Thompson Coit Elliott

“ The first line of direct communication, trade and travel across the continent of North America (Mexico excepted) passed up and down the Columbia River and for a period of thirty years and more was used as such, with the portage at Kettle Falls affording one of the most important supply and resting stations. We do well to honor the career and name of the man who discovered, explored, made known and opened this highway of communication, David Thompson, who loved his work and did it well, and who is proclaimed by Mr. Tyrrell as the greatest land geographer the British race has ever produced. ”

“ The completion and popular use by tourists of the Columbia River Highway eastward from Portland and particularly the building of a public resort at Crown Point on that highway serves to bring to the attention of people from all parts of the world the wonderful scenic stretches of the Columbia river both above and below that Point, and it is very fitting that Point Vancouver be generally known as a landmark of historic interest. ”

“ Intelligent students of American history today candidly admit that American diplomats did exceedingly well in finally placing the line of the Canadian boundary at the 49th parallel of North Latitude, and agree that the work of David Thompson gave a considerable degree of fairness to the British demand for that boundary to follow the line of the Columbia River south from the 49th parallel, which is the most Great Britain ever seriously claimed. ”

“ I mention the details of the career of David Thompson in the year 1811 because these facts are not yet familiar to the residents of our Columbia river region, because they are pertinent to our anniversary season, and because their narration serves to reveal to us the traits individual to the man. At the age of forty-one years David Thompson thus traversed every reach of this magnificent river from source to mouth, a physical achievement for a man even at the present day ”

“ We found plenty of Indians here to assist in making the portage. After loading several with our baggage & sending them on, the boat was capsized & placed upon the head of about twenty Indians, who marched off with it with perfect ease. Below the main fall of water are rocks, deep narrow channels, many frightful precipices, all this distance. We walked deliberately among the rocks viewing the scene with astonishment, for this once beautiful river seems to be cut up and destroyed, by these huge masses of rocks. ”

“ Reverting now to the American fur trade from Saint Louis. This was carried on by the traders themselves, who furnished the capital, (some of them came out every year to rendezvous, while others remained in the field) and the one hundred or more active young men who came to the mountains through their solicitation and spent the entire year there in adventurous hunting and life in the open. These men were not desperadoes or escaped convicts, though the life naturally developed feelings of bravado and reckless daring; they were in frequent danger from the roving bands of Blackfoot Indians. ”

“ Was much cheered with a view of the Fort at a considerable distance. Any thing that looks like a house makes us glad. Called and were hospitably entertained by Capt Thing who keeps the Fort. It was built by Cap Wyeth a gentleman from Boston, whom we saw at Rendezvous, on his way to the east. Our dinner consisted of dry buffalo meat, turnips & fried bread, which was a luxury. Mountain bread is simply course flour & water mixed & roasted or fried in buffalo grease. To one who has had nothing but meat for a long time this relishes very well. ”

“ We are still in a dangerous country but our company is large enough for safety. Our cattle endure the journey remarkably well. They are a source of great comfort to us in this land of scarcity. they supply us with sufficient milk for our tea & coffee which is indeed a luxury. We are obliged to shoe some of them on account of sore feet. Have seen no buffalo since we left Rendezvous. Had no game of any kind except a few messes of Antelope which John's Father gave us. We have plenty of dry Buffalo meat which we purchased of the Indians & dry it is for me. ”

“ The roar of the water is heard at a considerable distance. Our ride has not been very tedious today for us for we stoped during the greatest heat for rest & dinner. Now the Indians are not with us we shall expect to make two camps. I feel this to be a great mercy to us weak females for it was more than we could well endure to travel during the heat of the day without any refreshment.
6th Route very bad & difficult today, especially in the forenoon. We crossed a small stream, full of falls a short distance above where it emties into the Snake River. ”

“ Many a time have I seen these uneducated Canadians most attentively and thankfully listen, as they sat upon some bank of shingle, to Mr. Thompson, while he read to them in most extraordinarily pronounced French, three chapters out of the Old Testament and as many out of the New, adding such explanations as seemed to him suitable. ”

