DnJohn McLoucjhrnT-—
Interior of Tort Hall, 1649
r
• The Invitation to the President
* f* ■ '
Exterior of Fort Hallyl&49
By ELMO SCOTT WATSON
' ^L’GUST 5, 1834. In a lush, upland
meadow. In what Is now the
state of Idaho, stands a little
stockaded fort, Us walls of
freshly-peeled cottonwood logs
gleaming white In the early
morning sunshine. Inside the
fort a motley crowd of men Is
gathered around a tall flagstaff.
Hunters and trappers, whose
greasy, smoke-begrimed buck
skins tell of a hundred camp
fires In the great West, rub
elbows with men whose garb bespeak the EasL
In the murmur of talk the nasal twang of the
Down East Yankee rises sharply above the
gruffer tones of the frontiersmen.
Apart from the others stand two young fellows
destined for future fame as men of science. One
is Thomas Nuttall (or Nuthall), a botanist fresh
from Harvard college, and the other Is J. K.
Townsend of Philadelphia, physician and orni
thologist As they talk to a third man, scarcely
older than themselves, their deferential manner
toward him stamps him as the leader of this
varied company. And he Is, for this Is "Capt."
Nathaniel J. Wyeth, founder of the “Columbia
River Fishing and Trading company," a young
Boston business man, but already a veteran of
westward travel.
Now Wyeth steps forward to the foot of the
flagstaff. In ills hand he holds a folded flag. He
attaches lttto»the halyard and as It rises to the
peak the retiring of muskets and the popping of
pistols mingle with the whining crack of long
rifles. As the banner ripples out In the sun
shine In the red, white and blue glory of the
Stars and Stripes a mighty shout goes up from
the assembled company.
Thus was another wilderness outpost estab
lished and, although this shouting throng may
not realize It now, the curtain has been rung
up on another act in the epic drama which is~
to be called “The Winning of the West."
Two months later Wyeth Is to write to an
uncle back East, saying: “I have built a- fort on
the Snake River, which I have named Fort Hall
from the oldest gentleman la the concern, Mr.
Henry Hall. We manufactured a magnificent flag
from some unbleached sheeting, a little red flan
nel and a few blue patches, saluted It with dam
aged powder and wet It In villainous alcohol;
and after all. I assure you. It makes a very
respectable appearance amid the dry and deso
late regions of central America. Its bastions
stand a terror to the skulking Indian and a
beacon of safety to the fugitive hunter. It Is
manned by 12 men and has constantly “loaded
In the bastions 100 guns and rifles. These bas
tions command both the Inside and outside of
the fort. After building this fort I sent messen
gers to the neighboring nations to Induce them
to come to trade."
August 5, 1934. The modern city of Pocatello,
Idaho, la In gala array. Crowds surge through
Its streets. Flags are (lying. Bands are blaring.
There ire parades, floats, pageants, speeches.
For today Is tlie beginning of the four-day cele
bration of the event which took place just a
hundred years ago—the founding of the post
that was "decreed by fate to be a Centrifugal
point of trade, commerce and recuperation.” Such
Is the characterization of this post by Jennie
Broughton Brown, whose splendid “Fort Hall on
the Oregon Trail” was published two years ago
by the Caxton Printers, Ltd,, of Caldwell, Idaho.
In the years that followed Fort Hall was a bea
con of safety not only to "the fugitive hunter"
but to many a weary emigrant over the Oregon
Trail which ran beneath Its walls; It was a
port of call for nearly every wayfarer—trapper,
trader, missionary, explorer, guide and army of
ficer—whose name looms large In the early his
tory of the West; It was to have a stirring part
In the later stagecoach and freighting days; and
It was a center of activity In more than one
Indian war when the red man was making his
last desperate stand' against the white man.
• •••••••
The founder of Fort Hall was Nathaniel J.
Wyeth. Born In Cambridge, Mass,, January 29,
1802, of distinguished ancestry (his mother was
a relative of John Hancock), Wyeth was Intended
for Harvard college of which both his father
and oldest brother were graduates. But he was
impatient to begin a business career and de
clined to go to college.
By the time he was thirty years old he had
made a modest success In his home community,
managing a farm and engaging In the Ice trade
which brought In an annual Income of some
$1,200. Then, Influenced by the writings of Hall
J. Kelley, founder of the “Oregon Colonization
Society,” Wyeth determined to organize a trad
ing company to exploit the rich natural resources
of the Columbia river region In the Pacific
Northwest His plan was to lead an overland
expedition to the Oregon country and establish
trading posts which were to be supplied by ships
that were to sail around Cape Horn to the head
« of navigation on the Columbia and from there
to bring back the furs and salmon collected at
the posts.
