that I, as a small boy, first became acquainted with Captain McNeill, an acquaintance which in later years, despite the disparity in our ages developed into a warm friendship.
"Some time prior to 1850, Captain McNeill was instrumental in rescuing the survivors of a Japanese vessel, which had been wrecked on the Washington coast, south of Cape Flattery. These survivors consisted only of two boys who were taken to Fort Vancouver. Japan being at that time closed to foreign commerce, the Hudson's Bay Company sent these much travelled boys to England for return to their native country.
"A vase of Japanese workmanship, which was salved [salvaged?] after the wreck is now in the possession of Mrs. Dennis Harris of Victoria."

Has that last line caused you to perk up your ears? It should have.
We brushed up against the Japanese shipwreck story a few weeks ago; I will return to tell you the rest of the story soon.

But before I do that, I will give you the answers to Captain McNeill's terrible Conundrums:

1. Because he is a bit of a buck.

2. They are stationary.

3. Music.

4. The letter g.

5. Because there is not a single person in it.

6. On the head.

7. That which enters it.

8. Because he is easily made a fool of.

9. Because it is a bad habit.

10. In the dark.

11. Because it is the shortest month.

Ho Ho Ho!

These "Conundrums" came from the British Columbia Archives Reel No. 7A (1), "Journal of a voyage kept on board Brig Lama bound for the Sandwich Islands & North West Coast of America."
If I remember correctly, they are written on the inside front cover of the sea-journal that begins "Boston Harbour, Wednesday, October 6th, 1830."
I hope you manage to solve a few of them, at least.

Fort Nisqually: many tiny stories from multiple resources

I am amazed at how many stories I have about Fort Nisqually, even though Anderson was only there for one year and a half!
Mind you, much of this information comes from my research for the next book -- William Fraser Tolmie and Fort Nisqually will play an important part in that story!
The information also comes from my being a member of the very active Descendants of Fort Nisqually Employees page on Facebook, where we share a ton of information!

First, I have to tell that people on above Facebook page have informed me that the Fisgard Island [now Anderson Island]  map credited to U.S. surveyor James Tilton was not drawn by Tilton -- but by a fellow named Chapman.
Nor was the map published in 1855, which is the date it carries: it was published a few years earlier than that date.
So I am now digging through the Fort Nisqually journals and other papers that I have downloaded, to see if I can figure out and confirm that story!
And sure enough! On Monday, the 19th of April 1852, the journals record that: "J[ohn] Chapman of Steilacoom City having been engaged to survey the lands claimed by the Puget's Sound Co[mpany], he started to commence operations, accompanied by Mr. [Edward] Huggins and also Barnes, G. Dean and 6 Indians."
Saturday 24th April: "A visit from Mr. Huggins, reports about 30 miles of survey finished. Work arduous & fatiguing."
On Saturday May 1st, 1852: "The surveying party came home, their operations having been stopped today by part of the squatters settled on the lands claimed by the P.S. Co., who would not allow them to proceed any farther. The surveying would have been finished in three or four days more if not stopped, more than three parts done."
Monday 3rd: "Mr. Chapman arrived. Commenced making a plan of the portion of the Company's lands he has lately surveyed."
Wednesday 19th: "Both myself, Barnes & Fiander have been since Monday at surveying part of the Comp[an]y's claim, commenced at the corn 1 miles below Steilacoom & finishing at the point where Mr. Chapman was interrupted on Saturday, 1st May."
So Chapman did the survey of the Fort Nisqually lands in 1852.
In April 1853, a note in the Fort Nisqually journals says this: "The extent of land claimed by the Company according to the survey of Mr. Chapman is 15 miles square."
It covers most of Tacoma, in fact, though it does not include the present site of the replica Fort Nisqually in Point Defiance Park, it does extend up to the park and down to include Dupont and the old location of the first fort, directly opposite Anderson Island.
Clearly it was a big piece of farmland that all the American squatters wanted to get a piece of -- which is why the HBC men had such trouble in fighting off the squatters at Fort Nisqually.
But that is a story for the future; I am working on it now.
If you want more information on the Chapman map, read "Deconstructing Chapman," by Steve A. Anderson, Columbia Magazine, Winter 2011-12, Vol. 25, No. 4. You can't view it online unfortunately, you have to go to your library or order a copy of the magazine.

So who was James Tilton?
And why was James Tilton's name so immediately familiar to me, when I saw the map at Fort Nisqually?
James Tilton was the first Surveyor General of the new Washington Territory, from August 1, 1854 to July 17, 1861: I must have run into him in my Fort Vancouver research.
He arrived in Washington Territory, at Olympia probably, in the spring of 1853, with his wife, children and other family members -- and a young mulatto slave boy named Charles Mitchell, supposedly a gift.
Now, here's where James Tilton's story gets really interesting!
On September 24, 1860, the young slave, Charles Mitchell, was smuggled aboard the steamship apparently by the ship's cook, James Allen, and stowed away.
His hiding place was discovered by the ship's captain, who intended to return him to his Washington State master: he locked the boy in his cabin before sailing into Victoria's harbour on the 25th of the month.
Apparently the blacks who lived in Victoria got wind of Charles Mitchell's imprisonment on the steamship, and through legal means got a writ of habeas corpus that forced the captain to release the boy into British custody.
The captain objected for a minute or two, but allowed the boy to be removed. The next day, Chief Justice Cameron ruled that because Charles Mitchell had stepped onto British soil, he was free.

You've probably heard this story: it just hit the newspapers here in Victoria and in Seattle area.
You can see how recently this story broke by googling, "Charles Mitchell, slave."

But the Charles Mitchell story happened in 1860: Now we are going back in time -- to sometime before 1821!

Who was the first fur trader who ventured through the area where Fort Nisqually later stood?
It is generally stated that John Work and Archibald McDonald were the persons who founded Fort Nisqually.
But who was the first fur trader to visit the site of future Fort Nisqually?
If you have no answer to that question, than you might be interested in this statement, written by Peter Skene Ogden to Governor Simpson in 1847:
"As I now entertain some serious thought of retiring from the fur trade .... I know it will appear egotistical of me to call your attention to my long and arduous service on the West side of the Mountains.
"....Prior to the junction of the two Companys [NWCo. & HBCo in 1821] I also explored the whole of Puget's Sound and was the first who opened the communication by the Cowlitz River to the former place & in that direction extended my travels to within hail of Fraser River (Point Roberts) but unfortunately the credit... was given to another."
Now, isn't that interesting?
Peter Skene Ogden, the fur trader who explored most of what is now the western United States, also once explored north and west from Fort Vancouver as far as the mouth of the Fraser River.
So much fur trade and exploration history must be uncovered by reading letters written many years later.

The Fort Nisqually Brigade Trail: a new brigade trail to me, and I'm the expert (well, sort of):
Brigade trails is my field of interest, but I embarrassed myself by announcing to the members of the Descendants of Fort Nisqually Employees that, in 1855, clerk Angus McDonald brought out the Fort Colvile and Walla Walla brigades by pack-horse, to Fort Nisqually. Did they know?
"Well," they said, "of course we know -- that's the brigade we celebrate every year [dummy!]."

In the Fort Nisqually journals, on June 3rd, 1855, I read: "It is reported that the Colvile and Walla Walla brigades are at the mountains on their way to this place."
On June 23rd, 1855, Dugald McTavish wrote from Fort Vancouver that: "The returns of Colvile & Walla Walla will this season be taken out to Nisqually with horses and it is my intention to go over there in a few days for the purpose of meeting Mr. McDonald, who I am in hopes will reach Puget's Sound with his brigade by the 1st May."
McDonald definitely did not make Nisqually on the 1st of May -- the Fort Nisqually journals indicate that on Wednesday 17th of June: "Three Canadians from the interior arrived this evening presenting two orders for flour from Mr. [Angus] McDonald, he is expected to be here five days from hence with the Colvile Brigade."
Monday, July 2nd: "Mr. A[ngus] McDonald arrived this day with the Colvile and Walla Walla Brigades consisting altogether of about 200 pack horses."
They travelled out from the Yakima River area, through the Cascade Mountains and over Naches Pass, north of Mount Rainier -- the same difficult trail that Wilkes' Americans had traversed in 1842, and that Anderson had brought his cattle drive only a few months later.
From Fort Vancouver McTavish reported, on July 31st: "that Mr. Angus McDonald arrived at Nisqually on the 2nd Inst with the interior furs (amounting to 173 packs) in order -- he found the road from the Yakima very wet & stony. Twelve horses of the Walla Walla brigade got knocked up and were left en route but they will probably be found on the return of the party."
Although no mention of the fun the brigaders had at Fort Nisqually is made in the journals, Steve Anderson, author of Angus McDonald of the Great Divide: the Uncommon Life of a Fur Trader, 1816-1889, tells us [on page 105] that "Puppet shows, athletic feats of strength, speed and skill, as well as a great deal of betting amongst the men broke up the hard work.
"Angus enthralled everyone with his stories, while late night drunks and early morning pranks were documented by Huggins in his later years."
Finally, on Wednesday 25th of July, "Mr. McDonald with the Colvile brigades started this day with 151 pieces goods."
He arrived back at Fort Colvile "with his brigade from Nisqually on the 12th August and found everything in order."
Apparently, it was hoped that the Naches Pass Road would be a future brigade trail, saving the Fort Colvile men the difficulty of bringing out their furs to Fort Langley over the Coquihalla brigade trail, or downriver to Fort Vancouver as they had done for years.
It was not to be. 1855 was the only year that the Fort Colvile fur traders brought their furs out to Fort Nisqually.
In later years, they carried the furs out through British territory, via the Similkameen Trail to Fort Langley, making plans at the same time to build new posts in British territories north of Fort Colvile.
In 1855 the fur trade of the Columbia district, and at Fort Nisqually, was changing rapidly.
It would never again be what it used to be.

General Fort Nisqually information, in the words of Alexander Caulfield Anderson:
This is how Anderson described the workings of Fort Nisqually when he arrived there in 1840 [the following is edited for clarity]:
"Nisqually was established in 1833 by the Hudson's Bay Co. for the purposes of the fur trade. When the Puget Sound Company was organized it continued to be carried on by the Hudson's Bay post, the business of the P.S.Co. being transacted after the manner of an agency.
"At the time the chief expenses of the establishment were incurred for the P.S. Co., and corresponding charges were made against the P.S. Co by the H.B. Co..
"Large herds of cattle and extensive flocks of sheep were on the gorund when I assumed charge in October 1840, also a considerable band of horses.
"The sheep at that time were in several flocks, and the pasture pounds varied daily. The shepherds lived with their flocks in temporary huts and a moveable house on wheels. The whole were under the direction of a head shepherd -- one Mr. Lewis, an experience shepherd engaged in Scotland for the purpose.
"At certain seasons the flock of imported rams were herded at a distance with great care in order to regulate the period of breeding.the sheep on the ground at that time were, as far as I remember, all of improved breeds -- the product of ewes originally imported from California, crossed by valuable rams from England. I could not state from memory the number; there were some hundreds -- a reference to the inventory made by me in spring of 1841 and forwarded to Vancouver would enable me to do so with certainty.
"The herds of sheep were folded nightly within distinct enclosures for the purpose of manuring the ground for agricultural purposes. These pens were shifted periodically as the ground became enriched. To promote the comfort of the sheep they were washed and shorn in summer, and the wool picked and sent to Vancouver for shipment to England.

