Sounds and Scents of History

September 4, 2017November 30, 2022Janet Fisher4 Comments

Photo by Robin Loznak

Big booms ricocheted across the smoky air this weekend as Elkton, Oregon, celebrated the annual Fort Umpqua Days event near the reconstructed Hudson’s Bay Company fort along the Umpqua River, and Robin caught one of the cannon blasts with his camera. Historians tell us the Native Americans used to keep the brush down with fires every fall, so maybe that smoky air is historic too.

Folks enjoyed another successful event despite some heat and smoke. Locals and visitors gathered over the Labor Day weekend to explore the area’s historic past and have a good time, while vendors offered food and wine, crafts and books and more for sale. In the evening Cathy Byle directed the pageant of historic vignettes–a little longer on fun than fact.

A Hudson’s Bay Company man by the name of Mark stopped by my booth Sunday where I was selling my books that focus on this period of history.

He bought a copy of The Shifting Winds, which has scenes set at Fort Vancouver, the HBC headquarters north of the Columbia River–where Vancouver, Washington, stands today.

Fort Umpqua was the southernmost HBC outpost in those days. Both forts were reconstructed with great attention to accuracy of detail.

So you can visit and get a real sense of the history, stepping right back in time. Folks like Mark enjoy dressing the part, and it’s not unusual to see a few mountain men wandering through.

Smoke from surrounding fires clouded the skies the first day and actually kept us a little cooler than expected. But Sunday afternoon a much thicker haze moved in, along with a sweltering heat. By the time I got home it was in the upper 90s and I couldn’t even see the higher mountains across the river.

The smoky fall days may be historic, but I’ll be glad when a good rain comes to clear the air.

I snapped the above photo off my back deck when I got home Sunday. The photo below shows the missing mountains on a clear day–just so you know they’re there.

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My Talk at Eugene Library Coming Up June 10th

June 2, 2017November 30, 2022Janet Fisher

I’m delighted to be speaking about my books at the Eugene Public Library Saturday, June 10, at 2 pm. For folks in the neighborhood I hope you’ll jot it on your calendar and stop by.

It’s a beautiful facility, as shown above, located at 100 West 10th Avenue in downtown Eugene.

During my talk I’ll present a slide show with photos related to my books, illustrating events and scenes to help bring the stories to life. I’ll delve into some of my personal history that led to publication of my first book, A Place of Her Own, and the door that milestone opened to a second book, The Shifting Winds. Both are Oregon Trail stories. A Place of Her Own is the true story of my great-great-grandmother Martha who came west over the trail and dared purchase a farm on her own after she lost her husband.

Not an easy matter for a woman in those days. I grew up on that farm, the Martha A. Maupin Century Farm, and have now returned, so her story touches me on a deep personal level. The book reads like a novel, with interludes describing my search for her, and I’ll talk a little about that search.

The slide show will include old photos like the one of Martha’s daughter who I imagine looks like Martha.

And photos like the one of my book reading in Missouri when my daughter and granddaughter and I backtracked Martha’s footsteps over the Oregon Trail and received a surprising Missouri welcome at the other end.

Publication of Martha’s story led to The Shifting Winds, which I wrote some years before about the same era, a novel with fictional characters who walk through a lot of true history of those early American settlers in the Oregon country.

I’ll discuss how the research for that book helped inform Martha’s story and how research has changed dramatically with the advent of the internet–and how it hasn’t.

Photos related to Shifting Winds include one taken on the reconstructed site of the British Hudson’s Bay Company Fort Vancouver, where a number of scenes take place. During my reading and signing event at the fort, photographer Robin Loznak looks down the barrel of an HBC big gun in front of the commander’s house, while I stand by in the white hat listening to our tour guide, Dr. Robert Cromwell, Chief Ranger and Archeologist.

Not to worry. The guns were spiked, like the originals.

I’ll do some short readings from both books to provide a bit of flavor. After my presentation the session will be open to Q & A so people can ask what they really want to know about the stories or about the writing process or whatever else comes to mind. I always love the interaction of Q & A so really look forward to that. Afterward books will be available to sell and sign.

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Fort Umpqua Post Script

September 11, 2016September 11, 2016Janet Fisher2 Comments

So, what if history got it wrong?

After last week’s rollicking Fort Umpqua Days celebration, I take a long look at our sturdy reconstructed fort on the Umpqua River in Elkton, Oregon, and I recall a question from one of the customers who came by my book-selling booth during the event.

“Is Fort Umpqua in your books?”

I had to say no, but it might have been–if I could have reconciled sources.

Muddied waters

My issue arose from the date Fort Umpqua fell. History has an answer, but it seems a little murky to me.

For starters I’d like to quote Stephen Dow Beckham in his Land of the Umpqua, a fine presentation of local history published in 1986. On this subject of Fort Umpqua’s demise he writes on page 58:

The fort burned on November 15, 1851, while the commander or chief trader, Johnson E. King was at Fort Vancouver. King had just brought in his annual load of furs and was ready to leave with fresh supplies for the Umpqua when word of the disaster came by letter. The company kept up three more years of trade in southwestern Oregon, presumably working out of an outbuilding at the site; then it terminated operations. [My bold.]

Beckham sources his statement with a letter in the HBC archives written December 20, 1851, by a John Ballenden to Archibald Barclay. Ballenden was an HBC officer briefly posted at Fort Vancouver to help wrap up Company affairs there after the boundary settlement that gave the United States the land. Barclay was an HBC Secretary in London.

But what if history got this wrong?

My experience in researching these early periods has shown me that history can be difficult to pin down. Even contemporary accounts don’t always agree.

That word presumably in the above quote gives me pause. Did assumptions lead to wrong conclusions?

A couple of things have come together to make me question this.

What did Martha know?

I have access to an account that disagrees with accepted history. It comes from Florence McNabb, the granddaughter of Martha Maupin, whose story I tell in A Place of Her Own. Florence wrote a 75-page manuscript of Maupin family history which I used extensively in writing Martha’s story. But I didn’t use one of Florence’s vignettes because it disagreed with history. To give a timeframe for this, Martha and Garrett moved from Lane County to Douglas County in December 1864 and rented a cabin on the Henderer place near Elkton until sometime after Garrett’s death in 1866, well after the supposed demise of Fort Umpqua.

Yet Florence writes:

It was while they were still on the Henderer place that there was an Indian scare and all of the families were told to come to the Umpqua Fort. The fort was built on the banks of the river in the summer of 1836 and was the early trading post of the Hudson Bay Co. It was well built with logs standing on end to form a stockade with several log cabins inside. Originally the land owned by the Hudson Bay Co. comprised 640 acres and several dozens of stock. . . .