On March 11, 1832, ^the expedition set out.
But, although they were lucky at Independence,
Mo., to fall In with Milton Sublette of the Itocky
Mountain Fur company, who was leading a party
of trappers and traders Into the mountains,
misfortune dogged the footsteps of the eastern
“tenderfeet.” First some of Wyeth’s men grew
faint-hearted and turned back. Then they were
attacked by the fierce Blackfeet Indians and lost
three men killed and eight badly wounded.
Eventually Wyeth and the remnants of his party
reached the Columbia In a destitute condition,
But they were kindly received by Dr. John Mc
Laughlin, chief factor of the Columbia river dis
trict for the Hudson's Bay company at Fort
Vancouver, and there began a lasting friendship
between McLoughlln and Wyeth, even though
the Yankee adventurer was a potential business
rival of the -H. B. C. factor.
At Vancouver came the crowding blow to
Wyeth’* misfortunes. He learned that the ship
which was bringing his supplies around Cape
Horn had been shipwrecked and all of his goods
lost. Nothing remained for him to do but to
release his men from their contract and return
home to recoup his lost fortunes. Some of his
men remained in the Oregon country and these
“remnants of Wyeth’s first expedition became
part of the nucleus around which later Oregon
immigrants clustered.” So from the historical
point of view the expedition was not an utter
loss.
Accompanied by two men Wyeth set out for
the East in the spring of 1833 and by November
3 of that year he was home again after an
absence of 19 months, having “made the first
continuous land Journey on record from Boston
to the mouth of the Columbia." It is a tribute
to both the integrity of the man and the force
of his personality that despite his failure he was
able to Interest his friends in a second expedi
tion. Within 12 days after his return to Massa
chusetts he had organized the “Columbia Klver
Fishing and Trading Company," had secured
money from New York and Boston business men
and chartered another ship for the Journey
around Cnpe Horn.
On Ills return trip east he had again come Into
contact with representatives of the Itocky Moun
tain Fur company, this time in the persons of
Milton Sublette and Thomas Fitzpatrick, and
had obtained from them the contract for supply
ing the merchandise to be used In their trading
operations. So he purchased about 13,000 pounds
of goods to fill this contract, part of it In east
ern markets and, shipping It down the Ohio,
secured the remainder in St. Louis. Again he
prepared to start from Independence. There he
was Joined by the two young scientists, Nuttall
and Townsend, who were also Oregon-bound.
But a more important contingent of thls party
was a group of five men, whose presence is
accounted for by Mrs. Brown as follows: "When
Wyeth had returned to Boston the preceding
year, he was accompanied by two Indian lads,
one about eighteen years of age, a kind of serv
ant of all work, and a half-breed boy of thirteen,
the son of a Hudson's bay trader and a Flathead
beauty. Their presence In the East, and also the
visit of a party of Indians to St. Louis in search
of ‘a Book, the Guide to Heaven,’ had aroused
great zeal in missionary circles. Partly as a
result of these visits, a small party of Methodist
missionaries was In Wyeth’s company for safe
conduct on their way to the Oregon Indians.
Their leader was Jason Lee, described by Town
send as a 'tall, powerful man, capable of han
dling men In a wild country.’ With him was his
nephew, Daniel Lee, and three lay brethren,
P. L. Edwards, Cyrus Shephard and C. M. Walk
er, all of whom proved to be good travelers and
excellent companions on a long tedious trip.”
The Journey across the plains was compara
tively uneventful . His destination was a place
on the Snake river in the country claimed by
the Shoshonl or Snake Indians. En route there
his party was Joined by Thomas McKay, a Hud
son's Bay man, wbo was hunting in that region
with a band of Canadians and Indians and wbo
traveled along with him until he reached the site
which he picked out for his fort.
It was a natural meadow of rich bottom land,
enclosed by a sharp bend of the Snake river on
two aides and by a stough forming a protection
on the third. Arrlvlng^there on July 14, Wyeth
lost no time In getting to work on the fort
According to Townsend, part of the men began
felling trees, collecting drift logs and making
corrals for their horses while the rest were sent
out to hunt for meat Osborne Kussell, a young
ster from Maine who accompanied the party as
a trapper, records In his Journal that “On the
18th we commenced the actual construction of
the fort, which was a stockade eighty feet
square, built of cotton wood trees set on end,
sunk two and one-lialf feet In the ground and
standing about fifteen feet above with two bas
tions eight -feet square at the opposite angles.”
