"Adventure" of the Colonel Allan

Abstract

H. Lloyd Keith "Adventure" of the Colonel Allan oats of mail? Women's hosiery? Military shoes? At a fur trading post? One can imagine the astonishment of the new manager at Fort George in 1822 as he discovered these items and more among the trade goods leftbehind by the previous proprietors. Chief Factor J.D. Cameron of the Hudson's Bay Company arrived at the former Astoria near themouth of the Columbia River on November 8,1821, to assume command of the old trading post. When his canoe pulled alongside the rain-washed wharf, he noticed a crane for landing and loading goods. Amenities such as thiswere uncommon at his previous postings. Looking landward through misting clouds, a few hundred yards away he saw for the first time an imposing palisade some twelve or fifteen feet high enclosing nearly an acre of ground. Two bastions protected the fort'swalls with four- and six-pound cannon, and loopholes were provided along an interior gallery formuskets and swivel guns. Inside he would find two eighteen-pound cannons. All this arma ment protected a bevy of buildings, large and small, and an inventory of trade goods second in value only to those at FortWilliam, the old North West Company headquarters on thewestern shore of Lake Superior.1 Following themerger of theNorth West and Hudson's Bay companies in 1821,Cameron assumed charge of the newly acquired Columbia Depart ment. This vast trading area spilled over the Columbia River drainage to theThompson River in the north, southward as far as the Spanish territo ries, and extended from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. After completion of a thorough inventory of goods on hand at Fort George (the erstwhile Astoria and department headquarters), Cameron wrote awither ing letter acquainting theHudson's Bay Company officers of the status of their new acquisition: "The stock of goods [are] very great, and among the Number of articles tho' very expensive, yet are very useless articles in this 546 OHQ vol. 105, no. 4 ? 2004 Oregon Historical Society QHS neg., QrHi 35111 At the time of theColonel Allan s visit in 1816, Fort George was an enclosure of nearly an acre with fifteen-foot pickets. By 1845, when Henry James Warre traveled to the site and made the drawing on which this lithograph was based, theformer headquarters of theColumbia Department had been reduced to thesefew bucolic structures. Country."2 He had never before seen such items among the goods of a fur trading post, and he was appalled. There were four coats of steel-wire mail; ostrich and hackle feathers; hand grenades; men's, women's, and children's fine hosiery; men's military shoes; fine corduroy jackets and trousers; and fine gingham and silkumbrellas.3 There were also two eighteen-pound can nons, cannon carriages, and 240 rounds of ammunition. George Simpson, Cameron's superior and the Hudson's Bay Company's field governor in western North America, complained that "everything appears tome on theColumbia on too extended a scale except theTrade?4 To understand how and why such items appeared in the inventory at Fort George, one must look to the adventure of theNorth West Company's brig Colonel Allan. The story surrounding that venture also offers insights into theCompany's effort to diversify its trading strategy by plying goods in South America, California, and the Sandwich Islands (now Hawai'i) as well as offering itsColumbia furs for sale in Europe rather than China. Keith, "Adventure" of the Colonel Allan 547 Following the merger of the North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821, the Columbia Department eventually experienced one of the greatest financial turnabouts in fur-trade business history. It had been a constant financial drain for theMontreal-based North West Company between 1813 and 1821,but by the end of the decade the Columbia Department had been transformed into a vital economic enterprise.5Much of this financial turn around has been attributed to the reforms introduced by HBC Governor George Simpson as a consequence of his 1824-1825 visit to the Columbia as well as to the Company's earlier decision tomarket Columbia pelts in Europe instead of China.6 Simpson...