On this occasion the families remained in the stockade and the well-armed men went to their respective homes to tend to their livestock. The Indians never did attack but they could be seen early in the mornings and again in the evenings. . . .

After about a week, shut up with children and short tempered mothers, they decided to return to their own homes, coming back to the fort to spend the night. . . . One lady remarked that she would rather fight Indians than to spend another night with that bunch.

“This was told to me by my mother,” Florence wrote, “who had heard it from Martha Maupin.” Yes, Martha.

Now, that could have made an interesting scene in my book, but I didn’t want to go against history.

British habits

A new thought began to stir, arising out of my own recent research into the history of Fort Vancouver, the British Hudson’s Bay Company headquarters of the Fort Umpqua outpost. Prior to my presentation at Fort Vancouver this summer of my new book The Shifting Winds I went back into the two huge volumes that describe research the preservation team did in order to reconstruct an authentic replica of this British headquarters.

I was amazed at the continual construction going on during the years the British maintained Fort Vancouver. The first Fort Vancouver was built in 1824-1825 on the hill above the Columbia river bottom. When the British changed their minds about that location in 1829, they just picked it up and moved it a few miles closer to the river. When that new fortress proved to be too small they just moved the walls over, added to them, and doubled the size.

When the first home of the commander began to crumble due to decaying roof and walls, they tore it down and built a new one in a better spot within the walls.

This is the commander’s house, the Big House—no small cabin to be thrown up in a few afternoons.

And the interior was exquisite.

Other buildings were routinely torn down and replaced. And those picket walls kept moving—a little bit here, a little bit there.

It seems the British Hudson’s Bay Company men would rebuild at the drop of a tall beaver hat.

Why not Fort Umpqua?

So if tiny Fort Umpqua burned down and the Hudson’s Bay Company still had business to conduct on the site, why wouldn’t they follow custom and rebuild that? Ballenden’s letter to Barclay, the author Beckham’s source above, was written a month after the fire and would not reflect Company decisions afterward. My family’s story (told by Martha herself, no less, although received secondhand) suggests a fort still stood when they sought refuge sometime between 1864 and 1866.

Accepted history also tells us that the historic 1861 flood took away the burnt remains of Fort Umpqua, leaving nothing. Is this fact or conjecture? Is it possible that a more substantial fort stood against those flood waters, one that the Hudson’s Bay Company had rebuilt and maintained after the 1851 fire? Up north, when the British finally left their Fort Vancouver headquarters to the Americans, the walls and buildings disintegrated in this wet, rainy land without continual maintenance. We have photos and reports to substantiate that. Was this the more likely end to Fort Umpqua also, as new American owners no longer needed this former British outpost?

Unraveling the story threads

Small tidbits of information—notes in letters and journals—often guided the team that reconstructed the elaborate Fort Vancouver headquarters. If I had believed in Florence’s tidbit, I could have brought the Fort Umpqua outpost into my story and had one more tense scene for Martha. And I could have smiled and told my customer, “Yes, yes, it’s in this one.”

Just saying.

Beckham, Stephen Dow. Land of the Umpqua: A History of Douglas County, Oregon. Roseburg, OR: Douglas County Commissioners, 1986.
McNabb, Florence Maupin. The Maupin Family. Undated, unpublished manuscript.

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Reviving Fort Umpqua

September 2, 2016September 2, 2016Janet Fisher

Tomorrow the people of Elkton will bring the old Fort Umpqua back to life with a flourish in their annual Fort Umpqua Days celebration. Folks from around the state and beyond will join in the fun, whether history buffs, reenactors, the simply curious, or those just looking for a good time or a good buy. Welcome to the party.

Activities in the palisade walls will run from 10 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon on both Saturday and Sunday, September 3 and 4. While things are happening down at the fort, a lively market behind the ECEC library will offer crafts, books, and other items for sale. I’ll be there both days with my books set in the fur trade and pioneer era, and my friend Lynn Ash will join me with her books Saturday.

Something new this year: The second building reconstructed at the fort, shown above, now has furnishings displaying living quarters where the Hudson’s Bay Company men lived. The rustic but comfy interior gives an idea of the kinds of gear they had–the typical Hudson’s Bay Company blanket, animal-skin rug, moccasins.

The simple table setting illustrates the difference between the simplicity of life here in the southernmost outpost of the Company and the finery back at headquarters.

No Spode china here, like that enjoyed by the senior officers at Fort Vancouver.

This project in Elkton has been a work in progress for several years, and as I mentioned in a previous post or two the reconstructed fort found its home a little downriver from the original.

When history buffs, modern mountain men, academics, and reenactors began contemplating the project, they discovered that the original site was not available. So this location down the hill from the Elkton Community Education Center was offered as an alternative.

If you drive south from Elkton on Highway 138 you’ll see a historical marker on your right which points out the original location of the fort across the river. The setting has many similarities, and the new site was selected.

After the palisade walls went up, volunteers constructed the first building, the Company store and storehouse. Come inside and you’ll find the treasure that brought the British Hudson’s Bay Company into the region.

The beaver pelt.

There’s a touching table where you can stroke your fingers over the furs and feel how soft they are.

The sad news for the beaver was that his soft inner fur could be made into exquisite felt for the popular hats of the day.

That made the pelts extremely valuable and trappers combed the creeks of the wilderness to find them. Competition grew fierce between the British traders and the American mountain men, and rumors of war stirred as Britain and the United States shared the Oregon Country while London and Washington tried to come to terms on a boundary.

Trappers, both white and Native American, could trade their furs for goods here in the Company store. Or today you can ask a knowledgeable young helper your questions about the history of the fort and the fur trade. Tomorrow and Sunday they’ll be dressed for the part in period costume, adding to your sense of stepping back in time.

Following the activities at the fort and market each day, the traditional historic pageant will be performed at the amphitheater, both nights. That’s always fun too as we play with history. I have the pleasure of serving on the writing team for that. Others did the lion’s share this time, but I had fun doing my little bit.

For more information on daily activities see the Fort Umpqua Days website.

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Fort Umpqua Farming

August 29, 2016August 29, 2016Janet Fisher

Visitors to the fort during Fort Umpqua Days this coming weekend will be drawn back in history through several activities for children that commemorate the fort’s importance as a historic agricultural site. These children will water the garden, make cornhusk dolls, grind corn, and sort beans from the fort’s gardens of heritage vegetables. And they’ll make apple cider from fruit out of the fort’s heritage orchard.

