Vancouver, Whistler & Vancouver Island - Washington, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest - page 848

The Americans Settle In
Unlike most other early trading posts, which were basically repositories for goods, Fort
Vancouver became a thriving, nearly self-sufficient agricultural community complete
with mills, a dairy, gardens and fields.
Canadian-born Dr John McLoughlin, often called the 'father of Oregon,' was the cap-
able steward of this post. He encouraged settlement beyond the precincts of the fort, and
allowed retired HBC trappers to settle along the Willamette River in an area still called
French Prairie. By 1828 these French Canadians, with their Native American wives,
began to clear the land and build cabins. McLoughlin established a mill and incorporated
the first town in the Northwest in 1829, at Oregon City. He later built a house there,
which today is a museum.
The eventual decline of the fur trade, along with an influx of American farmers,
traders and settlers from the east, all helped loosen the weakening British Empire's grip
on the Pacific Northwest. But it was the missionaries who probably played the biggest
role. In 1834, New England Methodists Daniel and Jason Lee founded a mission just
north of present-day Salem. Other missionaries arrived in 1836, establishing missions
near today's Walla Walla, WA, and Lewiston, ID.
Losing ground despite the Treaty of Ghent, the HBC hedged its bets and established
another center of operations further north at Fort Victoria, on Vancouver Island, BC. But
the federal government did not offer military intervention to rid the area of British strag-
glers. If the settlers wanted an independent civil authority, they would have to do the
dirty work themselves.
The oldest commercial corporation in North America is the Hudson's Bay Company,
which once controlled the Pacific Northwest fur trade, conducted early exploration of the
region and even functioned as a de facto government before the US took over.
Rounding the Turn at Champoeg
By the early 1840s the Willamette Valley had become home to a rag-tag mix of 700
French-Canadian farmers, retired trappers, Protestant missionaries and general adventur-
ers. Eager to establish some order to the region, the settlers created the framework for a
budding government. Meetings led to an 1843 vote at Champoeg, along the Willamette
River about 30 miles south of Portland (now Champoeg State Heritage Area). By a razor-
thin 52-to-50 margin, a measure was passed to organize a provisional government inde-
pendent of the HBC. The land north of the Columbia, however, would remain in control
of the British - for a bit longer.