"There were at the same time large herds of cattle. I cannot speak as to the numbers save under the same conditions as before mentioned. I can state, however, that during the summer of 1841 upwards of 100 cows (I think 120) were tamed and milked for dairy purposes at the district dairy, 4 1/2 to 5 miles from the old Fort.
"Other cows were milked for home use daily at the fort. The cows at the dairy were not all milked at once, but as soon as a certain number of the young cattle had been sufficiently habituated to being handled and milked they were discharged, with their calves, and replaced by others. About 1/3 were probably at each period of the division. All the cattle, milk cows excepted, were penned at night in the same way as the sheep, partly to habituate them to being driven and herded, but chiefly to improve the light soil for agricultural purposes. Mounted herders (Indians) were employed to attend to and collect the cattle.

There were "no settlers at the time, save only the Wesleyan Mission, under Dr. Richmond, established near the present site of the Fort with the aid and concurrence of the Company."
The crops raised were "wheat, pease, oats, turnips, potatoes, colsa for sheep, in addition to the ordinary culinary vegetables -- probably some barley, but if so, not much.
There were "apple trees in growth but not yet bearing.
"The dairy was conducted by an English dairy woman, whose husband (Ancock) superintended the farming operations." It produced "butter, but not cheese, made by the Indians and other assistants."

The "Fort has been changed to its present [2nd] site, and subsequently to 1841 had been transferred to the P.S. Co." I "visited Nisqually winter 1851 [when] Dr. Tolmie was in charge. Again in January 1852, assuming charge for a few weeks during Dr. Tolmie's visit to Victoria.
"Cattle wild as compared with former years. Settlers troublesome in various ways -- squatting on lands, molesting cattle" but I "cannot speak of any particular act of aggression."
I "witnessed the altered habits of the cattle, and speak of the aggressions of squatters from what I learned generally at the time, but particulars have escaped my memory."
Anderson wrote this in 1865; here and below you can see how much the fur trade at Fort Nisqually had changed in the years after 1842, when he was stationed there.
I "paid a visit of a few days to Nisqually in the winter of 1860" when "I heard general complaints of aggressions by squatters, and formed the opinion that the P. S. Co.'s business there was in a very insecure and unprotected state. There may have been safety but there was not security."

By the way, the colsa mentioned above was also known by the name of "Rapeseed."
We now know the plant as Canola; canola is colsa which has had the harmful erucic acid bred out of it.

I have a little more on the killing of Leander Wallace, too, from "History of Puget Sound and the Northwest Coast," by W.F. Tolmie [Mss. 557, Vol.1, File 11, BCA]
I have added a little punctuation so the story is easier to follow.
For further information on the killing of Wallace, go to my Sunday March 31, 2013 post, titled: "More stories about Fort Nisqually and Anderson Island."

"In May or June 1849 some thirty armed Indians chiefly Snoqualimi [sic] came to Fort Nisqually, ostensibly to see their relative. At this time a large number of other Indians engaged in washing and shearing sheep were encamped around the post. They, at the midday our seeing the armed Indians approaching, rushed tumultuously into the fort with their women and children, making a great din.

"The chief of the Snoqualimi, Pattakynum, was admitted into the Fort, the gate closed, and a whiteman with an Indian labourer placed to watch it -- this Indian foolishly fired his gun into the air. This caused the Snoqualimi to rush out of the deserted lodge of the working Indians, where they had been smoking. One of them fired between the pickets into the fort yard wounding an Indian lad in the shoulder, another mortally wounding a young American named Wallace who had arrived for the purpose of trade. He [Wallace], with a companion whose shoulder (just below the insertion of the deltoid muscle) was glanced and bruised by a ball, was standing watching the hubbub outside quite unapprehensive of danger.

"The white gatekeeper (Thibeult, a French Canadian) ran to the bastion, fired amongst the retreating Indians and killed one. Just before the firing began I, who had been out and in previously, was engaged in a daily visit to an invalid Hudson's Bay officer living at Nisqually. I rushed outside to see poor Wallace breathe his last and helped to carry his remains into the Fort.

"The hostiles, as I was afterwards informed, levelled [their guns] at me -- they were by this time under cover, but a Sinhomish amongst them protested, saying "harm enough had been done for one day."

"When some time after, the Oregon Indian superintendent, Quinn Thornton came to Nisqually, he by my counsel offered a large reward in blankets to such Indians as would bring for trial the six named men who were observed by native spectators to discharge their guns outside Fort Nisqually gate. I knew who the real culprits were, but in order that their suspicions might not be aroused, six men were named.

"In course of the summer months, in August or September, three or four companies of U.S. soldiers under Captain (now General) B. F. Hill of the Artillery, were stationed at Steilacoom some six miles north of Nisqually. Indians not friendly to the Snoqualimi managed in course of the autumn to get the six named men to come to Fort Steilacoom, where they were at once disarmed and imprisoned by the military. At a special Circuit Court held at Steilacoom somewhat later -- Cussass who had shot Wallace, and Qullawowt, who had given the Indian lad a wound from which he soon died, were condemned and hung, before the jury left Steilacoom, I think. Several of the jury who dwelt at safe distance from the seaboard were urgent for having the whole six Indians condemned and hung. Others living on the coast opposed this, fearing immediate reprisals from the Snoqualimi."

And so I have given you a few more stories of Fort Nisqually, loosely strung together and not even in chronological order.
This is what writing history is all about -- you take these bits and pieces of information and put them together,  figuring out where each piece fits; sorting out dates and possible situations; and in the end fitting all the pieces into the background of the times.
This, too, a historian must research and understand.
Writing history is not a simple thing to do; any tiny story can present a complex puzzle with many important details and lots of unanswered questions that the writer part of said researcher needs to explain, as best he can.
That is what makes history so much fun -- at least it's fun if you find a story you can eventually explain in a clear and concise manner that allows others to follow it.
It's hard work finding a good story: it's also hard work taking the work that the researcher side of you has done, and "storifying" it.
The writer-side of the researcher/writer must craft a story from many random and often conflicting details, and make the story both believable and readible.

Japanese Junk shipwrecked amongst the Makah, 1834

As the result of a special request, I am writing part of the story of the Japanese shipwreck on the shores of what would become Washington State, in 1834.
Although Alexander Caulfield Anderson never saw the Japanese boys for himself, the fact that he wrote so much about the shipwreck in later years makes him a major resource for all who want to research this story.

So, from The Pathfinder, I will quote a bit of the story and go on from there:
[p.40] "After spending the winter of 1833-34 at Fort Vancouver, Anderson once again boarded the brig Dryad, along with 40 other men, on May 1, 1834.
"At Fort George [Astoria], Chief Trader Peter Skene Ogden joined the party, and the ship continued its journey downstream to the river's mouth.
"Once there, the captain found the breezes too light to carry the ship safely across the bar, and the Dryad anchored in Baker's Bay."

"Sometime during the eight days of forced inactivity at Baker's Bay, Queen Sally, a Cathlamet Native who lived near the mouth of the Columbia River, boarded the vessel and told the story of a shipwreck.
"Anderson wrote of this encounter: In 1834, at Cape Disappointment, on our way to the northwest coast, Indians boarded our vessel and produced a map with some writing in Japanese characters, a string of the perforated copper coins of that country; and other convincing proofs of a shipwreck.

"The Hudson's Bay gentlemen examined the drawing and admired the coins, but as they were unable to take any actions, Ogden sent the woman to Fort Vancouver with her message.
"McLoughlin dispatched Captain William H. McNeill to locate the site of the shipwreck, and the Lama eventually returned to Fort Vancouver with three Japanese sailors who had been enslaved by the Natives."

So let us look at some resources and see where the information for this story comes from.
The first glimpse any fur trader had of the wreck appears in the Journal of Occurrences at Fort Nisqually:
January 1834: [p.22] "Wednesday 29th. Two men employed squaring wood for Bastions.... An Indian arrived with the unpleasant intelligence that a vessel has been lately wrecked at Cape Flattery and that all hands perished except two men who are now with the Indians there.
"Thursday 30th. ... Ouvre getting a canoe in readiness to set out tomorrow to ascertain the truth of the Indian report about the ship wreck. Rained heavily during the day.
"Friday 31st. ... Ouvre set off with an Indian for the purpose above stated. Rained all last night and this day with a hurricane wind."
The wind blew at hurricane force for five more days, and Ouvre finally returned to Fort Nisqually.
February 1834: [p.23] "Friday 7th. ... Late in the evening Ouvre returned and reported that the story about the shipwreck is a mere fabrication which he ascertained at the Chlallum village New Dungeness."

But the story wasn't a fabrication, and Captain William McNeill was able to rescue the boys and bring them to Fort Nisqually, on his way to Fort Langley and Vancouver.
Hence, in later Fort Nisqually Journals, more mention was made of the Japanese boys:
June 1834: [p.28] "Monday 9th. the men resumed squaring logs for the Store and roofing this building. About 3pm we heard a couple of Cannon shot, soon after I started in a canoe with six men, and went on board the Llama with the pleasure of taking Tea with McNeill who pointed out two Chinese he picked up from the Natives near Cape Flattery where a vessel of that Nation had been wrecked not long since.
"There is still one, amongst Indians inland, but a promise was made of getting the poor fellow on the Coast by the time the Llama gets there."
McNeill remained at Fort Nisqually for three days and then sailed for Fort Langley.
On his return to the west coast of Washington where he found the first two Japanese sailors, he picked up the third and brought them down to Fort Vancouver.

The source for these following letters is Fort Vancouver Correspondence, B.22/b/10, fo. 13-20, HBCA:
On the 28th of May, 1834, John McLoughlin wrote to the Governor and Committee:
"Last winter the Indians informed us that a vessel had been touched somewhere about Cape Flattery, and I sent a party along the coast to recover the crew from the natives but our people could not reach the place and a few days ago I received through the Indians a letter written in Chinese characters and I have written to the captains of our vessels to do their utmost to recover those unfortunate men from the Indians.
"I am informed that only three of them are alive and that forty of them are either dead of sickness or have been drowned.
"The Indians say the vessel was loaded with China wares."
On June 23rd McLoughlin wrote to William Kittson, who I presume had just taken charge of Fort Nisqually: "If Captain McNeil fails in recovering the Chinese from the Indians you will do your utmost to accomplish the humane object."
But in July he addressed McNeill: "I am happy to find that you have been so successful in procuring the poor Chinese whom it seems the natives were much inclined to keep in slavery."

On November 15th, 1834 McLoughlin gave instructions to Captain Darby of the brig Eagle, sailing for London:
"The three Japanese you will take to England and I request you will have the goodness to see that they are as comfortable and as well taken care of as their situation will admit. They are supplied with clothing &c sufficient to take them to England but if they should be in want of any little necessary article you will please supply it on the Hudson's Bay Company's account."