As usual they’ll have plenty of 1800s games to play. And after they try samples of tasty food that workers at the original fort might have eaten, they can lead their parents out to take a look at the large gardens and orchards surrounding the reconstructed fort.

My books, The Shifting Winds and A Place of Her Own, tap into this same era, so the celebration has special meaning for me. I won’t get down to the fort during the day between 10 am and 5 pm because I’ll be up near the butterfly pavilion selling books in my booth, offering my own look at these intriguing times. On Saturday my writer friend Lynn Ash will join me to sell her travel memoirs, The Route from Cultus Lake and Vagabonda, describing her own pioneer spirit as she goes camping solo around the country.

Like the Fort Vancouver headquarters for the Hudson’s Bay Company fur trade operation in the West, Fort Umpqua was a trading post, not a military fort, although both forts had tall picketed walls for protection. And the people who worked there had to sustain themselves in this wilderness.

The Oregon Country in the 1800s lay far from suppliers in eastern North America and Britain, so the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Dr. John McLoughlin, Chief Factor of this western region, placed self sufficiency high in the order of business. He chose a broad plain north of the Columbia River for the Company headquarters site of Fort Vancouver because he needed a fertile place to grow food to feed employees.

So it’s not strange that when he proposed a site for an outpost in the Umpqua region he wanted a place that could grow orchards and gardens for food.

Company trappers in the Umpqua had been using a couple of temporary sites, and in 1832 McLoughlin assigned the French Canadian Jean Baptiste Gagnier to supply those. But McLoughlin sought a more permanent outpost. Gagnier selected a site, but McLoughlin, wanting a second opinion, sent his son-in-law William Glen Rae down to be sure the place had enough suitable land for growing vegetables.

Gagnier had in fact found a lovely open meadow with the fine treelined Umpqua River on one side and scattered oaks and swaths of fir forest crowning the hills on the other. The rich bottomland soil would grow fine vegetables and fruits from orchards and possibly vineyards.

Rae proceeded with the fort, dubbed Fort Umpqua, and the Company maintained this post for fifteen years, from its construction in 1836 until 1854, their southernmost outpost in the entire Oregon Country.

Once the United States acquired the area after the 1846 boundary settlement with Britain, the British cut back on business south of the new border, but they kept a trader at the site until 1854. The fort burned in 1851, but they stayed on, working out of some kind of structure for three more years. By that time the meadow thrived as an agricultural center.

Of course, all this happened a short distance upriver from the Fort Umpqua structures and plantings you see today. More on that in my next blog post. But that small factoid does nothing to dampen the enthusiasm of the annual Fort Umpqua Days at ECEC, happening this next Saturday and Sunday, September 3 and 4.

Beckham, Stephen Dow. Land of the Umpqua: A History of Douglas County, Oregon. Roseburg, OR: Douglas County Commissioners, 1986.

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HBC Outpost Ready for Celebration

August 21, 2016December 6, 2022Janet Fisher2 Comments

Nestled on the bank of Oregon’s Umpqua River, this replica of the British Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Umpqua will come to life in a couple of weeks for the annual Fort Umpqua Days celebration at Elkton. The event will run all day Saturday and Sunday, September 3 and 4, and I’ll have a booth there to sell my books.

Just last month I stepped into the historic past of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s western headquarters at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River, touring the commander’s house, among other structures there. So I see this Umpqua outpost with new perspective.

I’ve attended Fort Umpqua Days celebrations every year since I returned to the family farm near Elkton in 2009, joined the writing team for the event’s pageants, and had a booth the last two years there to sell my first book A Place of Her Own. Still, I feel a difference this year after my event at Fort Vancouver in July where I presented my new book The Shifting Winds, which has many scenes at that HBC headquarters.

Before the Fort Vancouver event I wrote a series of posts for this blog called “The TRUE Shifting Winds,” giving an overview of history leading to the days of my book and the fort’s part in it. Fort Umpqua doesn’t appear in the story, but for me the enhanced sense of Hudson’s Bay Company history wraps Fort Umpqua into the fold.

Dr. John McLoughlin, shown in this daguerreotype, commanded the efforts of the British HBC fur trading empire in the Oregon Country. Photo courtesy of National Park Service.

McLoughlin had been at Fort Vancouver only a year or so when he decided to push south through the Umpqua basin with brigades of trappers. Those expeditions into the southern region became annual events–and rather colorful.

Author John A. Hussey quotes Editor Alice Bay Maloney in describing them:

At the head of the brigade rode the leader, a chief trader [or clerk] of the Hudson’s Bay Company, astride a strong limbed Nez Perce horse and armed to the teeth with the best weapons of the day. Directly behind him rode his Indian wife gaily attired in the finest London broadcloth, with a wide-brimmed, feather-trimmed hat atop her wealth of long, shining black hair…. All the men were clad in deerskin….

Hussey adds a description of the brigade by an unnamed priest who wasn’t quite as impressed: “‘The brigade,’ he wrote, ‘is a hideous assemblage of persons of both sexes, devoid of principles and morals,’ and possessed of ‘revolting exteriors.'”

In any case it was during one of these expeditions that members of the brigade selected a site on the Umpqua River they thought would be a good outpost for trade with the local tribes. McLoughlin, concerned about competition from American trappers, wanted to clear the area of beaver and establish a strong foothold.

The Hudson’s Bay Company built Fort Umpqua in 1836, and it served the Company well for more than a decade, even after the boundary settlement between Britain and the United States gave the land to the U.S. in 1846. The photo below shows the interior of the reconstructed Fort Umpqua with the HBC flag flying again.

In the next two weeks I’ll write a few more posts about the Hudson’s Bay Company trade in the Oregon Country and about the reconstruction of their southern outpost as the Fort Umpqua Days celebration nears.

Hussey, John A. Champoeg: Place of Transition. Portland, OR: Oregon Historical Society, 1967.
Maloney, Alice Bay (ed.). Fur Brigade to the Bonaventura, John Works California Expedition, 1832-1833 … San Francisco, CA, 1945.

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Book Event Explores a Living Past

July 18, 2016November 30, 2022Janet Fisher2 Comments

Story and tangible history came together when the Friends of Fort Vancouver and the National Park Service hosted me for a book event at the remarkable re-creation of the historic Hudson’s Bay Company trading post, Fort Vancouver.

