Astoria

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Fort William, the scene of this important annual meeting, was a
considerable village on the banks of Lake Superior. Here, in an immense
wooden building, was the great council hall, as also the banqueting
chamber, decorated with Indian arms and accoutrements, and the trophies
of the fur trade. The house swarmed at this time with traders and
voyageurs, some from Montreal, bound to the interior posts; some from
the interior posts, bound to Montreal. The councils were held in great
state, for every member felt as if sitting in parliament, and every
retainer and dependent looked up to the assemblage with awe, as to the
House of Lords. There was a vast deal of solemn deliberation, and hard
Scottish reasoning, with an occasional swell of pompous declamation.

These grave and weighty councils were alternated by huge feasts and
revels, like some of the old feasts described in Highland castles. The
tables in the great banqueting room groaned under the weight of game
of all kinds; of venison from the woods, and fish from the lakes, with
hunters' delicacies, such as buffalos' tongues, and beavers' tails,
and various luxuries from Montreal, all served up by experienced cooks
brought for the purpose. There was no stint of generous wine, for it was
a hard-drinking period, a time of loyal toasts, and bacchanalian songs,
and brimming bumpers.

While the chiefs thus revelled in hall, and made the rafters resound
with bursts of loyalty and old Scottish songs, chanted in voices cracked
and sharpened by the northern blast, their merriment was echoed
and prolonged by a mongrel legion of retainers, Canadian voyageurs,
half-breeds, Indian hunters, and vagabond hangers-on who feasted
sumptuously without on the crumbs that fell from their table, and made
the welkin ring with old French ditties, mingled with Indian yelps and
yellings.

Such was the Northwest Company in its powerful and prosperous days, when
it held a kind of feudal sway over a vast domain of lake and forest. We
are dwelling too long, perhaps, upon these individual pictures, endeared
to us by the associations of early life, when, as yet a stripling youth,
we have sat at the hospitable boards of the "mighty Northwesters,"
the lords of the ascendant at Montreal, and gazed with wondering
and inexperienced eye at the baronial wassailing, and listened with
astonished ear to their tales of hardship and adventures. It is one
object of our task, however, to present scenes of the rough life of the
wilderness, and we are tempted to fix these few memorials of a transient
state of things fast passing into oblivion; for the feudal state of Fort
William is at an end, its council chamber is silent and deserted; its
banquet hall no longer echoes to the burst of loyalty, or the "auld
world" ditty; the lords of the lakes and forests have passed away; and
the hospitable magnates of Montreal where are they?



CHAPTER II.

Rise of the Mackinaw Company.--Attempt of the American
Government to Counteract Foreign Influence Over the Indian
Tribes.--John Jacob Astor.--His Birth-Place.--His Arrival in
the United States.--What First Turned His Attention to the
Fur Trade.--His Character, Enterprises, and Success.--His
Communications With the American Government.--Origin of the
American Fur Company

THE success of the Northwest Company stimulated further enterprise in
this opening and apparently boundless field of profit. The traffic of
that company lay principally in the high northern latitudes, while
there were immense regions to the south and west, known to abound with
valuable peltries; but which, as yet, had been but little explored by
the fur trader. A new association of British merchants was therefore
formed, to prosecute the trade in this direction. The chief factory was
established at the old emporium of Michilimackinac, from which place the
association took its name, and was commonly called the Mackinaw Company.

While the Northwesters continued to push their enterprises into the
hyperborean regions from their stronghold at Fort William, and to hold
almost sovereign sway over the tribes of the upper lakes and rivers,
the Mackinaw Company sent forth their light perogues and barks, by Green
Bay, Fox River, and the Wisconsin, to that areas artery of the West, the
Mississippi; and down that stream to all its tributary rivers. In this
way they hoped soon to monopolize the trade with all the tribes on
the southern and western waters, and of those vast tracts comprised in
ancient Louisiana.

The government of the United States began to view with a wary eye the
growing influence thus acquired by combinations of foreigners, over
the aboriginal tribes inhabiting its territories, and endeavored to
counteract it. For this purpose, as early as 1796, the government sent
out agents to establish rival trading houses on the frontier, so as to
supply the wants of the Indians, to link their interests and feelings
with those of the people of the United States, and to divert this
important branch of trade into national channels.