In his report to the Governor and Committee, on November 18th, 1834, McLoughlin reported on the incident:
"A Japanese junk was wrecked last winter in the vicinity of Cape Flattery and out of the crew of fourteen men only three were saved and [rescued] from the Indians by Captain McNeill on his voyage this summer to Fort Langley......
"The Japanese intrusted the letter W to the natives and it was forwarded from tribe to tribe till it came to us.
"I also send a piece of carved wood with Chinese characters on it, and if I understand the Japanese correctly it is the name of the vessel that she was from Yahongau and bound to Yidda, the capital of Japan with a cargo of rice nankins and porcelain ware.
"They were first driven from their course by a typhoon and subsequently a sea unshipped their rudder or broke their rudder irons when the vessel became unmanageable, and that they were about a year from the date they left their home when they were wrecked at which time they had plenty of rice and water yet on board but that a sickness had broke out among the men which carried off all except these three.
"A little after the vessel grounded and before the natives could get any thing worth while out of her a storm arose and broke her up."

I have previously told you that Alexander Caulfield Anderson was with Peter Skene Ogden when Queen Sally came aboard their ship and showed the fur traders the collection of papers and coins that she carried south, toward Fort Vancouver.
According to Anderson's various writings (all of a much later date), this is what he witnessed at the mouth of the Columbia River in 1834:

From: "Notes on the Indian Tribes of British North America, and the Northwest Coast," Historical Magazine, March 1863 [this resource is available online]:
"All the tribes of this portion of the Pacific Coast, I look upon as originating from the islands of the West -- from Japan, the Kuriles and elsewhere.
"Nor is it unsupported hypothesis alone that leads me to this conclusion: within the limited period of my own experience on this coast, I have learnt the possibility of a fortuitous immigration, such as we may be justified in assuming to have led to the gradual peopling of this portion of the continent in the earlier ages.
"For instance, in 1834, at Cape Disappointment, on our way to the northwest coast, Indians boarded our vessel and produced a map with some writing in Japanese characters; a string of the perforated copper coins of that country; and other convincing proofs of a shipwreck.
"Rumors of this had been heard before, and after this corroboration, the company dispatched a vessel to the point indicated.
"It was south of Cape Flattery (at Queen-ha-ilth, I believe).
"Three survivors of the crew were ransomed from the natives, afterwards sent to England, and thence to Japan.--
"In as far as could be understood by us, they were bound from some port in the Japanese Island of Yesi, to another port in the Island of Niphon.
"Losing their reckoning in a typhoon, they drifted for many months, at the mercy of wind and wave, until at length stranded at the point of shipwreck.
"The crew had originally consisted of forty, of whom the greater portion had perished at sea during the transit; three only surviving to reach the shore...."

He gives more information in: The Dominion at the West; a Brief Description of the Province of British Columbia, its Climate and Resources [Victoria: Richard Wolfenden, 1872]:
"Whether the immigration in the remote past has been voluntary or fortuitous, it is of course vain to conjecture: but the possibility of the latter supposition has been convincingly established, even within the limit of my own experience.
"For in 1834, in consequence of Indian rumours which had reached the Columbia River during the preceding winter, a vessel was dispatched from Fort Vancouver to Queen-ha-ilth, south of Cape Flattery, to enquire into the circumstances of a reported wreck.
"Captain McNeill, the Commander, on arriving there, found the remnants of a Japanese junk, and purchased from the natives a quantity of pottery and other articles that had formed portions of her cargo.
"He likewise brought away three Japanese, the survivors of a crew originally consisting, as we understood, of forty; the rest having perished at sea of hunger.
"It appeared that, having been dismasted in a typhoon and lost their reckoning, the junk had drifted for many months until at length stranded....."

An identical description as above can also be found in Anderson's Guide to the Province of British Columbia. 

In addition to these resources, there is a more important one that is a little more difficult to find.
This is Alexander Caulfield Anderson's "Historical notes on the commerce of the Columbia River, 1824 to 1848," in the Beinecke Library, Yale University Library, New Haven, Conn.
The collection consists of an somewhat inaccurate article labeled "Pioneer Ships: History of Early Commerce on the Columbia River," author unknown -- and Alexander Caulfield Anderson's written response when he corrected some of the information contained in the piece.

In the article itself, the author writes (somewhat inaccurately) about William H. McNeill:
"In March 1833, a Japanese junk was cast away fifteen miles south of Cape Flattery.
"Out of seventeen, three survived the wreck, to be made captive by the Makah Indians.
"Dr. McLoughlin, hearing of the captivity of the wrecked Japanese, sent overland to Nisqually, and thence down the Sound, Thomas McKay, to redeem them.
"Of this trip and its hero, Dr. W. F. Tolmie writes: Dr. McLaughlin had sent the renowned 'Tom McKay' to Puget Sound to endeavour to reach Cape Flattery by canoe, with the view of bringing about the liberation of the Japanese.
"Tom got no further than the Sinahomish camp, Nigwadsooch [Scadjett Head], and idled away time there as it was suspected.
"On being cross-questioned by the late 'hyass Doctor,' as to the cause of his failure, all he could say, that is remembered, was: 'It blowed, sir, it blowed -- my God! How it did blow!"....[end of W.F. Tolmie's supposed quote].
"After Tom Mackay had returned from his unsuccessful mission, the Llama, Capt. McNeil [sic], was sent to Neah Bay to redeem the Japanese captives.
"In June 1834, [McNeill] was at Fort Nisqually with two of them rescued, the third being in the interior.
"McNeil [sic] returned to Cape Flattery, received the third, proceeded to Fort Vancovuer, and in October the three were sent to London, educated in the English language and sent to their native country."

In Alexander Caulfield Anderson's handwritten letter, not necessarily included with this article, is his response to the above statement:
"From notes in my possession, supplemented by memory, I may state, regarding the Japanese Junk, as under -- Vague memory had reached Ft. Vancouver during the winter 1833/34 of the wreck of a ship upon the coast at some indefinite point between Gray's Harbour and Cape Flattery.
"Mr. Thomas McKay was dispatched in canoe via Baker's Bay and the portage to Shoalwater Bay, with orders to follow the Coast and endeavour to ascertain correct tidings, if not to afford relief.
"The severe storms prevalent in the early spring prevented his accomplishing the object of his mission; and he returned, having penetrated, as I understand, no further than Gray's Harbour (Chehalis) -- and bringing little intelligence beyond what had already [been] received through the Indians.
"It was not till May that direct confirmation was received.
"Mr. [Peter Skene] Ogden was then on his way, accompanied by myself, to establish a fort on the Stikine River (1834), and our vessel, the Dryad, was anchored in Baker's Bay.
"Sally, the widow of Old Chenanium, boarded the vessel on her way from Shoalwater Bay to Chinook Point, bringing with her a number of articles, including perforated copper coins and a rude chart drawn in Chinese or Japanese paper, with writing in their common character, which at once proved to us the fact of the wreck and indicated the probable nationality.
"Mr. Ogden forwarded the articles to Vancouver, and Captain McNeill was afterwards sent with the Llama -- affecting the release of the surviving as stated in the notice.
"Captn. McNeill afterwards told me that the Inds: were averse from giving up the men (3 in number); that he then seized one or two of the Chiefs as hostages, after which the survivors of the crew were brought on board the Llama and ransomed by him.
"He afterwards bought from the Inds a large quantity of crockery-ware saved from the wreck, which was subsequently sold in the sale-shop at Vancouver....."

The Cathlamet woman Sally was known by the fur traders as Queen Sally, and so I referred to her in that manner in my book.
The crockery-ware mentioned here is an important story in itself, and I will speak of it on a later occasion.
Right now we will continue following Anderson's remarks, in his response to the newspaper article labelled "Pioneer Ships":

"I think Dr. Tolmie has confused Mr. McKay's visit to the Skatchet, as connected with the Japanese wreck, with another occasion -- probably connected with the murder of McKenzie in 1828.
"I was at Vancouver (after my return from the coast in the Cadboro) when McKay returned from his fruitless attempt to reach the [Japanese] wreck before referred to, and I never heard any imputation cast upon the good faith of his proceedings on that occasion....
"McKay... was a zealous and daring officer; and not likely to be deterred by trivial difficulties or to advance a questionable excuse to cover an obvious failure to fulfill his orders.

"It may be interesting to know that the spot where the Japanese Junk of whose wreck Mr. McKay was in quest, was stranded very near, if not identical with, the locality in which his father lost his life, on the destruction of the "Tonquin" in 1811."
Thomas McKay's father, Alexander, was one of the first to die when the PFC ship Tonquin was attacked by Natives at Clayquot Sound, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, in 1811.
So Anderson appears inaccurate here, but he does say he believed that the Japanese junk was wrecked at a place the fur traders called Queen-ha-ilth.
In some research I did some years ago, I seem to remember having discovered that Queen-ha-ilth was at Destruction Island, on the Washington coast.
If that was where the Japanese shipwreck actually occurred, Destruction Island is a very good name considering how quickly their ship was destroyed.

I almost forgot that I said, on Twitter, there was a movie.
It is a Japanese film, entirely in the Japanese language but with subtitles in English for the part of the movie when the sailors are at Fort Vancouver.
Johnny Cash plays Dr. John McLoughlin!
The movie's title is Kairei; it was filmed in the 1980's, and its ISBN is 4-264-02095-6 (Life Entertainment, World Wide Pictures, website: http://wipm.or.jp or http:/www.gospeltv.jp)
But for more information on the film (which I was sure was filmed at Fort Langley, not Fort Vancouver) follow this link to Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, NCRI Report, and see page 6, "John McLoughlin and Johnny Cash."
John McLoughlin and Johnny Cash
Just so you know, it is not historically accurate, but it is fun!

My Answers to Questions Asked

In the months after my book, The Pathfinder, was published, readers and historians asked me a few questions that I was unable to give good answers to at the time.

The first came from an anthropologist and archaeologist who teaches at a local University.
His email said this: "I am really looking forward to your book."
Then he told me a story of a Native man who remembered that, many years earlier, his many-times-great-grandmother had been hidden away for safety, because "some strange person was coming down the [Lillooet] river."
He figured out the generations, and said he thought that the stranger might have been Alexander Caulfield Anderson, on his 1846 journey down the Lillooet River to Fort Langley.

Great story! But the anthropologist finished his email it with the question:
"Anderson does not seem to mention much in the way of villages as he went down the Lillooet river -- any idea why?"
At the time I did not have the answer.
But while I never consciously thought about the question, it simmered away and eventually answered itself.
I realized that most of what Anderson put in his expedition journals related directly to the business of searching for a suitable brigade trail.
It was, in other words, entirely a business journal, and only things that were important to the business of a brigade trail made it into his journal.
The journal's name tells us that -- his 1846 journal is titled: "Journal of an expedition under command of Alex C. Anderson... undertaken with the View to ascertaining the practicability of a communication with the interior, for the import of the annual supplies."
Like his other journals of exploration, it has a specific purpose: to report back to the Board of Management at Fort Vancouver the route taken and its availability, or non-availability, as a brigade trail for heavily laden pack-horses.