The event highlighted the actual reconstructed fort with a tour led by Dr. Robert Cromwell, Chief Ranger and Archaeologist, speaking behind the big gun here. Two large cannons stand in front of the elegant Big House, home of the fort’s commander in the days of my book, The Shifting Winds. During the tour I offered a few words on certain scenes from the book which took place at the fort in 1842 and 1843. I’m in the white hat. Photo by Robin Loznak.

The tour brought us into the fort’s living history, and Dr. Cromwell was great. I love this place that makes the past live. I feel a deep connection because my first visit here years ago inspired me to write The Shifting Winds, and making the past live is what I try to do with my historical novels.

Dr. Cromwell talked about the impression the house would have made on its 19th century visitors, such a grand structure with its expensive white paint and the big guns facing the front gate, although he noted the guns were spiked so couldn’t fire.

Nevertheless, the effect was no doubt intended to show the power of this British fur trading company that essentially ruled over Oregon at the time of my story.

On this July day the lush grapevines draped over the Big House veranda and bright flowers bloomed in front. On my previous visit in March the canes were bare, and there was no sign of flowers. Now huge clusters of grapes hang from these vines.You can also see part of the arbor in the top photo.

Photos taken of the original Big House in 1860 let researchers know that grapevines twined around metal trellises on the veranda that extends across the entire front of the house.

The thumbnail shows the house during my March visit before the greenery leafed out. Quite a change, and probably effective for the south-facing house. In winter when they needed more light the leafless vines let the sun come in, but in summer the leaves provided cooling shade.

Our tour proceeded inside the house so the group could see additional settings of the story and learn more about the fort. Then we moved on to the Indian Trade Store and the Fur Store warehouse to get an idea of the real purpose of this fort. The Hudson’s Bay Company officers and employees may have appreciated the protection of the picketed stockade, but the fort never served as a military post for them. The Company came for the furs, particularly beaver, purely a business venture. But it could be a cutthroat business as they competed against the Americans, who also held an interest in the territory.

The tour ended up at the New Office, above, the closest thing to the setting where my character Alan Radford would have worked. The clerk Alan lived and worked in the Old Office, which hasn’t been reconstructed yet. While Dr. Cromwell looked on, I talked about the scene where Alan invites protagonist Jennie to see his workplace during the Christmas Ball at the fort. Through a bit of byplay between these characters, I slip a little information into the story that gives the reader an idea how the fort functioned and how very isolated they were in this wilderness. Photo by Robin Loznak.

My lecture at the Visitor Center featured photos related to the story, this one showing Fort Hall, another reconstructed fort that became a landmark on the Oregon Trail. My thanks to Ranger and Guide Emily Orvis for setting up the AV tech equipment so it all rolled smoothly, and thanks to my son-in-law Robin Loznak for handling the individual photos while I talked. This shot of me was taken by Benjamin Capps with my camera.

After my talk, Mary Rose, Executive Director of the Friends of Fort Vancouver, surprised me with a bag of thoughtful gifts, from a lovely turtle pin that memorializes the Native American label for the fort area as the “place of the mud turtles,” to Jacobsen sea salt from Oregon’s cold waters at Netarts Bay, to a Russian nesting doll acknowledging Vancouver’s many Russian immigrants, a little stuffed beaver representing the target of the 19th century fur traders, and a 100th anniversary pin commemorating the 100-year birthday of the National Park Service that maintains the site. What a delightful gesture! Photo by Benjamin Capps.

I arrived early, well before planned activities, which worked out. Tourists were stopping by and several bought my books, even some that hadn’t come for the event, and they were pleased to get personalized signed copies. My thanks to Sales Assistant Madya Panfilio for her enthusiasm in recommending my work. Official signing came after the lecture. Photo at left by Robin Loznak.

Mary Rose also asked me to sign additional books, which are available in the Visitor Center Bookstore.

Mary was the one who arranged my presentation at Fort Vancouver. When she learned about my book The Shifting Winds, she immediately became interested. She read the book, appreciated the accuracy and the story, and discussions led to Saturday’s presentation.

Many thanks to Mary for organizing such a wonderful event. She and the staff at the Visitor Center and the fort did a terrific job. Thanks to them all.

As my grandson Alex said, “They rolled out the red carpet for you, Grandma.” Yes, they did.

Everyone made it a wonderful day and I am most grateful.

COMMENT

The TRUE Shifting Winds ~ 6: Making the Past Live

July 14, 2016December 1, 2022Janet Fisher1 Comment

My presentation in the Visitor Center at Fort Vancouver is just two days away, Saturday, July 16, and with this post I will close out the “TRUE Shifting Winds” series. The event starts at 2 pm, when I’ll give a talk while showing photos related to my book and the fort. I’ll do a couple of short readings from the book, selected from scenes at the fort, and after some Q&A, sign books.

The Visitor Center bookstore will have copies of The Shifting Winds for sale, and also my first book, A Place of Her Own, the story of my own great-great grandmother who came west over the Oregon Trail.

Following the signing I’ll invite attendees to go down to the fort where I’ll lead a tour of places that appear in The Shifting Winds, accompanied by Mary Rose, Executive Director of the Friends of Fort Vancouver. There’s a small fee to get into this National Park Service site, or if you have your own pass, that will work too. If you’re in the vicinity I hope you’ll join us for this walk into the past.

A Reconstructed Fort

Making the past live. Isn’t that what historical novelists do? Make the past live? We try. So we have something in common with those who worked so hard to bring structures and their contents back to life at Fort Vancouver. Even staff members put on the garb and help draw visitors back to an earlier time. And the rangers tell the old stories, like bards.

We historical novelists tell the old stories through the eyes of our fictional and sometimes historic characters. For my part I’ll refer you to my book, The Shifting Winds, with its scenes in the Big House shown above, the Old Office, and the Bachelor’s Quarters, as well as the fort grounds and the dark orchard behind the stockade on a cold night.

Here in my post I offer photos taken on my recent visit to the fort—for illustration—with a little text and tidbits of history to enliven them.

The Big House

The preservation team didn’t have blueprints for the house. They knew what the outside looked like from pictures, but for the inside their only clues were snippets of descriptions and comparisons with managers’ houses at other HBC forts, plus the remains found by archeologists–footings, the base of the chimney, evidence of a cellar.

The cellar probably held the oft mentioned wine and spirits served in the Mess Hall.