“ In the fall of 1810 Joseph Howse was sent from the Saskatchewan across the Rocky Mountains in charge of an exploring party into the Kootenay and Flathead countries. He spent the winter of 1810-11 near Flathead Lake and was one of the first white men the Indians of that tribe ever came in contact with. Whether he communicated to them anything about the God of the white man is entirely conjectural, but possible.
The first white man known to have had actual contact with the Indians of the Flathead tribe in their own country and camps was David Thompson, of the North West Company of fur traders. ”

“ The lake region where the Columbia rises is now easily accessible by a fine auto highway, extending across the mountains to Banff; but is was no such pass as that by which David Thompson crossed.
In 1807, and years before, the fur traders of the Saskatchewan prairies and streams of Canada had been doing business with small bands of Indians, who had crossed the mountains and descended the Eastern slope to a prairie or meadow of the foothills known to them as the Kootenae plain. This prairie was situated considerably north of the present site of Banff and the Canadian Pacific railroad. ”

“ We do not expect to pass it, said to be a tedious route, no water or buffalo in going from it. Endured the ride today very well notwithstanding its difficulties. Very mountainous. Paths winding on the sides of steep mountains In some places the path is so narrow as scarcely to afford room for the animals to place his foot. One after the other, we pass along with cautious steps. Passed a creek on which were a fine bunch of Gooseberries, nearly ripe relished them very much. They are not as sweet when ripe as those in the states nor prickly. Husband has had a tedious time with the waggon today. ”

“ No recent map, official or commercial, of either Washington or Oregon or of the River, designates such a Point, and no chart of the river issued by the U. S. Government indicates it as such, and most of the steamboat men now using the river have never heard of it and know the place merely as Cottonwood Point. Also histories and historical narratives are being frequently published showing a strange ignorance of the proper location of this Point, confusing it with the site of the former Fort Vancouver of the Hudson's Bay Company and the present city of Vancouver, twenty-five miles down stream. ”

“ The only pass where we could cross was just on the edge of rocks above one of the falls. While the pack animals both ours & the Company's were crossing there was such a rush as to crowd two of our horses over the falls, both packed with dry meat. It was with great difficulty they were got out, one of them was in nearly an hour, much to his injury. Had a fine breeze during most of the day. Heat very great when otherwise. No game taken today. We have a little rice to eat with our dry mest given us by Mr McLeod, which makes it relish quite well. ”

“ The Nez Perces are exceedingly anxious for the location. Make many promises to work & listen to instruction. They do not like to have us stop with the Cayouses. Say they do not have difficulty with the white men as the Cayouses do & that we shall find it so. The Walla Walla river has many branches and much good land on all of them. The Fort is on Columbia river just above Walla W. river. We shall be near neighbors to them. They intend to build both houses this fall & winter and be prepared for crops next spring. ”

“ He can create a wilderness and people it with howling savages, or climb the Rocky Mountains with you in a snowstorm, so clearly and palpably, that only shut your eyes and you hear the crack of the rifle, or feel the snowflakes on your cheek as he talks." This quotation is from an address delivered recently before the Royal Geographical Society of London by the eminent engineer already mentioned, Mr. J. B. Tyrell, to whose personal research and interest the world is chiefly indebted for its growing knowledge of David Thompson. ”

“ Would you not think a seat by Mother in some cool room preferable? Sometimes my wicked heart has been desposed to murmur, thinking I should have no rest for the heat when I stoped. But have always been reproved for it by the comfort and rest I received under these circumstances. I never have wished to go back such a thought finds no place in my heart. "The Lord is better to us than our fears. ”

“ No attempt will be made to follow in much detail the itinerary of the McLeod-Whitman-Spalding party on this section of their journey to the Columbia. It is impossible to more than suggest certain camping places. Pack train travel did not pay much attention to grades, but was regulated by known watering places for beast and man. It is very reasonable to suppose that their route was that of this “cut-off” from Green River to Bear River. From near Cokeville to Snake fort on the Boise River their trail very certainly was closely that which became the Oregon trail of later years. ”

“ Recent research establishes the fact that the name Oregon is a corruption or variation by Jonathan Carver of the name Ouragon or Ourigan, which was communicated to him by Major Robert Rogers, the English commandant of the frontier military and trading post at Mackinac, [2] Michigan, during the years (1766-67) of Captain Carver's journey to the upper valley of the Mississippi river and to lake Superior. The evidence in support of this assertion is contained in documents deposited in the Public Records Office at London, England, and now made the basis of this brief discussion. ”