I figured this out when I learned, from a historical geographer friend, what the requirements were for a good brigade trail.
He gave me the information that I included in my book, and I added a bit to it:
From page 106: "Besides considerations regarding the route itself, the Hudson's Bay men had developed strict requirements for an overland brigade trail, based on experience, good and bad.
"The Company was looking for a trail that hundreds of horses could travel safely without injury.
"A path that might work for a man on foot would not necessarily work for the heavily loaded brigade horses.
"Sharp rocks on the trail bed would damaged the horses' delicate hooves and cut their fetlocks.
"If the ground was too soft, the passage of so many horses would turn the trail into a quagmire that later brigades could not cross.
"Safe fords over rivers and creeks were essential, especially as so much of the travel was done in early summer, the season of high water.
"Gradient was important, but they could accept a steep slope if the hillside allowed room for switchbacks.
"The horses needed food and water, and trail builders could sow alfalfa and white clover along the edges of the horse road if the ground was good, but they could not manufacture streams.
"Anderson would have to keep all these concerns in mind as he explored the potential brigade trails."

So when I re-read the journals after processing and writing the above, I understood them more fully.
Anderson wrote nothing of the journey along the south shore of Kamloops Lake to modern day Savona, as this road was good and well-known to all the fur traders -- there were no problems here.
When he "found River du Defunt much swollen" because of the rainy spring, he is warning of difficulties future brigaders might have in crossing the river.
Of course, the fur traders would build an easily maintained bridge here.
On the 17th of May he does describe the rock indented with hat-like cavities: rather unnecessarily. But he goes on with a description of the "picturesque valley, richly covered with herbage, and bordered by hills sprinkled with Fir trees."
There was plenty of feed for the horses here, and fresh water only a short distance further on.

Then at the Lower Fountain, where the Kamloops men traded for salmon, he noted that: "The banks of the [Fraser] river hereabouts are extremely broken and precipitous; and many of the adjacent hills are white with recent snow."
You will remember that I informed you that "Sharp rocks on the trail bed would damage the horses' delicate hooves and cut their fetlocks."
Anderson's next line was this: "One of our horses got his leg cut in crossing a small brook, this afternoon, and is lame in consequence."
It may not have had meaning to us on the first read, but it would have meant a lot to the members of the Board of Management at Fort Vancouver.

On Tuesday 19th Anderson wrote: "The spot which had been described to me as likely to afford a passage for horses is at the Riviere de Pont, opposite to the Lower Fountain, but to my disappointment I find it quite unsuitable for the purpose -- at least at this season, if indeed at any time practicable with a large band of horses.
"The proposed track passes over a mountain 1,500 to 2,000 feet in height, the summit of which even at this advanced season, is still thickly covered with snow, and obviously impassable save with snow shoes.
"In short there does not exist the slightest probability of a horse road in this direction, suitable for our purposes, from the spot alluded to, to that where I am now encamped...."
When he wrote this, he was on Seton Lake, having crossed the Fraser River to walk down its west bank to the Seton River.
I am looking at this paragraph now, and wondering...
Was he talking about Fountain Ridge, or was he describing the mountain across the Fraser from the end of the ridge?
I haven't been up to that spot since 1993 -- I may have to return and take a good look.

Whatever route was described to him by John Tod, at Fort Kamloops, was then discarded, and the second choice taken -- an expedition via Seton and Anderson Lakes to the Lillooet River.
He says this in the line: "Finding my views disappointed in the direction at first proposed, I determined on proceeding by the lakes...."
I now believe it was his plan to go down the Fraser River through the canyons, but he chose to travel the second route, by the lakes, when the first did not work.
I also now know that Pahallak, or another Sto:lo guide, was waiting for him at the forks of Thompson's River and the Fraser.
They did not meet that summer.

Anderson tells no stories of the Salish Wool Dogs, though he certainly saw them on this journey and in his later expedition down the banks of the Fraser River.
He does describe the Natives he found there, and the discomfort the fur traders felt because they were alone amongst all these men who could easily have overwhelmed them.
But the Native name for Seton River -- Pap-shil-qua-ka-meen -- is mentioned only in a later piece of writing, though he can only have learned the name from the guides who accompanied him on this particular journey.
As far as I know, he never returned to the mouth of the Seton River.

Anderson's party continued on to Lillooet Lake from Anderson and Seton Lakes.
On the Lillooet River, Anderson hired "a fine canoe, with two expert boutes. In the evening... we encamped at the head of a rapid or fall, where it is necessary to drag the canoe."
Then he said: "I find the river very different from what I expected. At this stage of the water it is a perfect torrent; and at a higher stage (it is now at half-water) must afford a very precarious navigation.
"In fact, but for the expertness of our Indian boutes, who are thoroughly versed in the intricacies of the river, we should, I fear, have much difficulty in getting through."

Anderson had already disqualified this route as a brigade trail for horses.
Clearly, by now, he is now mentally eliminating the travel of this rough river as a possible route for the boats the fur traders used -- if they could make their way downriver (which seemed unlikely), how would they ever come upriver again?
From this point onward, he and his party continued downriver to Fort Langley as quickly as they could: there was no further need to look around.
His work was done, and he spent little time in describing the country he saw.

But the question was: "Anderson does not seem to mention much in the way of villages as he went down the Lillooet River -- any idea why?"
My answer, at last: This was a business journal, and the Native villages along the lower Lillooet River were not important to the fur traders, especially as he had already mentally disqualified this route as a possible brigade trail.
He was travelling downriver with Native guides who had no reason to dally -- the sooner they reached Fort Langley, the more quickly they would be rewarded for their work.
Anderson also had a reason to reach Fort Langley as quickly as he could.
He wanted to begin his return journey to Kamloops, exploring for an alternate route on the way.
He still had a job to do, and this first trail was not the route he was looking for.

Anderson never returned to the Lillooet River, and wrote very little about it later.
In his unpublished draft manuscript "British Columbia" he noted that: "The Lakes of British Columbia are a great feature in its geography....
"Harrison's Lake, in the lower portion, I have already referred to.
"This lake is connected with two other lakes, in close contiguity with each other, the united length of which is about 25 miles.
"These lakes, distinguished by their Indian name Lillooet, are connected with Douglas [the town of Port Douglas, at the head of Harrison Lake] by by a wagon road.
"They are navigated by steam boat.
"From the upper end the road is continued through a depression in the Lillooet spur of the coast Range, twenty four miles to Lake Anderson.
"A channel 1 1/2 mile in length connects this lake with Lake Seton, the lower end of which is within three miles of the town or village of Cayoosh, on the bank of the Fraser River, some 40 miles above Lytton.
"The united length of Lakes Anderson and Seton is about thirty eight miles.
"The scenery of the shores, and especially of the latter, is extremely grand.
"These lakes, like the Lillooet, are navigated by steamboats.
"The depth of all is great."
He is describing now the 1858-1859 Harrison Lillooet trail, which was developed over the route of his first exploration down the Lillooet River.
In 1858 he visited what is now called Port Douglas, a town built a year or two later at the mouth of the Lillooet River on Harrison Lake.
He played a major part in naming the future town for his friend, James Douglas.
But he never travelled over the Harrison-Lillooet trail, and so never saw the Lillooet River again.

The second question I was asked, in person, when I was in Hope, B.C., after my one hour & a half talk there:
My sister and I were in the Blue Moose Cafe (a wonderful place, if you are ever in Hope), waking up with our morning coffee the morning after I had given my talk and slide show.
Two men came in and sat down at the coffee table and chairs where we were reading the newspapers and sleepily drinking our coffee.
They talked to each other, and then they talked to us; they knew who we were.
One, a young Native man who said he came from Spuzzum, asked me whether I thought I would ever write about any person or thing other than my great grand-father, Alexander Caulfield Anderson.
Now, isn't that an interesting question?
I had no answer for him at that time.
My first thought was this: that in order to write about someone else or something else I would have to set aside my ten years of research on Alexander Caulfield Anderson and his fur trade, and begin all over again.
To me, that was a huge objection.
I wasn't ready for that question.
I was still deeply involved in writing talks and articles to promote the current book, published only three months earlier -- a year and a half later I am still involved in promoting the book.
The question came too quickly, and at the time I did not have an answer.
Again, it had to simmer.

It took me six or more months for the answer to emerge, and in the meantime I wrote two or three more speeches and an article for the Annual Report of the Okanagan Historical Society, 2012.
I fooled around with other ideas, and you can see the result of my blog where I wrote about "The Salmon in the fur trader's New Caledonia," on Saturday, February 18, 2012.
This is Anderson's own writing but it is a merged manuscript -- that is, I took four of his manuscripts and merged the information in them in order to create this future chapter of a book I could write.
And maybe I will write this book, sometime in the future.
I have, however, four missing A.C. Anderson manuscripts I want to find before I do this -- if they still exist.

I also considered other choices in addition to the "Memoir."
I can write about the years of the Indian Reserve Commission of 1876-1877 -- that's a fascinating story in itself and much of the story is omitted from this book.
I can write a more detailed story of the four explorations and the end result of those expeditions and the crisis that followed, and I am extremely interested in that time period.
I can write about Fort Victoria during those years; but, frankly, of all the things I could write about, Fort Victoria is the one thing that has the least interest for me, in spite of the fact I live in Victoria.
The fur trader Sam Black fascinates me, but that involves a great deal of research and writing with very little information about his later life at Kamloops.
Interesting as his life may have been, his story would be skimpy at best.

I can write about Peter Skene Ogden or Donald Manson or other fur trade characters, but his descendants are planning to do this -- not that that should stop me.
In a way I am writing about them, because their story will be a part of my next book.
I do now know what I am writing about, and I am already learning things that will add to or change the information I put in The Pathfinder.
There will be many characters in this book; and yes, Alexander Caulfield Anderson will be one of them.
Yes, he will play a major role in a complex story, but he will disappear from the story, too.
Yes, it is a fur trade story: I don't think I will ever move outside the fur trade, or at least, not until I write about the Indian Reserve Commission and that is, in its way, still a fur trade story.
This next book will be a thick book: I think it is possible that it will be two books by the time I am done.
I have a feeling I know which way the book or books will lead me.
However, books sometimes lead the author to some unexpected places.
We will have to see where I end up.

So anyway, if anyone in Hope or Spuzzum is reading this post, please tell the young Spuzzum artist who designed the stage decorations for the stage play "Where the Blood Mixes," that I have answered his question.
Tell him, thank you for the question!
It was a tough one to answer.

More stories about Fort Nisqually and Anderson Island

I found more stories about Fort Nisqually and Anderson Island than I could actually fit into my talk last weekend (see last weeks' posting).
As a result, I am posting the extra information here, for Anderson Islanders, and others to find.
So this blog posting might be a bit patchy, but I will try to make it all work together.

By the way, if anyone wants to read more about Anderson Island and its history and early settlers, you should find and read the book, Island in the Sound, by Hazel Heckman [Seattle: UWPress, 1967]. My copy of the book is in its sixth printing, 1997!