Gentlemen of the fort ate in the dining room in the Big House, generally called the Mess Hall, making this the center of business as well as social life. Everyone welcomed the arrival of visitors who brought news from other places, breaking the monotony of this isolated post. Many guests–distinguished and not–enjoyed the fine fare, even including soft loaf bread from the fort bakery, along with vegetables from the gardens, game from the hills, fish from the river, and eventually beef when herds grew large enough.

The well-stocked kitchen stood behind the house, connected by a passageway but separate for fire safety. Gentlemen maintained careful military etiquette as to rank, although Chief Factor McLoughlin could use his discretion to make allowances for some, especially Americans, whose rank might be obscure.

The officers of the fort offered the finest hospitality to keep visitors there as long as possible, although some of the gentlemen in the Bachelor’s Quarters, or even the office, might have to give up their rooms to house the guests.

The McLoughlin sitting room, shown above, would be the place where Mrs. McLoughlin took her meals, sometimes with family and friends. Female guests with some status stayed in the Big House, like protagonist Jennie in my story, and she would have eaten her meals here with Mrs. McLoughlin. Only if the doctor missed mealtime in the Mess Hall might he join them. Update: The reconstructed house also has a small dining room for the women on the east side, which would have provided another option for them, but they would not eat in the Mess Hall with the men. That was strictly a male sanctuary.

Most of the women, like Marguerite McLoughlin were at least half Native American. Her mother was Cree. The women wore European dress, but with moccasins and deerskin leggings for riding gentleman fashion, that is, astride.

People who saw the McLoughlin’s together often commented on the fondness they showed for each other, although some had trouble accepting fur trade marriages. One man made such a fuss, McLoughlin struck him with his gold-headed cane, later apologizing for his outburst. Soon afterward McLoughlin insisted on a civil marriage, and when he later returned to his Catholic faith, the couple was married again in a Catholic ceremony–by then thoroughly wed.

Johnson in his book John McLoughlin comments: “The deference that Mr. McLoughlin showed to his wife in public was the envy of all American wives, who lost no time in citing him to their husbands as an example worthy of emulation.”

McLoughlin’s second-in-command, James Douglas, lived in the other half of the Big House for a time. The rich red of this room is based on a later detailed study conducted to determine the actual colors of rooms at the fort.

Researchers perused books on the subject, visited other forts and inspected bits of painted wood and brick dug up by archeologists on the individual building sites.

In their 2003 report they explain that this red was found on the east side of the building.

Historians believe the east half was the side where the Douglas family lived, so the Douglas sitting room was painted red, a color gaining new popularity at the time.

Beige painted scraps were found on the opposite side, leading to the painting of the McLoughlin sitting room beige, a more conservative color, perhaps reflecting the doctor’s preference. The most common color found was green toward the back of the house, and that was interpreted as an appropriate color for the Mess Hall, the largest room on the main floor. Chair rails were common with the top sometimes painted the same as the bottom, sometimes not. Ceilings were usually white.

Bedrooms tended to be in soft, pale colors.

Dr. McLoughlin’s personal office, shown above, could be accessed from the McLoughlin sitting room, continuing the same rug design and wall color. His office can also be accessed from the main entryway of the house, on your left as you step in the door. A steep staircase rises directly ahead of the front door.

Some question arose as to the location of the ballroom cited in a number of writings of the time. One remarked: “had a ball in evening upstairs.” Could that have been the Mess Hall, up the long curving outdoor staircase to the veranda? Or would it be upstairs in the ample space between the main floor and the structure’s high roof? The Mess Hall could be the location of parties. Or perhaps a large hall in the long Bachelor’s Quarters.

Hussey in his report seems to lean toward the second story, despite the apparent lack of windows, and I happily adopted the site for the Christmas Ball. Unfortunately that room isn’t open to the public. Still, I had no trouble imagining it. Who needs much description of a vast room when you have candlelight and violin music and swirling dancers in grand ball gowns and dress coats and sparkling eyes?

The Bachelor’s Quarters

This long structure hasn’t been reconstructed yet, so I’ll let my character Jake give you a word picture for that from the pages of The Shifting Winds:

Jake glanced around the stark little room a Company officer had been compelled to give up for him. Company gentlemen might dress well, but they didn’t live so well. A small bed, a simple chest of drawers, a tiny table with a box for a chair, one trunk. That was it for furnishings. A few mementos hung on the walls—tomahawks, feathers, carvings, a couple of paintings.

Like most of the fort buildings, the Bachelor’s Quarters were constructed in the Canadian post-on-sill fashion with sills of heavy, square-sawn timbers lying horizontally between upright grooved posts. Not a bit of paint on the unlined walls. But they did have glass windows.

He peered through the glass at the Big House where they were holding tonight’s party.

The Office

As noted in my last post, only the New Office has been reconstructed, although the Old Office may yet be built because it still stood on the fort grounds in 1845, even after they completed the new. The clerks couldn’t move into the new one because the captain of a visiting ship had taken up residence there.

Fort Vancouver New Office seen from Big House

The New Office can be seen now from the veranda of the Big House, but another building would have partially blocked the view.

The office was the domain of my character, the handsome clerk Alan Radford. I have a scene there when he invites protagonist Jennie to see where he works, offering her a glimpse of his life. He might have worked at a desk like the one, below, part of the furnishings in the reconstructed New Office. Another brief word picture from The Shifting Winds:

“So,” Alan said with a sweeping gesture to embrace the room, “my quarters, my place of work, and the hub of business at Fort Vancouver. What do you think?”

Caught up in his enthusiasm, she laughed. “It looks very . . . businesslike.”

Stark, but neat and orderly, the room had only two tall desks surrounded with several tall stools, the desks piled with books and ledgers and paper tidily stacked, ink bottles and rulers and pens beside them. . . .

Alan took her arm and led her to one of the desks. Laying a hand on the desktop, he gave her a warm smile. “My desk. I spend a lot of time here.”

He lifted a large black book and handed it to her. “Journals. We have to keep daily journals of everything that happens around here—what the men are doing, what the weather is like, who comes and goes.” He raised his brows, eyes alight. “You yourself will be in here, my dear. . . . You know, we almost have to see into the future here when we make our indents.”

“What are indents?”

“Our requests for supplies. The whole process takes so long that—well . . . here it is the end of 1842, and the lists we make now are for the year 1846.”

“Really? Why?”

His eyes smiled, and he swept one arm wide, his voice suddenly charged with drama. “It pleases me you want hear of my travails, m’lady.”

She laughed at his pretense and went along with it. “Kind sir, I want to know everything about you.”

“Ooh. That’s rich. Are you quite sure, m’lady, that you want to know it all?”

