session of the Pioneer Society in San Francisco; others, with other property, were sold to Captain Sutter on the departure of the company, and the remainder were included in Seward's recent purchase of the Czar's possessions in North America. Perkins, Lamb & Co., and Lyman & Co., of Boston, were the principal parties in fitting out vessels for the early traffic on the northwest coast. The expedition of Lewis and Clark, under the direction of President Jefferson, to explore the Columbia, which left the Atlantic side in 1804, arrived at the Columbia, November 15, 1805; and in March, 1806, started on their homeward march, to report to their government the result of their expedition. During the years 1806-9, ten vessels, fitted out from Boston by the enterprising firms of Thomas Lyman, Perkins, Lamb & Co., and Lyman & Co., entered the Columbia; and, in 1810, the Albatross, from Boston, Captain T. Winship, entered the Columbia. The captain located a post, and planted a garden, at Oak Point, on the Columbia. This was the first settlement made in Oregon. In this year a new stimulus was given to the commercial interests of the Pacific coast. John Jacob Astor, of New York, in connection with Wilson P. Hunt, of New Jersey, and others, organized the Pacific Fur Company. In September, 1810, the ship Tonquin, with the stores, officers, employés, &c., of this company, sailed from New York, and arrived at the Columbia on the 24th of March, 1811, and established themselves on the southern bank near the mouth, which they named, after the founder of the company, Astoria. Astor and Hunt admitted into the company Messrs. McDougal, McKay, and Robert and David Stewart, who, at the head of eleven clerks, thirteen Canadian voyagers, and five mechanics, entered upon a most lively and profitable fur-trade. A garden was planted, started by planting twelve potatoes, (all they had,) and an American settlement was commenced. On the 5th of May, 1812, the ship Beaver, twenty guns, Captain Sowls, by way of the Sandwich islands, with additional supplies, and having on board Mr. Clark, six clerks, and twenty-six Kanakas, arrived to join Astor's company on the Columbia. News of American occupation of Oregon reaching the British authorities and the members of the Northwest Fur Company, (a company established by charter of Louis XIII, of France, in Acadia, Nova Scotia, in 1630, and whose existence and legality were acknowledged by the British government on the transfer of Acadia to England by the treaty of Utrecht, in 1714) they became alarmed at the encroachments of Americans in such close proximity to the northern British American boundary, then undefined and uncertain. This fur company despatched from Canada Mr. David Thompson, as their agent, to the Columbia river, where he arrived July 15, 1813, and located at Astoria. His object was to supplant Astor and his American interests, and obtain possession of the country and its fur trade. Messrs. Hunt, McKenzie, McClellan, and Crooks, members of the Pacific Fur Company, with sixty men, had left the Atlantic States, crossed the country, and, after great peril and the loss of many of their comrades, arrived at Astoria, January 28, 1812. In August, 1812, Mr. Hunt, on board the Beaver, made a voyage to the Russian settlements of Alaska for the purpose of trade; thence to the Sandwich islands, from whence he despatched his ship to China, and remained at the Sandwich islands until June, 1813, when the Albatross, on her way from Canton, brought him the news of the war between Great Britain and the United States, and that the company's ship Beaver was at Canton, blockaded by an English war-ship. Mr. Hunt, on board the Albatross, sailed at once for the Columbia river, where he arrived August 4, 1813. Here he found things changed: his resident partners at Astoria, who managed the business in the interior, were British subjects, and were desirous to sell the rights of the company to the Northwest Fur Company. Hunt, on the Albatross, soon departed for the Sandwich islands. At Washington islands he met the United States frigate Essex, Commodore Porter, from whom he learned that the British intended to seize all the American property on the Pacific. At the Sandwich islands he chartered the brig Pedler and started back to Astoria, where he arrived in February, 1814, only to learn that immediately after his departure from Astoria, in August, 1813, Mr. McTavish, an agent of the Northwest Fur Company, with a number of employés, had arrived at Astoria, and that his partners had, on the 16th of October, 1813, sold out the American Pacific Fur Company to the Northwest Fur Company, and had themselves joined that company and thrown all their influence into it. Thus, by the duplicity of the British subjects in the Astor company, and without the knowledge or consent of its founder and head, they turned over to the Northwest Fur Company, at a nominal sum, that prosperous concern, which in so short a time (two years) had laid the foundation of American settlement on the Pacific coast, and the princely fortune of its projector. The British, in possession of the fur company and Astoria, changed its name to their patron saint, and called it Fort George. On December 1, following, the British sloop-of-war Raccoon, Captain Black, arrived at Astoria, and landed a troop of British soldiers. Black took formal possession of the place, lowered the American flag, and placed in its stead the cross of St. George; and thus Oregon was in possession of the British, which they formally held until the 6th of October, 1818, when, by order of the Prince Regent of England to the North American Fur Company, under date of January 27, 1818, to deliver the territory to the American government, it was restored by the following article: "We, the undersigned, do, in conformity to the first article of the treaty of Ghent, restore to the government of the United States, through its agent, J. P. Provost, Esq., the settlement of Fort George, on the Columbia river. "Given under our hands in triplicate, at Fort George, (Columbia river,) this 6th day of October, 1818. "F. HICKEY, Captain H. M. Ship Blossom. "J. KEITH, of the N. W. Co." On the restoration of the territory, the stars and stripes once more floated over Oregon. In 1821, the North American Fur Company and the Hudson Bay Company consolidated, under the name of the Hudson Bay Company, in which capacity they continued in Oregon and Washington Territory until a very recent period. On the disbandment of the Pacific Fur Company, (Astor's,) a number of the employés of the company embarked in trading and independent trapping, some of whom found their way to California. Astor, however, |