HistoryLink File #5251
Hudson's Bay Company opens Fort
Vancouver on March 19, 1825.
On March 19, 1825, the Hudson's Bay Company opens Fort Vancouver on a bluff above the
north bank of the Columbia River where the city of Vancouver, Clark County, is now
located. For the next 20 years, the British-owned company, with its Fort Vancouver headquarters
presided over by chief factor Dr. John McLoughlin (1784-1857), is the leading non-Indian
presence in the region.
In 1821, the Hudson’s Bay Company absorbed its fur-trading rival, the Northwest Company, and
acquired all the latter’s Pacific Northwest trading posts. These included Spokane House, near the
present location of the city of Spokane, which had been the Northwest Company’s Columbia
Department headquarters, and Fort George, near the mouth of the Columbia in present-day
Oregon, which had been founded by American John Jacob Astor (1763–1848) as Astoria and
renamed when Astor’s partners sold out to the British Northwest Company in 1813.
A New Headquarters
By 1824, the Hudson’s Bay Company decided to establish a new headquarters on the Columbia.
Spokane House was abandoned because it was not on a navigable water route (some of its
operations were transferred to Fort Colvile, which opened in 1826 on the Columbia River at
Kettle Falls) and Fort George was ruled out for two reasons. First, the wet, cloudy weather at the
mouth of the Columbia was not conducive to the farming necessary for adequate food supplies.
Second, Fort George was on the south bank of the river, and the Company’s British owners
wanted their headquarters to be on the north bank, since at the time it was thought that the
Columbia River would become the border between British territory and the United States.
In November, 1824, George Simpson (1792?–1860), governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s
Northern Department, arrived at Fort George with Dr. John McLoughlin, whom he had selected
as chief factor for the planned new post. Almost immediately, McLaughlin set out upriver to find
a location for the new fort. The site he selected, about 100 miles above the mouth of the
Columbia, was an opening in the forest called Jolie Prairie by the French Canadian voyageurs
who worked for the Hudson’s Bay company, and Skatcutxat (Mud Turtles) by the Chinookan
inhabitants of the region.
The gently sloping bank provided easy access to the river, and the benches rising from the bank
offered pasture for livestock and rich soil for cultivating wheat, potatoes, and vegetables.
McLoughlin immediately set about supervising construction of the new outpost. The work
proceeded slowly in the heavy rains of winter, but by March McLaughlin had a 13-foot high
stockade built around the perimeter, and two warehouses for merchandise erected inside. Two
flat-bottomed scows were laboriously rowed upriver from Fort George with the trading
merchandise, as well as supplies including two cannons, 31 cattle, 17 pigs and some work
horses.
Naming the Fort
On the morning of March 19, 1825, Simpson, with McLoughlin at his side, presided over a
formal christening of the new fort. A flagpole was erected, the Hudson’s Bay Company flag run
up, and Simpson smashed a bottle of rum on the pole. He then declared:
"In behalf of the Hon[orable] Hudson’s Bay Co[mpany] I hereby name this Establishment Fort
Vancouver God save King George the 4th" (Fort Vancouver, 27).
Simpson later explained his reason for naming the fort for British Royal Navy Captain George
Vancouver (1757-1798):
"The object of naming it after that distinguished navigator is to identify our Soil and Trade with
his discovery of the River and Coast on behalf of Great Britain" (Fort Vancouver, 27).
Simpson’s claims for Vancouver’s discoveries were considerably exaggerated. Not only had
Chinookan-speaking peoples been living along the Columbia, which they called Wimahl (Big
River), for thousands of years, but Vancouver’s 1792 expedition was not even the first nonIndian party to enter the River, having been preceded by American Captain Robert Gray (17551806) earlier that year. Still, the name was a reminder that Lieutenant William Broughton (17621821) of the Vancouver expedition had explored the Columbia to some miles above the new
fort’s location (farther than Gray had), where he had named a point for Vancouver. Both the
establishment of Fort Vancouver, and its name, served notice that the Hudson’s Bay Company,
and Great Britain, were not giving up their claims to the Columbia River region.
For some 20 years, the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Fort Vancouver, presided over by Dr.
McLoughlin, remained the major non-Indian presence in the future Washington. Gradually,
however, more and more American settlers poured into the region, many of them obtaining
supplies and advice at Fort Vancouver. When the issue was finally resolved in 1846, the
international boundary was established not on the Columbia River, but along the 49th parallel
several hundred miles to the north, and the Hudson’s Bay Company ultimately relinquished its
fort to the United States Army.
Sources:
Fort Vancouver (Washington, D.C.: Division of Publications, National Park Service, 1981), 2627, 43, 54-56; Charles G. Ellington, The Trial of U.S. Grant (Glendale, CA: A. H. Clark Co.,
1987), 105-06; Rick Rubin, Naked Against the Rain (Portland, OR: Far Shore Press, 1999), 299302. By Kit Oldham, February 20, 2003
Dr. John McLoughlin (1784-1857), ca. 1856
Courtesy Hudson's Bay Company
Flag of the Hudson's Bay Company. Latin motto "Pro pelle cutem" translates "a skin for a skin"
Courtesy Clark County Historical Museum (Image No. cchm04365.tif)
Mount Hood, Columbia River, and Fort Vancouver, 1833
Courtesy Clark County Historical Museum (Image No. cchm04288.tif)
Fort Vancouver, 1841
Sketch by Joseph Drayton, Courtesy Fuller, A History of the Pacific Northwest
Fort Vancouver, 1845
Courtesy UW Special Collections (Neg. No. UW 26972z)
Fort Vancouver, 1854
Courtesy UW Special Collections (Neg. No. WAS03073)
Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Vancouver, 1855