More Glimpses of the Past

From the front door of the Big House you can look out on the working Blacksmith Shop at left and the well-stocked Indian Trade Store, straight ahead. And you can visit the Blacksmith Shop and Trade Store (shown below).

As noted in the previous post the Indian Trade Store was moved to this location sometime after my story. At the time of my story it was located across the grounds to the west. Update: Or maybe not. During the Saturday tour with Dr. Bob Cromwell, Chief Ranger and Archeologist, Dr. Cromwell said that the Indian Trade Store had already moved to this new location by the time of my story. Hussey puts the changeover as “sometime between July 1841 and December 1844.” With my story landing right in the middle I had interpreted the location to be as it was in 1841. The reconstruction, set at 1845, could easily locate it for their purposes.

The Fur Store, shown above, stands on that spot today. Update: The Fur Store may have already been in this location at the time of my story (see above).

These are some of the places we’ll see on Saturday when we tour the post, getting a glimpse into a past where people from my book walked, while stepping on ground where a historic character from the book actually trod, the fascinating Dr. John McLoughlin. And so through the creation of story and re-creation of this wonderful fort we endeavor to make the past live.

Thank you for joining me here. If you can, I hope you’ll join me at the fort.

Sources:

Fisher, Janet. The Shifting Winds. Guilford, CT, Helena, MT: TwoDot, Globe Pequot Press, Rowman & Littlefield, 2016.
Hussey, John A. Historical Structures Report Historical Data, Vol. I and II. Denver Service Center, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1972, 1976.
Johnson, Robert C. John McLoughlin: “Father of Oregon.” Portland, OR: Binfords & Mort, 1958.
Langford, Theresa, Scott Langford, and David K. Hansen. Paint at Fort Vancouver National Historic Site: Historical and Archaeological References for Interpretation and Reconstruction. Vancouver, WA: Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, 2003.

COMMENT

The TRUE Shifting Winds ~ 5: Digging Up the Past

July 12, 2016December 1, 2022Janet Fisher

I first visited Fort Vancouver some years ago to research a short segment for one of my early attempts at an Oregon Trail novel, and the place put me right back in time. I was so inspired by the authentic reproduction of this historic fort I knew I had to write another book with more scenes set there. That became The Shifting Winds, which I’m honored to be presenting at the fort this Saturday, July 16, at 2 pm.

In this post I want to talk about how this wonderful reconstruction came to be.

Archaeology and Record Keepers

The British Hudson’s Bay Company chose a location on the north bank of the Columbia River for their western headquarters in the Oregon Country because they felt optimistic about Britain holding land on that side of the river once London and Washington agreed on a boundary between the two nations. But in 1824 when Dr. John McLoughlin and his boss Governor George Simpson selected the site, enough uncertainty hung over the region that they didn’t want to make a huge investment.

Also unsure of the friendliness of the local tribes, they erected the first palisade walls about a mile inland, creating a simple fur trading post on a bluff about a mile from the river with bastions on at least two corners, ready to defend themselves against attack.

Several events came together to change their perspective. First, the joint occupancy treaty of 1818 between the British and the United States was extended indefinitely in 1827. The Native Americans proved to be agreeable traders, and the distance from the river proved to be a bloody nuisance.

So in 1828 they pulled up stakes, literally, and moved the whole thing a mile closer to the river to the spot where the reconstructed fort lies today.

Christened in 1829, the new fort would serve the Company for many years. But it didn’t remain static. It kept changing over time like a living, breathing organism that sloughs off old skin while growing new. The fort walls kept moving. The fort doubled in size by 1836. Apparently the officers found their space too small.

They would expand again, moving the south wall farther out—and the east wall—again.

Buildings changed. The first Big House in the original west half began to sag until someone described its condition as so dilapidated it was ready to fall down around them. They rebuilt a new Big House in the east half where you can see it reconstructed today.

So why the reconstruction? Why did the original disappear? And why the constant change?

In short, wood rots—especially in a place where rain soaks the land for more than half the year. And little critters move in to feed on wood fiber.

Constant maintenance was required, and sometimes they just tore down buildings and constructed new. They continually replaced rotting pickets in the stockade and repaired leaky roofs. When the British finally lost the land on which the fort stood—as you must know they did—the Hudson’s Bay Company was allowed to stay on for a while, but they soon began moving the bulk of their business to Fort Victoria. London and Washington had finally agreed on a border in 1846, drawing the line along the 49th parallel, well north of Fort Vancouver, although giving the British Victoria along with the entirety of Vancouver Island.

By 1860 the Company abandoned the fort and the United States Army assumed control. But they found most of the buildings unsuitable for their purposes and in dilapidated condition. In a few years rot and fire destroyed what was left.

Yet some historians didn’t forget. In the 1940s the National Park Service began exploring the possibility of reconstruction. If they were going to do it they wanted to do it right. On my first visit to the reconstructed fort in the 1980s a curator there loaned me these two large volumes of a “Historic Structures Report” by John A. Hussey and the historic preservation team.

The volumes described the detailed research that went into this re-creation, a wealth of information. When I called about returning the volumes, the curator told me that if I continued to find them useful I should keep them because they had plenty of copies. What a boon to my research!

Now of course the report is online, offering a glimpse of the magnitude of the project. But I have spent many hours poring over the printed books.

As early as 1947 National Park Service archeologists dug into the soil to find footings of buildings and remains of those moving walls at their various locations. They found tools, pottery, even Spode china on the site of the Big House–something in blue on white, perhaps to match these on display in the Big House dining hall, or Mess Hall, like the one shown here. Meanwhile, researchers looked into records. The Hudson’s Bay Company, still a functioning business in the UK, generously opened their remarkable archives for this study.

The British had kept detailed records.

Researchers were also given access to similar HBC posts, now in Canada, and those were studied and photographed for comparison. The Company tended to follow similar plans from one fort to another, so those helped in decisions about the finer points.

Books written in the day offered observations of the fort. Libraries across the United States and Canada held useful tidbits. Many fort visitors wrote about their impressions, sometimes drawing detailed sketches and maps. These were often dated and helped show the constant rearrangements going on over the fort’s life. Researchers scrutinized maps, drawings, every descriptive statement they could find. Much of that went into this report, along with bits of story that add flavor.

The above lithograph was based on a water color by Henry J. Warre painted during his 1845 visit. My thanks to Meagan Huff, assistant curator at the fort, for sending me this copy from the National Park Service collection. She pointed out a change the artists in London made to Warre’s original.