A description of Fort Nisqually, by Missionary Father Modeste Demers:
Alexander Caulfield Anderson reached Fort Nisqually, at last, in late autumn 1840.
Sometime before he reached the place, Missionary Father Modeste Demers visited the old fort.
Demers described the post as it was when William Kittson was in charge: It was "an elongated square of about four arpents in area, surrounded like the other forts by a palisade twenty feet high, and flanked by four bastions furnished with firearms."
Unlike other forts in the area, however: "The palisade is crowned on the exterior by a species of circular gallery, as much for serving in the defense of the fort as for observing the acts of the natives and keeping them in check. In this enclosure are grouped various buildings, such as the smokehouse, the trading house... the commandant's house, one for strangers, one for the engages..."
It was not unknown, in these fur trade posts, to have galleries around the inside of the fort walls; but it appears, at first, that Demers says, this one hung on the outside of the walls.
When Lieutenant Wilkes drew his images of the fort shortly after Demers passed through, there were no galleries on the outside of the palisades.
If English was not Demers' first language, it is possible he substituted the word "outside" for "inside."
But I think we're reading it wrong (or at least I am). I think Demers meant that the galleries hung on the outside or exterior walls, but inside the fort itself.
That would be perfectly normal for a fur trade fort of this time, and it makes much more sense to hang the galleries behind the shelter of the log palisades, not in front of them.
But I might be wrong.

More on Alexander Caulfield Anderson, the farmer:
 As I was reading through material to write this talk, I found one more thing to say about Anderson, referencing his time at Fort Nisqually and later.
I found a line in Lieutenant Charles Wilkes' journals, written while he was at Fort Nisqually, to the effect that: "Mr. Anderson informed me he had or was making an experiment with some of [the Nisqually Natives] to till the land, but he found them disinclined to work although they were more apt than he had given them credit for."

As I have mentioned in other talks, I have run across a number of stories where Anderson is teaching the Natives who live near his residence (wherever it may be) to grow their own food, something that is quite foreign to them.
Only a few years after he left Fort Nisqually, he watched as the Alexandria Natives returned home in an early winter snowstorm, and he knew they had little food to spare because the salmon run had failed.
One year later and after another failed salmon run, Anderson wrote in the Fort Alexandria journals that, "Eleven Indians [are] working the soil [at our] suggestion, and I have promised to supply them seed potatoes."

And when he lived in North Saanich from 1862 to about 1876, he encouraged the Natives of the Tseycum Reserve to cultivate their clayey soil, and some soon raised pigs and cattle or farmed smaller sections of richer soil. He had a particularly strong interest in grafting fruit trees, and a few of his Native neighbours even learned this agricultural craft from him, and now owned small thriving orchards.
I wonder if, while he was at Fraser's Lake, or at Fort Colvile, he also tried to teach the Natives to grow their own food?
Unfortunately I do not have enough information on these times, and there is, I believe, no where else to look.

The Royal Navy Ship, Fisgard, off Anderson Island, 1846:
This is an Anderson Island story, and not a story about Fort Nisqually, nor one about Alexander Caulfield Anderson. Yet, it fits here, and I would have told the Anderson Island people this story if I had the time to do so.
I am not aware that they are very familiar with the story, though they might be. They do, however, know that for a little while, Anderson Island was named "Fisgard" Island.
The story came to me from Steve Anderson, retired manager of the replica Fort Nisqually at Point Defiance Park. This is his research, not mine.

The Royal Navy ship Fisgard was stationed off Fort Nisqually in 1846. Its job was to provide a British presence in the area to support the upcoming Boundary discussions between the United States and Britain.
It was the late afternoon of 26th September, 1846. A rare thunderhead formed in the sky to the west, and by six o'clock that evening, horizontal sheet lightning streaked across the sky.
"The thunder roared in the most awful manner," one man at Fort Nisqually reported, "and its grandeur was greatly increased by the reverberations amongst the neighboring woods, which were set on fire in several places by the vivid flashes of lightning."

Now you might not know that ships such as the Fisgard were at great risk of lightning strikes in storms like this.
At this time, the Royal Navy ships had no defense against such dangers -- if a bolt of lightning struck the ship's mast, it could splinter the mast and send it tumbling to the decks.
A strike could kill a man; it could find the powder magazine and blow the entire ship out of the water, killing everyone aboard!

However, before she left London, the Fisgard had installed a new-fangled, untested, experimental lightning conductor consisting of copper rods, plates, and nails on the ships spars and hull.
No one really believed it would work, but as one observer said, "considering the grave number of ships which have been damaged or destroyed by lightning, it is not without considerable interest we witness and record such [events]."

So, a mile and a half from Fort Nisqually, the tall masts of the Fisgard jutted up toward the sky.
At 7:45 pm, a powerful bolt of lightning struck the ships main spar and shook the Fisgard to its core.
"A sudden report, as if many guns had gone off, threw all hands into the utmost consternation."
The crew watched the lightning follow the trail of copper down the mast -- those who were standing nearest the mast on the upper deck described the effect of the fluid-like "strike" as illuminating the mast with a most beautiful stream of purple light.
The bolt of lightning grounded in the sea, and left the ship undamaged.
When the Fisgard returned to London it was greeted with fanfare, largely due to the fact that she had beaten the lightning strike.
And so that is a piece of British history, made at Anderson Island.

James Tilton's 1855 map of Puget Sound and Washington Territory:
There is more to the Fisgard Story: When I visited Fort Nisqually in Point Defiance Park, the re-enactor, Lane, showed me a pile of maps and photographs that lay on the table in the Chief Factor's residence.
Amongst them was surveyor James Tilton's map of Puget Sound and Washington Territory, dated 1855.
Anderson Island was clearly indicated on the map, as was McNeil -- but Anderson Island was labelled "Fisgard," and McNeil, "Duntze."
John Alexander Duntze was the Captain of the British ship, Fisgard, when it was stationed off Anderson Island.

So who was this man, James Tilton?
Tilton was the surveyor General of Washington Territory, and arrived at Olympia in the spring of 1853.
I find to my shock that he is part of the Charles Mitchell story that recently hit the news in Victoria and Seattle.
Charles Mitchell was a young black slave owned by James Tilton: Mitchell was smuggled aboard the ship Eliza Anderson, and freed by the British fur traders at Fort Victoria.

Presumably when Surveyor James Tilton drew his map of the area in the mid-1850's, Anderson Island still carried the name of Fisgard Island (and McNeil, Duntze) and those are the names he put on his official map of the territory.
But Lieutenant Charles Wilkes had already officially named the islands Anderson and McNeil -- for Alexander Caulfield Anderson and William McNeill, the fur traders in charge of Fort Nisqually when he arrived there in 1841.
He must have gone east and then drawn the maps that contained the names that the American government officially adopted for those two islands.
Still, fifteen years after Wilkes was at Fort Nisqually, surveyor James Tilton drew his official map of Washington territory, and labelled the islands "Fisgard" and "Duntze."
When and how did Lieutenant Charles Wilkes' names for the two islands supersede James Tilton's labels? When and how did the new names (or older, I guess) reach the Puget Sound area, to be officially adopted by the American residents who lived there?

I am on Twitter, as you know, and I asked the question of a map researcher I was chatting to.
Through a contact she had she got me a copy of this map, labelled: Map of the Oregon Territory by the U. S. Exploring Expedition.
You can find it at this internet site, and at others:
www.davidrumsey.com/maps890027-24331.html
It is on the Oregon History Project site -- but the best is under [google this]: "1850 map of the Oregon Territory [electronic resource]." You can pick the bottom of Puget Sound and enlarge it enough to see that this map does not name any of the islands there.
So this is not the map that labelled Anderson Island.

Next I took a quick look at "Map of Oregon and Upper California from the Surveys of John Charles Fremont and other authorities, drawn by Charles Preuss..." in 1848. Anderson Island is not named on that map either.
Finally I dug out Derek Hayes' book, Historical Atlas of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest [Vancouver: Cavendish Books, 1999] which I have owned for many years.
On page 120 of this book, I found the answer, and this is what Derek Hayes has to say...
"Wilkes' Narratives of the United States Exploring Expedition was published in five volumes in 1844.
"Also published were a number of maps of the northwest, including one map of the whole Oregon Territory [this is the map I have spoken of, above].
"Another map was of the southern part of Georgia Strait (Map 200). Ringgolds Channel, named after one of Wilkes' Officers, is today's Rosario Strait.
"A map of the southern part of Puget Sound (Map 201) shows the site of today's Olympia."
It is Map 201 which clearly labels Anderson and McNeil Islands, and tells us that these two islands had their official names by 1844, when the book was published -- not that the locals, or even the Washington Territory government officials (ie, James Tilton), seemed to be aware of that fact.

But all this does not yet answer the question: how did Anderson Island also carry the name "Fisgard Island?
Who named it Fisgard -- was it James Tilton, or was it someone else?
A note in the "Washington Geographic Names," by Edmond S. Meany, tells us that Anderson Island "had at least two other names.
"The Inskip chart, 1846, shows it as Fisgard Island, after the British frigate which was on this station, 1844-1847. Inskip sought to carry the honor further by changing the name of McNeil Island to "Duntze Island" for Captain John Alexander Duntze of the frigate.
The Town of Steilacoom site says that "For the Americans, Lt. Charles Wilkes remapped the Sound area almost fifty years after Puget. The desire to Americanize the area showed itself in his renaming every feature after his American crew members and friends stationed in the area.
"The British replied quickly: R. A. Inskip's mapping mission came only five years later.
"Inskip kept the tradition of ignoring his forebears, and made a detailed chart with all-new names -- again mostly taken from his fellow British crewmembers."

A further search tells me that the Brit was named Robert A. Inskip, and he was here in 1846.
He named Anderson Island for the RN ship Fisgard, which was here -- and McNeil for Duntze, the Fisgard's captain.
In 1847 the name of McNeil Island was restored (and probably that of Anderson, too) -- but that occurred in England, and no one here knew that had happened.
It seems that either the British mariners, or perhaps even the fur traders at Nisqually, kept the old British names alive until the American surveyor James Tilton came here in 1855, to write them down.
Even that was temporary. At some point Lieutenant Wilkes' names took precedence and Fisgard Island officially became Anderson Island.
According to Hazel Heckman, author of Island in the Sound, as late as 1886, a baby named Betsy Johnson Cammon was born on what they called "Wallace Island."
So it's no wonder that Alexander Caulfield Anderson never knew that Anderson Island was named for him!

Anderson Island had a third name for a short period, when it was called "Wallace Island."
A note in the "Washington Geographic Names," by Meany, also says that Anderson Island has another name -- Wallace Island, in honor of Leander C. Wallace, who was killed by Snoqualmie Indians during their attack on Fort Nisqually in 1849.
I can tell you that story, as it is written in the Fort Nisqually Journals:
Wallace, presumably, had settled on what was then called, in some quarters, Fisgard Island.

