Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival (27 page)

Virtually every person involved, starting with Astor himself, grossly underestimated the psychological toll both journey and settlement would take on men and leaders alike.

On Tuesday, June 30, 1812, the great flotilla meant to establish Astor’s several new posts launched from a staging area at Tongue Point near Astoria and headed up the Columbia. The main body numbered more than sixty men in nine canoes and two bateaux, including thirty-two Canadian voyageurs, twelve Hawaiians, seven clerks, and three partners—Mackenzie, David Stuart, and John Clarke. The Dorion family was among them, Pierre serving as a hunter. This fleet of nine canoes would split into different directions once it reached the Forks of the Columbia. Yet a tenth canoe carried the “Return Overland Party,” which would buy horses at the Forks and head all the way to St. Louis bearing fresh messages for Mr. Astor. Led by bold, young Robert Stuart, this canoe carried two of the three partners who had quit—Robert McClellan and Ramsay Crooks—as well as John Day. Crooks and Day had arrived only six weeks earlier.

As soon as the flotilla of canoes embarked from Tongue Point, John Day began to act strangely. Formerly cheerful and popular, he had begun to shown signs of “derangement” when wandering lost in the wintry mountains with Crooks, the latter now reported. As the huge canoe party pitched camp in a beautiful grove of oaks and ash late the second day out from Astoria, Day, who had been “restless” the previous few days, “now uttered the most incoherent absurd and unconnected sentences,” reported Robert Stuart.

“Several spoke to him, but little satisfaction was obtained, and he went to bed gloomy and churlish.”

The next day, Thursday, July 2, the canoes passed the mouth of the Cowlitz River, which emptied in on the north bank from a source among the high glaciers of Mount Rainier, about one hundred miles away. The parties camped that night on broad, meadowy Deer Island. The weather had cleared since leaving Astoria, and a series of fine days set in—the brief Northwest Coast summer. From certain vantages, they could see the spectacular glacier-capped cones of several volcanoes—Mount Rainier, Mount St. Helens, and especially Mount Hood, towering to the east above the river’s surface and forested foothills, its glacier-covered pyramid emerging from winter’s cloud veil and gleaming white against the summer’s cerulean skies.

“[T]his gigantic mass appears as a Steeple overlooking the lowest Houses of a City,” is how Robert Stuart described it.

It should have been a joyous, uplifting sight. For John Day, however, it may well have been what’s known as a “trigger.” The sight of it viscerally reminded him of what lay twenty miles beyond Mount Hood—the Narrows. And he knew that a short distance beyond the Narrows was the spot where he’d been stripped by the Indians and sent naked into the wilds. And still beyond that terrible place began the vast unmapped region where he and Crooks had wandered the previous winter.

“[D]uring the night,” wrote Robert Stuart of their Deer Island camp, “John Day’s disorder became very alarming, and several times he attempted getting possession of some of our arms, with the intention of committing suicide, but finding all his attempts fruitless, he at length feigned great remorse. . . .”

Day’s remorse lulled his companions into dropping their guard. The camp slept soundly on the grassy island, with the exception of the new clerks from New York just off the
Beaver,
who complained about mosquitos whining in their ears. John Day also didn’t sleep. In the hour before dawn, Day quietly managed to get hold of two loaded pistols. He put both of them to his head. He pulled the triggers.

The simultaneous pistol blasts shook the camp. Sleeping partners, voyageurs, hunters, clerks, Hawaiians jumped up in alarm. They instantly grabbed Day. His aim, as Stuart put it, was “fortunately too high to take effect.”

Stuart put Day under guard in one of the boats sitting along the riverbank where he couldn’t easily reach the many firearms lying around camp. As Day was supposed to accompany Stuart and his Return Overland Party all the way to St. Louis, Stuart now had to figure out what to do with him.