When the hunters returned on Saturday, July
26, they found the stockade virtually completed
and the men working on the houses Inside. The
next day Wyeth Invited Jason Lee, the leader of
the missionaries, to preach to the men and at
two o’clock that afternoon the whole party as
sembled In the shade of a cottonwood grove to
listen to the first sermon ever delivered within
the boundaries of the state of Idaho.
On July 30 McKay decided to leave for Port
Vancouver and Lee and his followers. In order to
reach their new fields of missionary labors the
sooner, Joined them.
After the completion of the fort on August 4
and the flag-raising ceremony the next day,
Wyeth and his men commenced packing on Au
gust 6 to push on to the Columbia, leaving Fort
Hall In charge of a Mr. Evans who kept with him
“11 men, 14 horses and mules and three cows."
Thus began the history of this famous fort
As for the later fortunes of the leader and
others who had played a part In Its building:
Wyeth continued on to Walla Walla where there
was a happy reunion with his friend, Jason Lee.
He reached Vancouver on September 14 and was
again courteously received by Doctor McLough
lln. On the lower end of Wapatoo Island, later
called Sauve Island, he built another post which
he called Fort William. But during the next two
or three years, although he forked tirelessly,
the competition of the Hudson's Bay company
under the management of his friend, Doctor Mc
Loughlln, was too strong for him to overcome.
So his enterprise for which he had had such
high hopes ended In failure., In 1837 Fort Hall
was sold to the Hudson’s Bay compnny and Fort
William was left In charge of C. M. Walker with
Instructions to “lease It to some trusty person
for 15 years.” Then Wyeth returned to his home
town of Cambridge to attempt to retrieve his
lost fortunes by going Into the Ice business again.
In 1844 Jason Lee also went back to his home
town, Stanstead, In eastern Canada, and there he
died the next year. But his fame, as the pioneer
missionary of Oregon and the founder of a school
which later became Willamette university was
already secure. In 1857 Doctor McLoughlln died,
poverty-stricken and broken-hearted, a “Man
Without a Country." For the Hudson’s Bay com
pany had removed him from his position be
cause he had not exerted himself to discourage
American settlement in the Oregon country and
his efforts to become an American citizen were
thwarted by Americans who remembered only
that he had once been an employee of a British
company and who forgot how he had befriended
their fellow-countrymen when they were In dire
need.
In contrast to this sad ending to the man who
was once the “Emperor of the West,’’ It Is pleas
ant to record that when death had come to
Nathaniel J. Wyeth the previous year It had
found him once more a prosperous man of affairs,
even though a century was to pass before his
name would be widely honored In connection with
the celebration of the fort which he founded—
Fort Hall on the Oregon Trail.
<0 by Wei tern Newipnper Union.
Scenes and Persons in the Current News
I—Premier Uoerlng of Prussia entertaining Queen Itainbai Burn! or Slam at a banquet in Berlin just ariei
the "bloody purge" of the Nnel party. 2—Alesajder Troyanovsky, Russian ambassador to the United States,
>n a visit to A Century of Progress In Chicago. 8—Scene In Jacksonville, I1L. after s destructive tornado
had hit that city. ____
Where Grand Coulee Dam Will Be Built
General view of the Columbia river basin near Almira. Wash., showing the site of the projected Grand
Coulee dam. The plans call for a dam 251 feet high and a power plant with eight generating units and sn
Installed capacity of 700,000 horsepower. The PWA has allotted about *00.000,000 for the project._
ON Allf tOftfMISSION
C
Edward 1*. Warner, who has been
ippolnted by President Roosevelt
an the new presidential commission
an air policy, Is editor of the Mc
Uraw-Hill publication Aviation, the
ildest American aeronautical maga
zine. Mr. Warner became the first
appointee to a “baby cabinet” posi
tion especially concerned with aero
nautics when he was first appoint
ed assistant secretary of the navy
for aviation by President Coolldge
In 192a He was Inter appointed a
member of the national advisory
committee for aeronautics by Presi
dent Hoover.
TO CLEAN ST. PAUL
Alexander a. Jniuie, former bend
of Chicago’s erlme-flghting agency,
the “secret six,” who has been ap
pointed chief of police of St. Paul,
Minn., with orders to give the city
a thorough cleaning.
* Memorial to the Negro War Dead
Members of the Daughters of War Veterans unveiling in t'airmount
park, Philadelphia, the beautiful monument erected In memory of the
American negroes who died In the World war.
Uncle Sam Gets a New Destroyer
Looking down from the highest rafters of .the Philadelphia navy yard
upon the destroyer Aylwln Just before It was launched. The new sea
lighter was christened 4»y Betty Farley, eleven-year-old daughter of tbs
postmnster general.