On May 1849: "Tuesday 1st. Cloudy with strong SW breeze. About noon a large party of Snoqualmie & Skeywhamish [Skykomish] armed arrived & took up their position before the watergate, where they had an affray with our people, in which the American, Wallace was killed & Lewis slightly wounded one of the enemy was killed & another slightly wounded, the cause and commencement are nearly as possible as follows:
"As the horn blew for dinner a large party of Skeywhamish & Snoqualmie were reported to have arrived, our working & other Indians immediately commenced running into the Fort bringing with them their movables & when dinner was over a large party of them to the number of about a hundred, were observed advancing across the plain on the NW side of the Fort, when they arrived part went to Lahalet's lodge & the others (the greater part) gathered round the water-gate, where they were soon after rejoined by the others.
"On being asked the reason why they came in such numbers, and making such a warlike demonstration, they replied that they had heard that young Lahalet (who is married to a daughter of one of their petty [Petit or lesser] chiefs) was beating his wife brutally, and that they did not come with the intention of harming any of the whites.
"The Chief Patakynum was then invited into the Fort, and to the others were given tobacco to smoke in the pipe of peace, for which they retired to one of the deserted lodges.
"We took the precaution of placing two armed men at the gate, Thibeault & Gohome with orders to let none of them in.
"I also took My gun and knocked about our Indians, who in fear of the enemy, were engaged in sweeping out the fort.
"I had just taken round them when I heard a shot.
"I repaired immediately to the gate & learned that it had been fired by Gohome in jest.
"I reproved him for his carelessness & told him to take good care.
"Soon after I arrived at the gate, four or five of the worst Snoqualmies came rushing to the gate, provoked no [doubt], by the shot unguardidly fired by Gohome, one of our number.
"Copass, more forward than the rest, rudely pushed Gohome who was standing between the door posts into the Fort and took his place.
"I went to him & demanded why he did that for, and told him to keep quiet, but on answering only with insult, I put him out, upon which he cocked his gun & drew his dagger making two or three threats at me with it.
"Wren was standing a piece off at the time by the gate, he was called in.
"I called out to close the gate which was done, but finding Wren shut out, it was again opened.
"Wren upon Entering, seized one of their guns where upon a scuffled ensued, and the gun falling between the door & the Fort, prevented us from closing, during that time I observed Copass pointing his gun at me.
"I at once presented mine, and as I thought fired first ....
(But it is maintained by the friendly Indians outside that, one of the Snoqualmie, "Qullawowt," provoked by a blow given by Wren, with the butt end of the gun, to one of their chiefs, fired at him but missing, my shot followed. Which is the right way I can't be positive, the noise & excitement being too great.) [edited slightly for readability]
"I thought I fired first ... but missing him wounded another, a good many shots then followed, the gate closed, we took to the bastions, but our people taking some time to get armed (the affair being rather sudden) by the time they were at the stations, most of the enemy were out of shot, running away full speed across the plains toward their canoes.
"Patakynum who was in the Fort at the commencement of the row escaped after the closing of the gate, unperceived by none of our people, young Lahalet showing him the way.
"Wallace & Lewis were unfortunately standing outside when the affray commenced, they did not respond to the call of: "All hands come in and shut the gate" they perhaps thought themselves secure from harm as they were Americans, they did not belong to the Fort, if this was the case they were sadly mistaken.
"They were also beckoned in by Simmons & others there at the time, but unfortunately they either unheeded or did not perceive them.
"Copass is said to be the one that shot poor Wallace.
"Lewis escaped unhurt most wonderfully, one ball went through his vest & trousers, another slightly grazed his left arm.
"Segeass an Indian received a flesh wound in the neck by the ball meant for Wren.
"A Medicine Man, a Skeywhamish is the one killed, and a Snoqualmie wounded in the shoulder.

"We do not suppose that the War party came here with the purpose of attacking us, but think they had some other objective in view besides the affair with Lahalet, it was probably their design to kick up a row with the Fort Indians and then kidnap as many of the women & children as they could catch, and one circumstance also proves that they thought lightly of quarreling with the whites.
"When the tobacco was handed out to them Qullawowt asked Wren, if it was not poisoned, and one of the Indians would smoke until Wren had previously smoked & chewed the tobacco in their presence.
"A good many yarns are told of them by the Indians here, what they were saying & going to do, but it will be to no purpose to mention any here, being only Indian stories more lies than truth.
"The Snoqualmie & Skeywhamish are the terror of all the tribes south of the Soquamish, and tribes of the Sound would rejoice to see the above chastised by the whites, and would nearly assist if required.
"We sincerely hope they will soon get that chastisement they so richly deserve."

This was written in 1849 -- only a year and a half after the massacre at Waiilatpu.
The word "poison" rings a bell that the fur traders should have noticed, and perhaps did.
For more information on the Waiilatpu Massacre, go to the first of three posts -- you will read the word "poison" fairly often here:
Sunday, July 8, 2012 -- Waillatpu Mission, Summer to Fall 1847
First of three posts re: Waillatpu Massacre

Saturday, July 21, 2012 -- The Waillatpu Massacre, November 19, 1847, and finally:
Sunday, August 5, 2012 -- Peter Skene Ogden's rescue of the Waillatpu victims.

These can be a hard read: it was a brutal massacre. If you think you can't handle the middle section, please don't read it.
You might think this did not affect Fort Nisqually -- but it did.
It affected everyone in the fur trade. Even at the Thompson River post, hundreds of miles to the north, the Natives were talking about "poison."
And maybe that should be the title of my next book......

Alexander Caulfield Anderson at Fort Nisqually

I was invited down to Anderson Island, the bottom island in Puget Sound, to give a talk in front of the Anderson Island Historical Society.
As you may or may not know, this island sits west of Fort Nisqually, and was named for Alexander Caulfield Anderson.
Of course I combined the trip with a side-trip to the reconstructed Fort Nisqually: my first visit there and hopefully, not my last.
The reconstructed fort sits far north of its old location opposite Anderson Island, and is now located in Point Defiance Park, Tacoma.

Nor will it be my last visit to Anderson Island; we were treated very well there (which I will say in the next paragraph when I tell you what I said there).
But I will have to tell you now what I meant by "the parking spot of shame."

We followed the instructions given us and drove straight through Steilacoom on a road that led us straight to Union Avenue and the Anderson Island ferry dock.
We had our tickets, so when we saw the ferry line ups up the hill from where we were, we took a quick U-turn and headed up the hill.
My sister was driving. She dodged into the end of the first line of stopped cars.
This was a mistake!
The line started off almost immediately, and we passed cars that were sitting in a second line and realized that we had, inadvertently, "jumped" the line.
The ferry staff knew it too, and they pulled us over and made us wait next to the dock, while everyone loaded onto the ferry.
We were the last car allowed on the ferry, and as we drove on, the car deck employees were having some trouble holding their laughter.
We were the last off the ferry, too.

On Saturday, the Anderson Island resident invited us to a lunch at the Chicken Coop, where I had three reserved spots at three different tables.
I ate my lunch at one table, and then was moved to another where I talked to a batch of Anderson Island Historical Society members and executives.
At the third table I talked to writers and more executives -- it was a great way to talk to everyone and to meet everyone and to ask a lot of questions and get a few questions answered.
Of course this is when I heard the many stories of line-jumping on the ferry dock -- we were certainly not the only persons who accidentally (or intentionally) jumped the line!

Anyway, my talk now follows.
It was written to be 3/4 long, and to do this I had to leave many stories out.
Those stories will appear in the next post, in a week or so.


I began with -- Good evening, everyone, and thank you for coming out tonight.
We (my sister and I) have been treated very well here -- for the most part.
We did, inadvertently, jump the ferry line on our way onto the island, and spent a little time in the "parking spot of shame." [everyone laughed, even if they hadn't heard the story].

I am now going to tell you about my great grandfather, Alexander Caulfield Anderson.
He was a Hudson's Bay Company fur trader and explorer. Today, in British Columbia at least, he is mostly remembered for the four explorations he made across the mountains that separated the fort at Kamloops, from Fort Langley on the lower Fraser River.

However, those explorations took place in 1846 and 1847 -- five years or more after he left the area around Anderson Island.
And while that is British Columbia's history, what happened the year following those explorations is your American history. It is all connected with what happened at Fort Nisqually, when A. C. Anderson was here in 1840 and 1841.

So let me tell you Anderson's story.
I will tell you first a little about his childhood in India and London, and how he came to join the fur trade in 1831.
I'll talk about what happened whilst he was in charge of Fort Nisqually ten years later, and how this island got to be named for him.

Alexander Anderson was born in India, on March 10, 1814. His father, Robert Anderson, had made a mess of his military career in Australia and Tasmania, and rebuilt his life in British India as an indigo planter. By 1810 he was part owner of an indigo plantation near Ruttanpur, north of Calcutta -- the plantation was named Kishinaghaur.
Robert's partner's name was Alexander Gordon Caulfield -- and that is how Robert's third son came to be named Alexander Caulfield Anderson.

Robert [Alexander's father] was the seventh child of a commoner, a tenant-farmer named James Anderson, and his noble wife, Margaret Seton of Mounie Castle, Aberdeenshire.
How James managed to entice this foolish woman, who came from a wealthy family, to marry him I do not know. But after their marriage, James selfishly forced Margaret to abandon her inheritance and home, and to bring up his children in brutal poverty near Edinburgh.
Margaret Anderson died after giving birth to numerous children, all of whom then grew up in the indifferent care of their father, James.

Like father, like son, and Robert [A.C. Anderson's father] was also a man who was difficult to get along with. After making a small fortune in the indigo business at Kishinaghaur, Robert argued with his partner and returned to England with his wife and three sons -- a fairly wealthy man.

I then showed a picture of Alexander Caulfield Anderson's mother (which I don't have permission to post here), and said: Her maiden name was Eliza Charlotte Simpson, and she was the daughter of a high ranking East India Company official. Her father managed the Salsette Mint, near Bombay, and probably minted the gold coin that the East India Company used in India.

Robert and Eliza Anderson came to England from India with their three sons in 1817, and set up their family home in West Ham, an area in East London then inhabited by the gentry. It was still quite a rural community at that time.
Alexander was only three years old when he arrived in London, and so he grew up in West Ham, and attended services at the West Ham Church. Some of his brothers and sisters, who did not survive their childhood, are buried there.

Just north of West Ham, on Broadway, stood Rokeby House College, where Alexander and his two older brothers, Henry, and James, were sent to be schooled.
The boys received what they then called "a liberal education" -- an education that meant they studied culture and read books written by intellectuals, old and new.
Their father's receipt for the last year of the children's schooling, which is in the British Columbia archives, shows that the three boys also took elocution and dancing lessons. They were being trained to be gentlemen, not fur traders.

But wealth that is easily earned is often easily lost, and in London Robert Anderson continued to pursue business interests of his own. He invested much of his fortune in a rope manufacturing company owned, apparently, by his brother, and proceeded to lose his money.
About 1821 -- only 4 years after he had returned to England -- a retired Army officer who had known him in Australia met Robert on the London streets, and wrote of their meeting to a common friend:
"I conclude you have not forgotten Robert Anderson that was at Norfolk Island and went from thence to India.... He made a handsome fortune, say a capital to produce six or seven hundred a year from trading in Indigo. With this property he returned to England & not being satisfied he entered partnerships with a ropemaker who soon failed, whereby he lost pretty much [all his fortune] and he is now drudging along in that line with scarcely business enough to keep his wife & family, consisting of five or six children. I see him frequently & he inquires after you."