The expedition, however, was unsuccessful, as most commercial expedients
are prone to be, where the dull patronage of government is counted
upon to outvie the keen activity of private enterprise. What government
failed to effect, however, with all its patronage and all its agents,
was at length brought about by the enterprise and perseverance of a
single merchant, one of its adopted citizens; and this brings us to
speak of the individual whose enterprise is the especial subject of
the following pages; a man whose name and character are worthy of being
enrolled in the history of commerce, as illustrating its noblest aims
and soundest maxims. A few brief anecdotes of his early life, and of the
circumstances which first determined him to the branch of commerce of
which we are treating, cannot be but interesting.

John Jacob Astor, the individual in question, was born in the honest
little German village of Waldorf, near Heidelberg, on the banks of the
Rhine. He was brought up in the simplicity of rural life, but, while
yet a mere stripling, left his home, and launched himself amid the
busy scenes of London, having had, from his very boyhood, a singular
presentiment that he would ultimately arrive at great fortune.

At the close of the American Revolution he was still in London, and
scarce on the threshold of active life. An elder brother had been for
some few years resident in the United States, and Mr. Astor determined
to follow him, and to seek his fortunes in the rising country. Investing
a small sum which he had amassed since leaving his native village, in
merchandise suited to the American market, he embarked, in the month
of November, 1783, in a ship bound to Baltimore, and arrived in Hampton
Roads in the month of January. The winter was extremely severe, and the
ship, with many others, was detained by the ice in and about Chesapeake
Bay for nearly three months.

During this period, the passengers of the various ships used
occasionally to go on shore, and mingle sociably together. In this
way Mr. Astor became acquainted with a countryman of his, a furrier by
trade. Having had a previous impression that this might be a lucrative
trade in the New World, he made many inquiries of his new acquaintance
on the subject, who cheerfully gave him all the information in his power
as to the quality and value of different furs, and the mode of carrying
on the traffic. He subsequently accompanied him to New York, and, by his
advice, Mr. Astor was induced to invest the proceeds of his merchandise
in furs. With these he sailed from New York to London in 1784, disposed
of them advantageously, made himself further acquainted with the course
of the trade, and returned the same year to New York, with a view to
settle in the United States.

He now devoted himself to the branch of commerce with which he had thus
casually been made acquainted. He began his career, of course, on the
narrowest scale; but he brought to the task a persevering industry,
rigid economy, and strict integrity. To these were added an aspiring
spirit that always looked upwards; a genius bold, fertile, and
expansive; a sagacity quick to grasp and convert every circumstance to
its advantage, and a singular and never wavering confidence of signal
success.

As yet, trade in peltries was not organized in the United States, and
could not be said to form a regular line of business. Furs and skins
were casually collected by the country traders in their dealings with
the Indians or the white hunters, but the main supply was derived
from Canada. As Mr. Astor's means increased, he made annual visits to
Montreal, where he purchased furs from the houses at that place engaged
in the trade. These he shipped from Canada to London, no direct trade
being allowed from that colony to any but the mother country.

In 1794 or '95, a treaty with Great Britain removed the restrictions
imposed upon the trade with the colonies, and opened a direct commercial
intercourse between Canada and the United States. Mr. Astor was in
London at the time, and immediately made a contract with the agents of
the Northwest Company for furs. He was now enabled to import them from
Montreal into the United States for the home supply, and to be shipped
thence to different parts of Europe, as well as to China, which has ever
been the best market for the richest and finest kinds of peltry.

The treaty in question provided, likewise, that the military posts
occupied by the British within the territorial limits of the United
States, should be surrendered. Accordingly, Oswego, Niagara, Detroit,
Michilimackinac, and other posts on the American side of the lakes, were
given up. An opening was thus made for the American merchant to trade on
the confines of Canada, and within the territories of the United States.
After an interval of some years, about 1807, Mr. Astor embarked in this
trade on his own account. His capital and resources had by this time
greatly augmented, and he had risen from small beginnings to take his
place among the first merchants and financiers of the country. His
genius had ever been in advance of his circumstances, prompting him
to new and wide fields of enterprise beyond the scope of ordinary
merchants. With all his enterprise and resources however, he soon found
the power and influence of the Michilimackinac (or Mackinaw) Company too
great for him, having engrossed most of the trade within the American
borders.