Warre’s original gives us these characters.

Did Warre depict shepherds? Or voyageurs? Perhaps wanting the image more colorful the London artists replaced the original figures in the foreground with Native Americans, but in Plains tribe dress, not realizing that these tribes did not frequent the area.

Because the fort changed so much from year to year, the preservation team needed to pick a date, and they decided to reconstruct to the year 1845. That’s close to the date of my novel, which has scenes at the fort in 1842 and 1843. So as I read the report I had to make careful distinctions between the 1845 fort I saw and the 1842 fort I would describe

For instance, in one scene Dr. McLoughlin and my fictional clerk Alan walk across the grounds from the Big House to the Indian Trade Store in the western courtyard. Today you’ll find that store on the east side, almost straight across from the Big House, a short walk. But in 1842 that store was over in the western side where the Fur Store stands today. A longer stroll.

Perhaps the most conspicuous difference would be the bastion you can see in Warre’s 1845 image above. There was no bastion in 1842, so you won’t find reference to a bastion in the book. But I have shown it in blog and Facebook posts because it looks so fort-like. Fort Vancouver was more trading post and supply depot than fortress. Caution required walls but not big guns.

The bastion went up in 1844, not because of danger, but because of protocol.

Hussey relays the story in the report. A ship sailed up the Columbia in 1844 and offered a 7-gun salute. But the fort couldn’t answer the salute because they had no cannons mounted for action.

Although they’d put up bastions on the old fort, they hadn’t bothered with a bastion in the new fort, things being so peaceful. But not to be able to answer a salute—well, that just wouldn’t do. So they built one.

Given the troublesome nature of some of the pesky Americans coming into the country it seemed a good idea anyway.

Another change was the New Office, built in 1845 to replace the Old Office. The Old Office was one of the oldest buildings of the fort, the first thing constructed, given its function so vital to the fort’s purpose. That Old Office still served the fort in 1845, because the new one offered temporary living quarters for a ship captain who stayed on for a while, adding excitement for the gentlemen with his many parties in the new structure. This New Office, or “Counting House” as it was sometimes called, has been reconstructed. The Old Office has not, although perhaps one day it will be. It stood close by its replacement at least until 1847 when the good captain departed. The old building with its dark exterior shows clearly in a water color sketch drawn in 1846 or 1847.

The fort required considerable bookkeeping. Clerks like my fictional Alan Radford generally entered service through apprenticeship, nearly all of them from Britain. Because of the many applicants, family connections helped. These clerks were usually well educated and knew some accounting beforehand. The Company wanted reliable, loyal clerks working in the office, men who would be discreet and keep Company business confidential. These accounting clerks held one of the better paid jobs for gentlemen at the fort.

I took particular interest in the office, given that Alan is a major player in my book. Other buildings of special interest to me were the Big House where Jennie stays during her visit for the Christmas Ball and where the ball takes place, and the Bachelor’s Quarters where American mountain man Jake Johnston stays, having joined the party for his own reasons. Accountants like Alan lived in the office, but most clerks lived in the Bachelor’s Quarters, a long building divided into multiple rooms or apartments. And when gentlemen came to visit, the clerks often got bumped to accommodate the visitors.

However, Alan appeared none too pleased when McLoughlin allowed Jake a room in the Bachelor’s Quarters. When Jennie asked Jake what was wrong with Alan, Jake grinned.

“Well,” he said, “it’s only gentlemen who are allowed to stay inside the fort, and I don’t think Radford considers me a gentleman.”

She wasn’t sure Jake was a gentleman either, but she was surprised at the rigidity.

The Bachelor’s Quarters have not been reconstructed yet either, but the report offers excellent detail.

Next: Making the Past Live

COMMENT

The TRUE Shifting Winds ~ 4: British Stronghold

July 10, 2016December 1, 2022Janet Fisher

So enters the venerable Dr. John McLoughlin onto our Oregon stage, just six years after the 1818 treaty which declared that the United States and Britain should jointly occupy the Oregon territory until they could stop bickering and agree on a line between them in that disputed land.

In this overview of history behind my story in the historical novel The Shifting Winds, we nudge ever closer to the volatile contention between these two nations that resonates through the book’s pages.

Dr. McLoughlin’s Oregon Reign

As mentioned in the last post, the Canadian North West Company, which had bought the US Fort Astoria, stayed on at the post despite terms of the 1814 Treaty of Ghent that ended the War of 1812. Due to the remoteness of this fort at the mouth of the Columbia River, negotiators didn’t know about the sale, and the fort came under terms that all property taken during the war be restored to the original possessor. The restoration became a murky point of history.

Whatever the case, when Dr. McLoughlin of the British Hudson’s Bay Company comes onstage, his company has assumed possession by default of Fort Astoria, now called Fort George by the British in honor of their king.

The British knew how to make an entry.

The daguerreotype shows McLoughlin when he’s a little older than the day he first arrived at Fort George, but he carried himself with this powerful presence throughout his career. Photo courtesy of the National Park Service.

McLoughlin arrived at Fort George in full color display in a line of brightly decorated canoes along with his boss, Deputy Governor of the HBC, George Simpson.

Author Johnson describes the scene in his book John McLoughlin. As the flotilla of canoes approached, a sentry at the fort fired a signal gun. From the flotilla a bugle answered, followed by a piper in full Highland dress playing a march of the clans, “‘Si Coma Leum Cradh Na Shee,’ (Peace if you will it, otherwise war).”

The fort responded with a seven-gun salute.

The piper played until the paddlers brought Simpson’s lead canoe to a stop. Then the bugler in McLoughlin’s canoe played a lively chanson. The canoes formed a line offshore, made a smart turn toward the receiving party, then moved as one toward the landing, where the men embarked and joined a procession with McLoughlin and Simpson in the lead.

Many old friends in the fur trade welcomed McLoughlin, a formidable figure in stark contrast to his superior officer, Simpson. McLoughlin was six foot four, well built, his hair almost white even then at the age of 40. His piercing gray-blue eyes could rivet on a person, his clean-shaven face readily turning florid with anger or excitement. Simpson was just over five feet and plump.

Back in 1803 at age 14 McLoughlin had become a medical student in Quebec and obtained a license to practice medicine and surgery when he was all of 19.

Author Johnson relays a story of uncertain merit about McLoughlin that may have changed the direction of his life. While working as a doctor in Quebec, McLoughlin is said to have been walking with a young lady through the muddy streets of that city on a fine spring day. They stepped onto a plank at an intersection to avoid the mud, and a drunken British officer forced the young lady off the plank into the muck. McLoughlin picked up the officer and tossed him into the street.