So, as a direct result of his father's gradual (or sudden) impoverishment, young Alexander was forced to abandon his schooling and take a job. This did not happen immediately, but he must have been only thirteen or fourteen years old when he began to clerk at the Leadenhall Street offices of Redman & Co., who, I believe, traded English goods in China, for Oriental teas and silks.
Alexander clerked there for some two and a half years, by which time he was old enough to make a decision on his future.
Harry, the eldest boy, entered the maritime section of the East India Company and worked on one of their ships, the Eden. Eventually he would captain his own vessel.
Several of Alexander's cousins chose careers in the British Army or the Army of the Honorable East India Company. One became famous. A second was assassinated in India and the third drowned off South Africa.

Alexander and his older brother, James, chose the fur trade -- a fairly unusual choice for gentlemen like them, but a choice made because their uncle, Alexander Seton, was heavily involved in business with a prominent member of the Board of Directors of the Hudson's Bay Company.

Alexander himself noted that he was drawn to the fur trade because of the rousing stories of American writer James Fennimore Cooper -- who wrote, among other books, The Last of the Mohicans.

So in 1831, Alexander came west for adventure. He was sixteen or seventeen years old when he set out on his life's journey, travelling by ship to Montreal.
He spent a long and boring eight months at Lachine, nine miles west of the city, where he apprenticed under the auspices of the elderly fur trader, James Keith -- a humourless man who an earlier apprentice had described as resembling a "dried spider."

In spring of 1832, Alexander boarded the brigade boats in Lachine and began his six-months long journey across the continent to Fort Vancouver [Vancouver, WA], via York Factory on Hudson Bay.
He arrived at Fort Vancouver in November 1831. In a letter to his uncle, he described his journey west, and the fort itself:
"I arrived here on the 4th November, after a voyage from York Factory of 3 1/2 months -- partly on horseback -- in boats & in canoe...
"This fort is finely situated on the Columbia River, and the soil is very fertile... The River is huge & navigable for 100 miles from its mouth. Salmon are in immense quantity as well as the moose. I have killed only one Buffalo & one deer since I have been in this country and a great many ducks, geese, partridges, etc."

From Fort Vancouver, Anderson was sent north to Fort McLoughlin, on the northwest coast of today's British Columbia [Bella Bella, BC]. He went on to Stikine River, in Alaska, and Fort Simpson, just south of the Alaska Panhandle. In 1835 he ended up with Chief Factor Peter Skene Ogden, at Fort St. James and Fraser's Lake, in New Caledonia.

Peter Skene Ogden was a very easy man to work for; tolerant, joking, friendly, trusting, and a very good fur trader. It was a perfect relationship, because Ogden both mentored his clerk, Anderson, and allowed him his freedom -- but in doing so, he set him up for Anderson's future failure at Fort Nisqually.
I don't have a lot of information about Anderson's five years at Fraser's Lake, but he had his share of adventures there. In 1837 he married, and his wife was Betsy Birnie, daughter of the fur trader James Birnie, founder-to-be of the Washington state town of Cathlamet, on the Columbia River west of Fort Vancouver.

Anderson wrote: "In the spring of 1840... I accompanied the outgoing brigade commanded by Mr. [Peter Skene] Ogden to Fort Vancouver, and in the autumn of that year was appointed to the charge of Fort Nisqually, on Puget Sound."

I then showed a picture of Chief Factor John McLoughlin, the man in charge of the entire Columbia district, and Alexander Anderson's superior at the Cowlitz Farm (where he spent a few months) and at Fort Nisqually.
Unlike Peter Skene Ogden, who micromanaged nothing, McLoughlin controlled all aspects of his fur trade. In later years, Anderson politely described McLoughlin as a "man of great force of character, somewhat domineering and of strong opinions."
McLoughlin's letters of instruction were numerous and always terse. For example, this is one note he wrote to Anderson at Fort Nisqually:
"Your ewes you will not allow any of the rams at your place get at them. Please send me an account of the number of sheep at Nisqually and if it does not cause too much delay as diligence ought to be used to send Mr. Arthur across I wish you would count the cattle and send the number at least you can send the number in the books, and let me know if the quantity of what [is] in the ground and how many ploughs you have fit for use."
Whatever McLoughlin ordered done was done, without question, and no deviation from his instructions was allowed, unless there was a very good reason for it.
Of course, Anderson, who had matured in the relaxed and tolerant atmosphere of the New Caledonia fur trade under Peter Skene Ogden, ran into trouble with Chief Factor McLoughlin.
He received one or two dozen of McLoughlin's letters before he snapped, and wrote an angry response.

The letter Anderson wrote no longer exists!
But Chief Trader James Douglas read it, and rebuked Anderson for his hot-tempered response.
Douglas wrote: "I have read your letter to Dr. McLoughlin and do not approve of the warm expostulatory style, which I regret is neither proper nor respectful.
"It was never, my dear Sir, Dr. McLoughlin's intention to question the propriety of your general conduct -- he merely inquired as a matter of justice equally to himself and to you, why certain specific orders had not been followed to the letter, and I certainly think you would have acted a much wiser part, had your reply to a requisition so simple, been given in a more courteous way...
"We hear of trifling deviations from orders, now there can be no such things as a trifling deviation, for whether in trivialities or in grave matters, the principle in question is, in both bases, equally endangered and equally outraged...."

And so Anderson learned, the hard way, to obey all orders given to him, and think his time at Fort Nisqually was a difficult time for him.
I believe that when young Anderson arrived in the Columbia district he was pretty cocky; a confident young man with a very high opinion of himself.
He was about twenty seven years old -- in the youthful prime of his life and still young enough to imagine he would accomplish great things.
But life in the fur trade under Chief Factor John McLoughlin knocked that cockiness out of him, and he was a different man in later years.

So Anderson remained, unhappily, in charge of Fort Nisqually for the winter, and in the early spring, James Douglas addressed a second letter of advice, or of complaint, to him.
Douglas said: "I am informed that it has been said within the circle of Batchelor's Hall that you are unpopular with the Indians of Nisqually. Without reference to the truth of this rumour I wish to caution you against the exercise of any considerable severity towards the Natives.
"In assuming a new charge it has always been my study to act with the utmost circumspection, until I became fairly established in the opinion of the Indians.
"Then but never sooner, I would begin to lecture and reform abuses, having recourse, if necessary to the infliction of moderate punishment, but I always did so with apparent reluctance....."

James Douglas had hardly been successful in his own negotiations with the Natives while he was in New Caledonia.
In addition to this, Douglas had been situated at Fort Vancouver for many years now, and was probably unaware of what had been happening in distant New Caledonia, under Peter Skene Ogden.
Ogden, and the fur traders who worked under him, had forcibly shut down the old "debt system" which had existed in New Caledonia.
Under that system, the Natives had received guns and ammunition every fall, which they paid for in the spring when they brought in their furs.
But many Natives never brought in furs to pay down their debts, and so the fur traders forced the hunters to trade furs for guns and traps in the fall, and to make payment on their old debts every spring.

Of course, the Natives objected.
Anderson described the Dakelh at Fraser's Lake as "a peaceful race, yet ... subject to violent though transitory outbursts of passion." Probably he witnessed a few violent outbursts of anger over the four years it took to make such a major change to the fur trade.
The Dakehl hunters who traded at the Fraser's Lake post, and the T'silhquot'in that lived to the south, had earned a reputation for being difficult.
At this time, the T'silhquot'in, especially, caused so much trouble that Ogden ordered the temporary closure of the post that served them.

But that was in New Caledonia. Here in the Columbia district, and at Fort Nisqually, that debt system had never existed.
There was no need to be forceful with the Natives -- but I think that Anderson had to learn that, and it was a difficult transition for him to make.
He had arrived at Fort Nisqually when the man in charge [William Kittson] was too sick to train him.
He was an absolute stranger in this part of the world, and to these Natives, who were quite different from those in the north.
Yes, he made some errors. Many errors, in fact.

But Anderson was stuck at the first of the two Fort Nisquallys -- a place that has been described by people who knew its history well, as the "armpit" of the fur trade. No fur trader yet had advanced his career at this post.
Anderson must have considered the possibility that his fur trade career would take the same downhill tracks as others' had done, at this miserable and rotting fort.
But he continued his work at Nisqually.
And because he stayed at old Fort Nisqually, he became a part of a very important piece of history.

On May 11th, 1841, Alexander Anderson reported to the governor of the Company that "Nisqually Bay was enlivened by the arrival of the Vincennes and Porpoise, two of the vessels attached to the United States Exploring Expedition, under Lieutenant Charles Wilkes.
Their story is told in the book, Sea of Glory, by Nathaniel Philbrick [NY: Viking, 2003], and the red-coat that Wilkes describes is Alexander Caulfield Anderson.

In another book, titled Puget's Sound, author Murray Morgan describes the first meeting of Lieutenant Wilkes, leader of the expedition, and Alexander Anderson -- as you know, at this time Oregon Territory was jointly occupied by the British fur traders and the Americans, though there were few Americans here yet.

Morgan wrote: "For the first time, British and American officials faced each other on the water their countries coveted. Alexander Canfield Anderson, the slight, thoughtful chief trader at Nisqually, and Henry McNeill, the burly, short-tempered captain of the Beaver, introduced themselves to Wilkes. They promised the Americans "all the assistance in their power" or, Wilkes added skeptically in his journal, "at least that was their offer. A few days will show the extent of it."

You will notice that the above author incorrectly listed Anderson's name. Still, Morgan's research was good -- on his Donation Land Claim papers, taken out in the early 1850's, Anderson was listed as "Alexander Canfield Anderson."

According to one of Wilkes' expeditioners, the Fort Nisqually stockade was oblong-shaped 200 x 250 feet, of "upright posts eight to ten feet high, at each corner a Sentry Box or house large enough to hold fifteen or twenty persons, perforated with holes of sufficient size to admit the muzzle of a musket."
A second crewmember reported that: "the site was never chosen by an Engineer or wasn't calculated to stand a siege, as its inmates are compelled to go nearly a mile to get their water..." He noted, too, that the Stockade "was falling to decay and they are about to build another in a better site," further north and closer to the farm and dairy.
One of Wilkes' men also described Anderson at work, trading for furs:
"I found Mr. Anderson busily employed in trading for a few skins just brought in by the natives; though the value of the whole could have been only 10 or 15 dollars, much time was occupied and many pipes smoked before the bargain was concluded. I was informed that furs of all kinds were every year becoming more scarce and that the prices were also slightly increasing."


So, the hundreds of members of the United States Exploring Expedition arrived at run-down Fort Nisqually in May, 1841. They built a log house they called the "observatory" on a hill near the fort, and stored their instruments there.
In short order Lieutenant Wilkes organized surveying parties. The ships' boats set off to explore and survey the coastline, and in their coastal charting they named many of these islands and straits for the American sailors and scientists on the expedition.
Others they named for the fur traders at Fort Nisqually. McNeil Island was named for William Henry McNeill, Captain of the Beaver, while Anderson Island was named for Alexander Caulfield Anderson.

Did Anderson have any idea the island was named for him? I don't think he did.
I am not even aware that Anderson set foot on Anderson Island.
He never wrote about it and never included on any of his maps -- not even the 1858 Guide to the Goldfields.
I'm not sure the other fur traders ventured over to Anderson Island either; but I do know that when the fort was being constructed in the early 1830's, that they built their chimneys from clay that was obtained from the island.