A plan had to be devised to enable him to enter into successful
competition. He was aware of the wish of the American government,
already stated, that the fur trade within its boundaries should be in
the hands of American citizens, and of the ineffectual measures it had
taken to accomplish that object. He now offered, if aided and protected
by government, to turn the whole of that trade into American channels.
He was invited to unfold his plans to government, and they were warmly
approved, though the executive could give no direct aid.

Thus countenanced, however, he obtained, in 1809, a charter from the
legislature of the State of New York, incorporating a company under the
name of "The American Fur Company," with a capital of one million
of dollars, with the privilege of increasing it to two millions. The
capital was furnished by himself he, in fact, constituted the company;
for, though he had a board of directors, they were merely nominal; the
whole business was conducted on his plans and with his resources, but
he preferred to do so under the imposing and formidable aspect of a
corporation, rather than in his individual name, and his policy was
sagacious and effective.

As the Mackinaw Company still continued its rivalry, and as the fur
trade would not advantageously admit of competition, he made a new
arrangement in 1811, by which, in conjunction with certain partners of
the Northwest Company, and other persons engaged in the fur trade, he
bought out the Mackinaw Company, and merged that and the American Fur
Company into a new association, to be called the "Southwest Company."
This he likewise did with the privity and approbation of the American
government.

By this arrangement Mr. Astor became proprietor of one half of the
Indian establishments and goods which the Mackinaw Company had within
the territory of the Indian country in the United States, and it was
understood that the whole was to be surrendered into his hands at the
expiration of five years, on condition that the American Company would
not trade within the British dominions.

Unluckily, the war which broke out in 1812 between Great Britain and
the United States suspended the association; and, after the war, it was
entirely dissolved; Congress having passed a law prohibiting the British
fur traders from prosecuting their enterprises within the territories of
the United States.




CHAPTER III.

Fur Trade in the Pacific--American Coasting Voyages--Russian
Enterprises.--Discovery of the Columbia River.--Carver's
Project to Found a Settlement There.--Mackenzie's
Expedition.--Lewis and Clarke's Journey Across the Rocky
Mountains--Mr. Astor's Grand Commercial Scheme.--His
Correspondence on the Subject With Mr. Jefferson.--His
Negotiations With the Northwest Company.--His Steps to Carry
His Scheme Into Effect.

WHILE the various companies we have noticed were pushing their
enterprises far and wide in the wilds of Canada, and along the course of
the great western waters, other adventurers, intent on the same objects,
were traversing the watery wastes of the Pacific and skirting the
northwest coast of America. The last voyage of that renowned but
unfortunate discoverer, Captain Cook, had made known the vast quantities
of the sea-otter to be found along that coast, and the immense prices to
be obtained for its fur in China. It was as if a new gold coast had
been discovered. Individuals from various countries dashed into this
lucrative traffic, so that in the year 1792, there were twenty-one
vessels under different flags, plying along the coast and trading with
the natives. The greater part of them were American, and owned by Boston
merchants. They generally remained on the coast and about the adjacent
seas, for two years, carrying on as wandering and adventurous a commerce
on the water as did the traders and trappers on land. Their trade
extended along the whole coast from California to the high northern
latitudes. They would run in near shore, anchor, and wait for the
natives to come off in their canoes with peltries. The trade exhausted
at one place, they would up anchor and off to another. In this way they
would consume the summer, and when autumn came on, would run down to the
Sandwich Islands and winter in some friendly and plentiful harbor. In
the following year they would resume their summer trade, commencing at
California and proceeding north: and, having in the course of the two
seasons collected a sufficient cargo of peltries, would make the best
of their way to China. Here they would sell their furs, take in teas,
nankeens, and other merchandise, and return to Boston, after an absence
of two or three years.