This insult on “his majesty’s uniform” could have subjected McLoughlin to prosecution, and he supposedly fled into upper Canada.

Whether this incident or something else drew McLoughlin away from Quebec, he found employment as a physician at Fort Williams, a North West Company trading post. McLoughlin soon discovered he had an aptitude for business, and by 1814 he became a partner in the company. Still, he would find his medical skills valuable more than once when he worked at posts with no other doctor.

Somewhere in there, he had a son through a liaison with a Native American woman, “observing the custom of the country,” Johnson writes, meaning the relationship like so many others in that time and place lacked the benefit of clergy, also called a “country marriage” or “fur trade marriage.” Evidently the mother died and McLoughlin took another wife in the custom of the country, Marguerite Wadin McKay, a woman who would follow him to Oregon and happily grow old with him.

Marguerite’s father was one of the original North West Company partners, her mother of Cree heritage. She had previously married Alexander McKay, a Canadian member of Astor’s team who was killed in an incident on Astor’s ship, the Tonquin. Given the dates of events, McKay had probably abandoned her by the time she married McLoughlin, but she had three children by McKay, including Tom McKay who would come to play a significant role in the history of the Oregon country. By the time McLoughlin left for Oregon he and Marguerite had four children together.

Fort George didn’t impress McLoughlin or Simpson as an adequate western headquarters for the Hudson’s Bay Company, a major problem being its location on the south side of the river. From word of London’s offers in boundary negotiations, they feared that everything south of the Columbia River would ultimately go to the Americans. McLoughlin also wanted to make his headquarters as self-sufficient as possible, so he needed fertile land to grow food.

Nancy Funk, wearing period clothing, takes care of a garden at the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site in Vancouver, Washington. (Troy Wayrynen/picturesbytroy). Photo courtesy of the National Park Service.

Going upstream, McLoughlin found a site on the north bank that offered all he had hoped for. A rich wide plain spread inland from the river. Here he could grow wheat and vegetables, fruit orchards and vineyards, and improve pasture for cattle. He ordered his men to start building a fort and dubbed it Fort Vancouver for the British navigator Captain George Vancouver who’d sent one of his ships up the Columbia shortly after the American Captain Robert Gray dipped into the estuary and named the river. McLoughlin was happy to note that the site of his new fort lay downriver from the highest ascent of the British ship. McLoughlin would soon have the original stockade moved closer to the river for convenience. And from that fort, which has been replicated on the same spot today, he ran the western fur trade empire for his Company, becoming de facto ruler of Oregon.

It might have seemed his land to hold, but not quite so. By treaty the United States held equal interest through joint occupancy. Their citizens just weren’t around much at the beginning.

Joint occupancy of the Oregon country formed a tenuous marriage of Britain and the United States. Both had sought to claim the land. By sea, their navigators explored the coast, with the American guy discovering and naming the Columbia, the British guy sailing farther upstream. By land, Lewis and Clark showed the way through the new US territory of Louisiana, while the Canadian Mackenzie marked a trail farther to the north. And when Astor ventured into the Columbia to start his fur enterprise, the Canadian Thompson trekked out to Fort Astoria to say hello and set up posts along his route, eventually acquiring Astor’s fort for his own North West Company.

Fighting fury between the two nations rose in the War of 1812 for a host of reasons, but Oregon was a prize both still sought. Negotiators for peace finally threw up their hands. It took a second treaty in 1818 to come up with a halfway measure, at which time negotiators told the squabbling nations they could both use the land until they made up and set a line between them. They were given ten years for that, but in the end it would take them almost thirty, and rumors of another war over the matter continued to stir.

This 1833 map roughly shows the extent of the Oregon territory in 1818. It includes all of today’s Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, with parts of Montana and Wyoming, and runs north into British Columbia.

For twenty years or so while the United States became attracted to other shiny objects closer to home, the powerful British Hudson’s Bay Company seemed bent on making Oregon their own private fur reserve under McLoughlin’s adept leadership.

By 1842 when my story opens, the Americans seemed finally to awaken to the desirability of adding the Oregon country to their own. American trappers began to settle in Oregon’s broad valleys around 1840 when the Rocky Mountain fur trade petered out. Missionaries had gone out to save the Indians in the 30s and reported on the richness of the land. Promoters called on the adventurous to strike out across the plains and take up some of that land virtually flowing with milk and honey. They played down the difficulty of the trail–most hadn’t a clue–as they extolled the wonders of the Promised Land at trail’s end.

Native Americans received little consideration. Disease had dramatically reduced their numbers, and the British under McLoughlin’s firm hand kept the peace. Trade with the local tribes was key to the business operation of the HBC.

As more Americans trickled into the area, tensions rose. American farmers and lawyers and storekeepers came with their families, intending to settle and stay. Settlement hadn’t been encouraged by the British during the early days of joint occupancy, but they did eventually encourage settlement north of the Columbia as a counterbalance. Up until that time few white women came to Fort Vancouver. British and French-Canadian men found their wives among the surrounding tribes, or brought their Native American or Métis wives from Canada. Most expected to return to the place they had enlisted with the Company, though a few had chosen to settle in the Willamette Valley, McLoughlin keeping them on the Company books so they didn’t have to go.

The encroachment of permanent US settlers into Oregon brought troubling headaches for the good doctor, McLoughlin.

Carey, Charles H., LLD. General History of Oregon: Through Early Statehood. Portland, OR: Binfords & Mort, 1971.
Johnson, Robert C. John McLoughlin: “Father of Oregon.” Portland, OR: Binfords & Mort, 1958.
Various websites.

Next: Digging Up the Past

COMMENT

Janet fisher

Weaving stories of strong women through history

Fort Vancouver

Sounds and Scents of History

My Talk at Eugene Library Coming Up June 10th

Fort Umpqua Post Script

So, what if history got it wrong?

Muddied waters

What did Martha know?

British habits

Why not Fort Umpqua?

Unraveling the story threads

Reviving Fort Umpqua

Fort Umpqua Farming

HBC Outpost Ready for Celebration

Book Event Explores a Living Past

The TRUE Shifting Winds ~ 6: Making the Past Live

A Reconstructed Fort

The TRUE Shifting Winds ~ 5: Digging Up the Past

Archaeology and Record Keepers

The TRUE Shifting Winds ~ 4: British Stronghold

Dr. McLoughlin’s Oregon Reign