From a modern perspective, we’d say that John Day likely was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. The syndrome, formerly known as “shell shock” or “battle fatigue,” has been around as long as humans have faced physical danger—whether from saber-toothed tigers or enemy tribes. It’s possible that it is some version of an evolutionary adaptation that, in times of mortal danger, puts our senses on high alert and prompts us to avoid the peril. In practice, it is a deterioration of normal responses under prolonged or extreme stress. It can appear in combat veterans, rape victims, survivors of natural disasters and other intense situations. Its victims can be hypervigilant, irrationally angry, restless, depressed, suicidal, and careful to avoid situations that remind them of their trauma. PTSD may have played a significant but largely unrecognized role in the early exploration of North America. This especially may have been the case with expeditions traversing hostile Indian territory, where, for months on end, explorers were in an almost continuous state of profound threat and often witnessed traumatic events—all of which are associated with PTSD.
*
Among the Astorians, there are documented cases of something very like PTSD in Archibald Pelton and John Day, but there were almost surely others whose behavior was not dramatic enough, or deemed unusual enough to be recorded in the Astorian journals. (Even John Day’s suicide attempt goes unmentioned in most of them.)

The next day, July 3, provided Stuart with a solution for Day. Under guard, he was now making threats to companions he believed were conspiring against him. From the camp at Deer Island, the flotilla continued to paddle upstream toward Mount Hood. In a few miles they crossed over to the north bank and Cathlapootle Island (today’s Bachelor Island, just downstream from Portland, Oregon).

At Cathlapootle Island, it became clear that Day couldn’t go on. On the mainland nearby stood a large village of nine hundred inhabitants and fourteen longhouses of the Cathlapootle people. Robert Stuart knew and liked their chief. John Day, however, had started to rave against Indians at every opportunity, apparently even against the friendly Cathlapootle. What might happen when they reached native villages that were less friendly?

“[I]t was . . . the opinion of all the Gentlemen,” wrote Stuart, “that it would be highly imprudent to suffer [John Day] to proceed any farther for in a moment when not sufficiently watched he might embroil us with the natives, who on all occasions he reviled by the appellations of Rascal, Robber etc etc.”

Day had become “entirely useless” to the expedition, in Robert Stuart’s estimation. There was no sense in taking him farther. Stuart struck a deal with the chief of the Cathlapootles. For the price of a few trade items, the chief agreed to escort John Day by canoe back downriver to Astoria.

Concluded Stuart: “[H]is insanity amounted to real madness. . . .”

Relieved of the volatile Day, the flotilla worked its way upstream to the Narrows, which they passed through without major incidents by posting guard parties along the portages. It took them two weeks of hauling to carry their canoes and trade goods around the rapids, as they had to use much of their manpower simply to guard the goods from Indian pilfering rather than hauling it. Finally, they had ascended the rapids and traveled beyond the last of the mountain range that bounded the wet Pacific Coast. The country on both sides of the river now flattened and opened into the broad, arid Columbia Plain.

Above the Narrows, the flotilla passed the spot where Crooks and Day had been robbed and stripped. Crooks, to his “great delight,” as Irving recounted, happened to recognize two of the thieves in a group of Indians along the riverbank. These two were quickly captured, bound, placed in a canoe, and held as hostages until the stolen rifles and other equipment were returned. While the two were terrified of being killed, Crooks, not being of a “revengeful disposition,” had them released otherwise unharmed.

On July 27, they reached the mouth of the Walla Walla River, where the Columbia made a huge sweeping bend toward the north, and the Snake River also entered from the east, this known as the Forks of the Columbia. The following day, July 28, the big flotilla would split up and head in its many directions, sending messages back to New York, recovering cached goods, establishing the great web of fur posts throughout the Northwest. The long tendrils of John Jacob Astor’s West Coast fur empire had now unfolded.

That night, in celebration, the voyageurs and a great group of the Walla Walla people, welcoming the traders, made a big bonfire at one end of camp and danced into the night.

CHAPTER TWENTY

A
STOR’S ANXIETY GREW THROUGH
M
AY AND INTO
J
UNE
1812. With every report of the threatening mood in Washington, D.C., war seemed more likely. On June 1, President Madison sent a list of U.S. grievances against Great Britain to Congress. For the next four days the House of Representatives debated in a closed-door session. They voted. The tally was announced: by 79 to 49 the U.S. House passed a declaration of war. Their verdict went to the Senate. If the Senate should pass it, and President Madison signed a proclamation of war, it would be the first war declared by the young United States.

