Fort Vancouver Historic Structures Report

Furnishings

Thanks to the careful inventories of "Articles in Use" kept at Fort Vancouver each year, there is excellent knowledge of the Company-owned property situated in the kitchen and pantry. The inventories made in the spring of 1844 and the spring of 1845 are reproduced below. Although the lists lump all the items together under the heading "Kitchen & Pantry," it would appear that in the 1844 inventory the tableware and utensils kept in the pantry were recorded first.

Articles in Use
.  .  .

Kitchen & Pantry

Articles in Use
.  .  .

Kitchen & Pantry

It will be noted that certain articles which would seem to belong in every well regulated kitchen do not appear in the above lists. One such item is brooms. It is known definitely that there were brooms at Fort Vancouver and their use undoubtedly was a part of the work of the kitchen servants. They probably were not inventoried because, in the early years at least, they were locally manufactured or "country made" objects.

Narcissa Whitman was struck by the unique character of the brooms at Fort Vancouver during her visit in 1836. Noting that there was no broom corn at the post, she added that the Company used "hemlock boughs for broom[s], hemlock I say, there is no such tree known here. It is balsam." [44] Of course there are hemlock trees near the mouth of the Columbia River, so we will leave it to the naturalists to determine which tree Mrs. Whitman meant when she spoke of the "balsam."

Perhaps this situation had changed by 1844, however. The depot inventory for that year listed "broomhead Brushes" whatever they may have been, among the items kept in stock. [45]

It can be assumed that there were at least a couple of fir tables and several locally made chairs in the kitchen proper. There probably were cupboards both in the kitchen and in the pantry. And there must have been shelves and bins for supplies such as flour, dried peas, sugar, and salt.