The people, however, who entered most extensively and effectively in the
fur trade of the Pacific, were the Russians. Instead of making casual
voyages, in transient ships, they established regular trading houses in
the high latitudes, along the northwest coast of America, and upon the
chain of the Aleutian Islands between Kamtschatka and the promontory of
Alaska.

To promote and protect these enterprises, a company was incorporated by
the Russian government with exclusive privileges, and a capital of two
hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling; and the sovereignty of that
part of the American continent, along the coast of which the posts had
been established, was claimed by the Russian crown, on the plea that the
land had been discovered and occupied by its subjects.

As China was the grand mart for the furs collected in these quarters,
the Russians had the advantage over their competitors in the trade. The
latter had to take their peltries to Canton, which, however, was a mere
receiving mart, from whence they had to be distributed over the interior
of the empire and sent to the northern parts, where there was the chief
consumption. The Russians, on the contrary, carried their furs, by a
shorter voyage, directly to the northern parts of the Chinese empire;
thus being able to afford them in the market without the additional cost
of internal transportation.

We come now to the immediate field of operation of the great enterprise
we have undertaken to illustrate.

Among the American ships which traded along the northwest coast in 1792,
was the Columbia, Captain Gray, of Boston. In the course of her voyage
she discovered the mouth of a large river in lat. 46 19' north. Entering
it with some difficulty, on account of sand-bars and breakers, she came
to anchor in a spacious bay. A boat was well manned, and sent on shore
to a village on the beach, but all the inhabitants fled excepting the
aged and infirm. The kind manner in which these were treated, and the
presents given them, gradually lured back the others, and a friendly
intercourse took place. They had never seen a ship or a white man. When
they had first descried the Columbia, they had supposed it a floating
island; then some monster of the deep; but when they saw the boat
putting for shore with human beings on board, they considered them
cannibals sent by the Great Spirit to ravage the country and devour the
inhabitants. Captain Gray did not ascend the river farther than the bay
in question, which continues to bear his name. After putting to sea, he
fell in with the celebrated discoverer, Vancouver, and informed him
of his discovery, furnished him with a chart which he had made of the
river. Vancouver visited the river, and his lieutenant, Broughton,
explored it by the aid of Captain Gray's chart; ascending it upwards of
one hundred miles, until within view of a snowy mountain, to which he
gave the name of Mt. Hood, which it still retains.

The existence of this river, however, was known long before the visits
of Gray and Vancouver, but the information concerning it was vague and
indefinite, being gathered from the reports of Indians. It was spoken
of by travellers as the Oregon, and as the Great River of the West. A
Spanish ship is said to have been wrecked at the mouth, several of the
crew of which lived for some time among the natives. The Columbia,
however, is believed to be the first ship that made a regular discovery
and anchored within its waters, and it has since generally borne the
name of that vessel. As early as 1763, shortly after the acquisition of
the Canadas by Great Britain, Captain Jonathan Carver, who had been in
the British provincial army, projected a journey across the continent
between the forty-third and forty-sixth degrees of northern latitude
to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. His objects were to ascertain the
breadth of the continent at its broadest part, and to determine on some
place on the shores of the Pacific, where government might establish
a post to facilitate the discovery of a northwest passage, or a
communication between Hudson's Bay and the Pacific Ocean. This place he
presumed would be somewhere about the Straits of Annian, at which point
he supposed the Oregon disembogued itself. It was his opinion, also,
that a settlement on this extremity of America would disclose new
sources of trade, promote many useful discoveries, and open a more
direct communication with China and the English settlements in the East
Indies, than that by the Cape of Good Hope or the Straits of Magellan. *
This enterprising and intrepid traveller was twice baffled in individual
efforts to accomplish this great journey. In 1774, he was joined in
the scheme by Richard Whitworth, a member of Parliament, and a man of
wealth. Their enterprise was projected on a broad and bold plan. They
were to take with them fifty or sixty men, artificers and mariners.
With these they were to make their way up one of the branches of the
Missouri, explore the mountains for the source of the Oregon, or River
of the West, and sail down that river to its supposed exit, near the
Straits of Annian. Here they were to erect a fort, and build the vessels
necessary to carry their discoveries by sea into effect. Their plan had
the sanction of the British government, and grants and other requisites
were nearly completed, when the breaking out of the American Revolution
once more defeated the undertaking. **