In New York City, Astor hungered for news. For a wealthy man Astor lived relatively modestly, but one luxury for which he would spare no expense was timely information. At crucial moments in his business dealings, he employed private express couriers to carry messages and news up and down the East Coast. He well knew that the rapid delivery of information could translate to tremendous advantage—whether on the battlefield or in politics, or amid the thickets of trade barriers and quirks of international markets, to turn massive profits or avoid massive loses.

An intense debate over war now raged in Washington. On June 12, the Senate voted on the declaration. It deadlocked.

A few days later, Astor mounted his horse and set off for Washington, D.C., as fast as he could.

He knew powerful people in the U.S. government. President Jefferson, who had so championed his great plan, had retired. He was now living at Monticello. But Astor had also met James Madison back in 1808 when he met with Jefferson, and Madison was serving as secretary of state. Now Madison was president but he didn’t share Jefferson’s passion for the West and for exploration. Perhaps Astor’s best connection was his personal acquaintance Albert Gallatin, secretary of the treasury under both Jefferson and Madison. A well-born and highly educated Swiss who was a disciple of Rousseau and follower of the Enlightenment, Gallatin had emigrated to the United States about the same time as Astor and struggled as a young businessman before entering politics. Appointed by President Jefferson to his cabinet, Gallatin had been instrumental in helping Jefferson plan the Lewis and Clark expedition and had a deep interest in the West as well as Native American ethnology. Like Astor, he spoke German, in addition to several other languages. He had followed Astor’s enterprise since the beginning and, while no direct evidence exists, he may have helped initiate it. Soon after the return of the Lewis and Clark expedition, Albert Gallatin himself may have tipped off Astor that Thomas Jefferson and Meriwether Lewis were discussing the need for an American fur post at the mouth of the Columbia.

Now, four years later, Astor had put tremendous resources and energy behind his West Coast master plan. But a declaration of war could throw his whole globe-girdling enterprise into jeopardy. War could overwhelm even his enormous resources. The British Royal Navy, one of the world’s most powerful armed forces, would surely blockade American ports, which would prevent Astor’s next supply ships to his West Coast emporium from leaving New York Harbor. Likewise, it would prevent his cargoes of Chinese luxury goods, and with them his astronomical profits, from returning to the United States.

Perhaps even worse, war could render Astoria itself—as an establishment flying the American flag—a potential target for the Royal Navy. And still worse, Astor’s Canadian rival, the North West Company, loyal to Britain, could very well incite the Royal Navy to take the fledgling colony as a prize and try to claim the Columbia Basin (or the whole West Coast) out from under him.

His men at his West Coast emporium could possibly prevent this, but how to get word to them? And did they have the will and the resources to defend against a Royal Navy attack? Could they stave off the North West Company? He couldn’t be sure. He knew some would remain absolutely loyal to him—Wilson Price Hunt, for instance. But the others? The Scottish fur traders who were former employees of the North West Company and whom he’d hired for their expertise—could they be trusted? If forced to choose in time of war, would they stay with his American enterprise, or turn against him to join with their native country and former employer?

Astor had thought far ahead about this very possibility. Two years earlier, back in the summer of 1810, he’d brought the first Scottish fur traders down from Montreal to meet in his offices in Manhattan. He’d made them partners—given them shares and a stake in his West Coast enterprise. They personally stood to profit enormously from the venture should it succeed. But Astor took a further measure than money to ensure their loyalty. Before the
Tonquin
embarked from New York for the Northwest Coast, he asked those Canadians who would be traveling on it to get U.S. citizenship.

He was under the impression they had done so. But they hadn’t. McKay and David Stuart had instead visited the British consul to the United States, Francis James Jackson, who happened to be visiting New York.