“ Mention of the establishment of trade on waters of the Columbia in 1807 by Americans is merely an item of gossip, and shows how fast news travels among the Indians. This must have referred to the arrival of Manuel Lisa's men on the Yellowstone river, and possibly at the three forks of the Missouri on a trapping expedition. Those traders were from Saint Louis, and included two of the Lewis and Clark party—notably one named Colter. ”

“ But until later than 1880 Baker's Bay was the anchorage for all shipping and the channel turned across the river at Point Adams, leaving Desdemona Sands Light to the starboard, and then turned west into that bay. Deep sea vessels came in across the bar by either a south or a north channel and passed close under the headland of Canby Light into the bay. But at the present time it is impossible for even the power boat of the Canby Life Saving Station to pass from Bdcer's Bay directly into the deep water channel at certain stages of summer tides. ”

“ In the months of June and July, 1767 there assembled at Mackinac one of the most imposing and numerously attended Indian councils ever held in that romantic locality. 9 Indians came from all the regions around to meet the man whose life had been protected by the Gods of War and who had now come to live among them. This was a part of Major Rogers' scheme to extend the influence of British authority and increase the trade and he made special effort to reach the chiefs of the Mississippi valley and of the country beyond which was still under Spanish authority. ”

“ This man David Thompson, officially designated the astronomer of the company, was a practical trader for furs, a careful scientist and close observer. This document has not before been printed, as far as known to the writer, and is of peculiar interest to the scientific student and the lay reader as well. The assertion that David Thompson first crossed over the Rocky Mountains may seem a trifle strong and need qualification; but there is a difference between crossing over the mountains and through them, and a great difference in the physical barriers at different parts of the range. ”

“ She is one of the kindest women in the world. Speaks a little French, but mostly Cree, her native tongue. She wishes to go & live with me her Daughter & Mrs Douglas also. The Lord reward them for their love & kindness to us.
"9 o'clock. The Doct urges me to stay all winter, he is a very sympathetic man is afraid we shall suffer, presents many obstacles in the way of our going which appear so to him but not to us. I have just learned that we cannot leave tomorrow. The new boat is not ready quite. No work done for us today because it is the Roman Catholic All Saints day, a Holladay. ”

“ Early in the Spring the Adventurers will proceed to explore every Inlet, Nook, or Bay, from the Straits of Anian to Hud- son's Bay, between which it is expected to find the navigable Passage, or Communication in Question.
The Proposer is induced to verge along the western Coast of the Continent, and to trace the Straits of Anian, and the Bay or Gulf projecting thence toward Hudson's Bay, the better to avoid an Exposure to the intolerable Rigor of the Winds, which on the Coast of Hudson's Bay, blow almost incessantly from the Pole. ”

“ After our soup dishes are removed, then comes a variety of meats, to prove our tastes. After selecting & tasting, change plates & try another if we choose so at every new dish have a clean plate. Roast duck is an every day dish, boiled pork, tripe & sometimes trotters, fresh Salmon or Sturgeon, yea to numerous to mention. When these are set aside a rice pudding or an apple pie is next introduced. After this melons next make their appearance, some times grapes & last of all cheese, bread or biscuit & butter is produced to complet the whole. ”

“ Deep sea shipping now uses a channel containing forty feet of water, and danger comes only during thick weather, which is common to any port The Chamber of Commerce of Portland has celebrated this accomplished fact and in 1916 published for general distribution a large folding map showing the soundings of the channel from the light buoys off the river's mouth to the wharves of Astoria and Portland. The present, therefore, seems a fitting time to hark back to the years of exploration, discovery and first survey of the mouth of the Columbia River ”

“ Courage and ability to endure hardships were but common attributes of the fur trader, but ability to observe intelligently and record with continual care the daily events and experiences, and the habits and names of the Indian tribes and localities was not so common. David Thompson kept his note book or journal under all conditions of weather or travel, and made record of the daily camping places in scientific terms and with such exactness that these localities can be checked today with scarce a variation. ”

“ The most of the gentlemen of the Fort are Scotch Presbyterian & but very few that are Episcopalians. The great mass of labourers are Roman Catholics who have three services during the Sabbath, one of which is attended at this house in which Doct McLaughlin officiates in French, translates a sermon or a tract & reads a chapter in the Bible & a prayer. ”