The expedition of Sir Alexander Mackenzie in 1793, across the continent
to the Pacific Ocean, which he reached in lat. 52 20' 48", again
suggested the possibility of linking together the trade of both sides of
the continent. In lat. 52 30' he had descended a river for some distance
which flowed towards the south, and wag called by the natives Tacoutche
Tesse, and which he erroneously supposed to be the Columbia. It was
afterwards ascertained that it emptied itself in lat. 49 degrees,
whereas the mouth of the Columbia is about three degrees further south.

When Mackenzie some years subsequently published an account of his
expeditions, he suggested the policy of opening an intercourse between
the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and forming regular establishments
through the interior and at both extremes, as well as along the coasts
and islands. By this means, he observed, the entire command of the fur
trade of North America might be obtained from lat. 48 north to the pole,
excepting that portion held by the Russians, for as to the American
adventurers who had hitherto enjoyed the traffic along the northwest
coast, they would instantly disappear, he added, before a well regulated
trade.

A scheme of this kind, however, was too vast and hazardous for
individual enterprise; it could only be undertaken by a company under
the sanction and protection of a government; and as there might be a
clashing of claims between the Hudson's Bay and Northwest Company, the
one holding by right of charter, the other by right of possession,
he proposed that the two comparties should coalesce in this great
undertaking. The long-cherished jealousies of these two companies,
however, were too deep and strong to allow them to listen to such
counsel.

In the meantime the attention of the American government was attracted
to the subject, and the memorable expedition under Messrs. Lewis and
Clarke fitted out. These gentlemen, in 1804, accomplished the enterprise
which had been projected by Carver and Whitworth in 1774. They
ascended the Missouri, passed through the stupendous gates of the Rocky
Mountains, hitherto unknown to white men; discovered and explored the
upper waters of the Columbia, and followed that river down to its
mouth, where their countryman, Gray, had anchored about twelve years
previously. Here they passed the winter, and returned across the
mountains in the following spring. The reports published by them of
their expedition demonstrated the practicability of establishing a line
of communication across the continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific
Ocean.

It was then that the idea presented itself to the mind of Mr. Astor, of
grasping with his individual hand this great enterprise, which for years
had been dubiously yet desirously contemplated by powerful associations
and maternal governments. For some time he revolved the idea in his
mind, gradually extending and maturing his plans as his means of
executing them augmented. The main feature of his scheme was to
establish a line of trading posts along the Missouri and the Columbia,
to the mouth of the latter, where was to be founded the chief trading
house or mart. Inferior posts would be established in the interior, and
on all the tributary streams of the Columbia, to trade with the Indians;
these posts would draw their supplies from the main establishment, and
bring to it the peltries they collected. Coasting craft would be
built and fitted out, also at the mouth of the Columbia, to trade, at
favorable seasons, all along the northwest coast, and return, with the
proceeds of their voyages, to this place of deposit. Thus all the Indian
trade, both of the interior and the coast, would converge to this point,
and thence derive its sustenance.

A ship was to be sent annually from New York to this main establishment
with reinforcements and supplies, and with merchandise suited to the
trade. It would take on board the furs collected during the preceding
year, carry them to Canton, invest the proceeds in the rich merchandise
of China, and return thus freighted to New York. As, in extending the
American trade along the coast to the northward, it might be brought
into the vicinity of the Russian Fur Company, and produce a hostile
rivalry, it was part of the plan of Mr. Astor to conciliate the
good-will of that company by the most amicable and beneficial
arrangements. The Russian establishment was chiefly dependent for its
supplies upon transient trading vessels from the United States. These
vessels, however, were often of more harm than advantage. Being owned
by private adventurers, or casual voyagers, who cared only for present
profit, and had no interest in the permanent prosperity of the trade,
they were reckless in their dealings with the natives, and made no
scruple of supplying them with fire-arms. In this way several fierce
tribes in the vicinity of the Russian posts, or within the range of
their trading excursions, were furnished with deadly means of warfare,
and rendered troublesome and dangerous neighbors.