What would happen if war broke out? McKay had asked, according to Franchère, a British citizen and much interested in this same point.

“After some moments of reflection Mr. Jackson told him, ‘that we were going on a very hazardous enterprise; that he saw our object was purely commercial, and that all he could promise us, was, that in case of a war we should be respected as British subjects and traders.’ ”

Astor knew nothing at the time of this meeting. He, too, had thought carefully about exactly whom he could trust. This is why, not wishing to risk giving too much leadership to a British subject like Mackenzie, he had sent the letter to Hunt in St. Louis specifying that he was the sole leader of the Overland Party. The loyal Hunt would also serve as head of the entire West Coast emporium. As for the others—Mackenzie, McDougall, McKay, the Stuarts? They were Scotsmen all, British citizens, former Nor’westers—again, would they remain loyal?

Astor had put all his faith in the loyal, steady, consensus-seeking, conflict-avoiding Wilson Price Hunt to serve as the anchor of the West Coast emporium. What he hadn’t counted on, as he rode fast toward Washington amid the growing threat of war in June 1812, was that Hunt was about to leave Astoria.

I
N EARLY
N
OVEMBER 1812,
Astor partner Donald Mackenzie left his new post on a branch of the Snake River to visit his colleague John Clarke at the latter’s new post on the nearby Spokane River. Despite the early loss of the
Tonquin,
John Jacob Astor’s trade empire was unfolding largely according to plan. The many parties dispatched that summer in the flotilla from Astoria had established outposts all over the Northwest’s interior, casting Astor’s giant net. Besides Clarke’s and Mackenzie’s posts were Stuart’s on the Okanagan, another in the Willamette, posts being established to the north of these on the Thompson River, to the east in the Kootenai region, in the Flathead region, and on a river called by the voyageurs Coeur d’Alene.

Furs had been found in rich supply in all these areas, seemingly, except one—the post on the Snake tributary known as the Clearwater. This was the post headed by Donald Mackenzie. For much of the last two years, the “man of perpetual motion” had been traveling steadily in the wilds with Hunt’s Overland Party. Settled in at last, his restlessness now manifested itself again. He complained that the local Indians didn’t want to trap, and Astor’s trade goods wouldn’t compel them to bring in furs. They preferred to go off and make war and hunt buffalo. As Alexander Ross, manning a more productive post on the Thompson River, put it, “They spurned the idea of crawling about in search of furs; ‘Such a life,’ they said, ‘was only fit for women and slaves.’ ”

“Mackenzie,” writes Ross, “soon got sick of them, and weary of the place.”

The restless Astor partner mounted a horse he’d purchased from the Indians and rode several days north to John Clarke’s post on the Spokane to consult with his colleague and to smoke pipes with him. While Clarke and Mackenzie shared the warmth of the fire one November day, a deputation arrived at their door.

It was from the North West Company and at its head stood an official named John George McTavish. He had recently arrived at the Spokane post from other North West Company posts on the other side of the Rockies and carried an important message. He formally handed it to the two Astorians:

Whereas the Congress of the United States, by virtue of the constituted authority vested in them, have declared by their act bearing date the 18th day of the present month [June 1812] that war exists between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the dependencies thereof and the United States of America and their Territories:

Now, therefore, I, James Madison, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the same to all whom it may concern. . . .

They were stunned. The North West Company message had raced by express canoe from Montreal to the company’s Fort William on Lake Superior. It was then forwarded farther west by light canoe on the inland system of rivers and lakes. McTavish, traveling among the company’s remote western posts, happened to be at Lake Winnipeg (north of today’s Minnesota), when instructions from North West Company partners reached him, along with President Madison’s proclamation of war.

The basic message delivered from McTavish of the North West Company to Clarke and Mackenzie of the Astor enterprise, that day in the smoky warmth of the log post, boiled down to a startlingly simple fact: Astoria now presented a fair target for British attack.