Anyway, in May 1841, the first group of Americans had taken off in  their boats to chart the islands.
Two other groups would borrow horses from the Natives and explore the interior of the then Oregon Territory.
Wilkes himself took the easier of two explorations; he headed south to Fort Vancouver, where he met Chief Factor McLoughlin, and the governor of the Company who had just arrived there.
He also visited the Willamette Valley, where the few Americans who had already come west to Oregon had settled. The valley impressed him. The Americans did not.
He travelled to the mouth of the Columbia River and saw the waves that blocked its entrance. He realized then that the United States needed to claim Puget Sound as theirs, for its excellent navigation and safe waters.

The second exploring party arranged for horses and guides so they could cross the range of mountains east of Fort Nisqually (by Natches Pass) on their way to Yakima River and Fort Colvile.
By May 18th they were finally ready to hit the road -- history says they were the first white men to go over the pass, although their French-Canadian guide had probably been there before them.
Certainly they were the first Americans to travel this dreadful route to the interior, and they had a tough time. One expeditioner noted that: "A sailor on shore, is as a Fish out of Water."

While the Americans were away from Fort Nisqually on their various perambulations through the country, one of the American scientists on the ships described the Meteor shower that occurred above Puget Sound, on May 31st, 1841:
"At ten minutes past 8 o'clock pm, a meteor of immense magnitude and brilliancy shot across the havens in a north-west direction, illuminating the heavens to such an extent that there was a resemblance to a sheet of fire, till it nearly reached the horizon, when it exploded, sending off myriads of coruscations in every direction.
"When it first commenced its flight, it was exceedingly slow in its descent, but as it increased its distance towards the horizon, it increased its velocity considerably, until it burst. Many old seamen on board never witnessed a meteor half so large, nor one whose light remained so long visible. From the time it was first seen until it entirely disappeared, was one hour and twenty five minutes."

At the end of June, Lieutenant Wilkes and his men returned to Fort Nisqually. On July 5th, the American sailors celebrated the Fourth of July.
First they obtained an ox from Fort Nisqually, and barbecued it all night on a spit in the meadow where they planned to have their party.
Early the next morning, they fired their brass howitzers twenty six times -- one time for each state of the Union.
"The reports of the guns not only astonished the natives," one of the expeditioners remembered, "but waked up the red-coats in the fort, who came running up to the observatory with the Indians, nearly out of breath, to enquire the cause of the racket.
"We pointed to our country's flag, which was so proudly waving in the breeze over the observatory.
"They then called us a crew of crazy Americans."

At nine o'clock or so the American sailors, dressed in their whites, marched toward the old fort with fife and drum in lead, and gave the British fur traders a loud three cheers. The Brits cheered back, and the sailors were quite amused that there were only three or four men inside the fort to return their cheer.

They marched to the picnic ground [American Plains] near the missionary station, where everything was ready for their celebration.
The sailors raced across the prairie on horses borrowed from the Indians; others played football or cornerball and some danced on a door to the music of the fiddle. The Nisqually Natives, apparently confounded by the music that came from this tiny box with strings, examined the instrument carefully to figure out how it could make such a racket.
Speechmaking began in the early afternoon, when the sergeant of marines read the Declaration of Independence out loud.
Dinner was finally piped in at four, and Wilkes said: "All the officers present dined with me -- Mr. Anderson, Capt. McNeill & Dr. Richmond, Missionary. All seemed to enjoy themselves and I gave them as good chow as the Oregon Territory afforded."

Less than a week after that feast, Alexander Anderson accompanied Wilkes on a visit to the Shutes River, intending, Wilkes said, "to visit the Bute Prairies, for the purpose of examining them."
The Bute Prairies is now the Mounds Prairie -- or Mima Mounds, near Olympia.
They sent horses ahead to meet them at the bottom of the Sound, and took to the boats to row to the mouth of Deschutes Creek, at the bottom of West Bay.
"An early start on the 10th of June brought us to the falls by 11 o'clock," Wilkes reported. "The weather had become disagreeable with rain showers... This Arm is about 9 miles deep and the Shutes River falls with its head down a fall of some 65 feet in height. It is here about 10 feet wide and 2 feet deep, it forms a basin of 50 feet diameter at its foot from which the land rises and makes a cool pleasant retreat in summer."

Anderson and Wilkes continued on to the prairie with two men with shovels and pickaxes.
 "The path is an Indian trail & everywhere overgrown with alders &c from 12 to 15 feet high. Pitched our tents & made fires & then chose the Butes which we desired to open, 3 of which were dug into..."
Both Anderson and Wilkes were curious about these mounds, and tried to determine whether or not they were burial sites. As we know now, they are not [although no one really seems to know how these seven-foot tall mounds occurred].
"No kinds of articles, bones, or anything was found in them," Wilkes reported.
"The Indians have no tradition respecting them whatever..... Having finished our examination, I determined to return to my part at the falls, and accordingly parted with my friend, Mr. A., who intended to return to Fort Nisqually," with his employees.

But back at Fort Nisqually, trouble was brewing for Anderson.
At this time, Fort Nisqually was very cramped, with many farm and fur trade buildings crowded inside the palisades of the fort.
Both Anderson and Captain William Henry McNeill, and their families, lived in the same house -- at least when McNeill was on shore from his ship, the Beaver.
It can't have been pleasant, especially when it appears that the two men did not get along well.
The Captain was a burly man with a fierce temper -- a carrier of grudges, who reported on Anderson behind his back to Chief Factor John McLoughlin.

On June 5th, 1841, McNeill wrote that: "Very little fur makes its appearance at this place however I have seen some Beaver brought here and taken away again."
On August 4th, he reported: "On the 2nd ulto Mr. Anderson and Andrew [sic] St. Martin had a quarrel together. I did not ascertain at the time the real cause of the dispute but have since learned that it was about some order that st. Martin did not execute cheerfully or with dispatch. St. Martin came to me today and said he would not remain at the place....."

In early September, when the HBC governor, George Simpson, arrived at the fort on his whirlwind tour around the world, Captain McNeill complained directly to him.
As a result, Simpson wrote a note to McLoughlin, stating: "I learn from Captain McNeill that the Indians usually frequenting this place are in a very disaffected state, arising from Mr. Anderson's want of popularity, & as his recent conduct in reference to St. Martin has been exceedingly unpopular, both Mr. Douglas and myself, likewise Captain McNeill consider it advisable that a change of management should immediately take place."

Anderson was not at the fort at the time, and he would not return home for another month. He had gone across the Natches Pass to collect a herd of cattle that were being sent from Forts Nez Perces and Colvile, to Fort Nisqually.
I "crossed the Canada Range over the North West shoulder of Mt. Rainier by the Sanahamish (now known, I think, as the Natchess Pass)," he wrote.
I "followed an Indian trail, expending a good deal of labour in parts to render it passable for our return. Met the parties conducting the cattle low down on the Yakima River (on the Swanapum branch)."
I "left the great portion of the party to herd the cattle near the verge of the mountains so as to recruit [others to help]. Returned to Nisqually with one man to procure provisions and further assistance."
We "met the party, and returned with them bringing the cattle through to the Nisqually Plains with some loss by strays on the way, some of which, if not most of them, probably afterwards reached the same locality, following on the trail of the herd."

In October 1841, Anderson arrived at Fort Nisqually to find the letter that Simpson had written one month earlier. It read:
"For a variety of reasons which it may not be necessary to detail at present, I think a change of management here is likely to be advantageous in several points of view."
I don't know if Anderson was relieved, or worried.
He writes that, "In October I had orders to proceed to Vancouver."
He packed up his belongings and spent the winter at Fort Vancouver under John McLoughlin's disapproving eye.
In the Spring he took the York Factory express across the continent to Hudson Bay, and back to the Columbia.
It must have been a tough journey -- after he left York Factory, the bitchy, gossiping Chief Factor's wife wrote this of him:
"The gentlemen here are too apt to thrash and indeed point their guns at their men and Mr. Anderson, who came across from Vancouver last spring was so detested that they confessed that if he had fallen into the river not one would have held out a stick to him."

We don't really know what happened at Fort Nisqually, but the voyageurs he travelled with did know, and I think they gave him a very hard time.
On his return to the west side of the mountains, Anderson left the express at Fort Colvile (near Spokane) and rode north and west to take charge of Fort Alexandria, New Caledonia.

I think he had some hard lessons to learn at Fort Nisqually, but he learned them.
In the following years Donald Manson, at Fort St. James, dealt regularly with argumentative employees who tried to abandon the fur trade -- and often managed to do so. Anderson never had much problem with his employees.
While he was in charge of Fort Colvile his employees remained until their contracts were finished, even though the California gold rush was in full swing at the time.
So Anderson learned a lot at Fort Nisqually, and I believe his time there was pivotal -- at least in his personal history.
What happened here might have disappointed him. He may have felt as if he was a failure.
But what happened here changed him, and taught him to be a better man.

He did his most important work after he left Fort Nisqually.
I have already told you that in 1847 and 1847, Anderson made four important explorations across the mountains that separated Kamloops from Fort Langley, on the lower Fraser River.
What happened after he discovered his two possible brigade trails is important, and it is tied to the time when both Anderson and Wilkes were at Fort Nisqually.
On Lieutenant Wilkes' return to the east, he published a book called "Life in the Oregon Country before the Immigration."
This publication encouraged the Americans to come west, and they came by the thousands every year afterward.
In 1847 it appears they brought the measles with them.
The measles spread rapidly amongst the Natives on the Columbia River and killed thousands of them.
The hard-hit Cayuse tribe blamed the missionaries at the Waiilatpu Mission, near Walla Walla, for the many deaths in their villages.
They swarmed into the mission house and murdered the missionary, his wife and a dozen other Americans.

(For more on this massacre, see link at bottom of page. But read the rest first.)

The massacre set off a massive war that closed down the Columbia River to the fur traders and forced them to come out over one of Anderson's unfinished trails.
The first journey out was an unmitigated disaster -- the second year they tried the other trail Anderson had explored and the journey proved to be better.
By the third year Anderson's trail was proving its worth, by bringing the fur traders out to Fort Langley from Kamloops without many difficulties at all.

And so, you can see that Anderson was here, at Fort Nisqually, at a pivotal time in American history, when Lieutenant Charles Wilkes first saw the beautiful and sheltered waters of Puget Sound and decided to keep them in American hands.
Anderson left Fort Nisqually in time to mature enough to be the man the fur trader chose to explore for the new trails they thought they might need, when the boundary finally went through.
And in 1848, when the massacre of the Waiilatpu Missionaries and the resulting Indian wars closed down the Columbia River to the fur traders, Anderson's rough trails were already in place and available to them.
As miserable as he was at Fort Nisqually, he grew up enough to become the man the fur trade depended on.
And so, Fort Nisqually, and Lieutenant Charles Wilkes' visit, is a very important part of Alexander Caulfield Anderson's story.

For more on the Waillatpu Massacre, see THREE posts beginning with: "Waiilatpu Mission, Summer to Fall 1847 [July 8, 2012]
1st of Waiilatpu Mission posts