It was the first news that any of the Astorians had heard of the war. McTavish carried still more news. According to Irving’s account, McTavish delivered it with officious delight to his former colleague Mackenzie and the American Clarke. McTavish was resupplying his scattering of fur posts on these northern branches of the Columbia to compete head-to-head with Astor’s posts. And still more ominous news: McTavish informed the two Astorian traders that the North West Company’s twenty-gun ship, the
Isaac Todd,
had sailed from Montreal bound for England. In Britain she would acquire armed escorts from the Royal Navy. She would then sail for the Columbia’s mouth, arriving probably in March. The armed British ships would proceed to capture America’s colony on the West Coast.

Message delivered, McTavish and company retired for the moment to the North West Company’s post nearby on the Spokane. Mackenzie hastened by horseback the several days south to his Astor post on the Clearwater. He and Clarke knew they had to get news of war to Astoria as quickly as possible. Mackenzie gathered in his men, some of them trapping several days away. He ordered them to bundle the furs at the post, pull up the floorboards, and dig caches underneath the structure. Having cached the furs and other goods, they carefully replaced the floorboards.

They celebrated New Year’s Day 1813 at the Clearwater post, according to the young New Yorker Alfred Seton, who served as the post’s clerk, “as jollily as was in our power.”

“We had a famous horse pye & a couple of quarts of real Boston particular with which we regaled ourselves
pas mal
[not badly] as the Frenchmen say,” Seton wrote jauntily.

Then Mackenzie, the man of perpetual motion, abandoned the post. Before leaving, he ordered the Clearwater post burned down, its dying embers falling in a heap over the cached furs. He and his men climbed into their canoes. With ice freezing to the paddle blades at every stroke, and the greenhorn New Yorker sitting miserably with numbed hands and cold feet amidships, the voyageurs powered the canoes to the mouth of the Columbia—singing, Seton noted with frigid amazement, the entire way.

A
STOR HAD BEEN ON HORSEBACK
en route to Washington when, just past Baltimore, he got the news in late June 1812:
War declared
. Returning to New York, he had laid out a comprehensive strategy and made a flurry of preparations to protect his West Coast trade empire.

His first task was to get word to his people in Astoria as quickly as possible. They had to prepare to defend the emporium from British attack or seizure. Astor already had one ship in the Pacific, the
Beaver
. He knew her itinerary—during the summer months of 1812, as he’d instructed, she should be at the emporium and working the Northwest Coast and Alaska loading furs, then sail to China before autumn storms swept the North Pacific. Astor immediately drafted messages to Captain Sowle of the
Beaver
for dispatch to Canton aboard other commercial ships headed there. Captain Sowle was to turn the
Beaver
around and proceed with fresh supplies directly back to the West Coast emporium. Once there, Sowle was to follow Hunt’s orders to protect the emporium however Hunt deemed necessary.

Astor then reconfigured his next regular supply ship to Astoria. He had planned to send a ship that autumn of 1812, as he had sent the
Tonquin
in autumn of 1810 and the
Beaver
in the fall of 1811. Now his next ship would run the risk of being blockaded trying to leave New York or seized outright by the British. No marine insurer would want to touch this vessel or its cargo. The risk would fall entirely on him. He possessed the resources, should he want to use them, to cover the loss himself. He weighed the risks and struck on a solution: Outfit a special ship that could outrun the British gunships. For extra safety, he would work his diplomatic connections to the Russian embassy in Washington in order to secure Russian papers for the ship, exempting her from the British blockade or seizure. For this high-risk ship he selected the
Lark
—“remarkable,” as Irving described the well-armed vessel, “for her fast sailing.”

Finally, he considered whether he could engage the U.S. Navy to protect his West Coast emporium. President Jefferson had four years earlier apparently promised him some sort of military protection for his West Coast venture, at least according to Astor. James Madison now held the presidency, however, and he wouldn’t necessarily make good on Jefferson’s verbal promises, assuming Jefferson had made them. And there was another obstacle—one of simple resources. As both Jefferson and Madison ideologically opposed a standing army and navy for the young United States, as the country went to war, the U.S. Navy possessed only a dozen or so ships ready for sea duty. By contrast, the Royal Navy had six hundred.