Fort Vancouver Historic Structures Report

1. One visitor in 1851 noted that the gates closed "at sunset, when all business ceases," but other sources show that the usual hour of ending work was 6:00 P.M. Oliver Jennings, "The Journal of Oliver Jennings, Detailing An Overland Trip from Oregon City to Vancouver & via the Columbia River & Blue Mountains to Fort Boise, Fort Hall & Great Salt Lake City, March 5-May 22, 1851," original MS and typed transcript, in Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, p. 7 of transcript. For the time of opening in the morning, see Minto, "Reminiscences," pp. 234-35, 245. Because the work of the laborers and tradesmen started at 6:00 A.M., however, the gates probably were frequently opened before 9:00 A.M. to let the carts and other vehicles pass.

2. Notices & Voyages, p. 26.

3. Anderson, "Fort Vancouver, Oregon," p. 1; Jennings, "Journal," pp. 6-7; For a mention of the watchman and his call at Fort Colvile in 1848, see Drury, First White Women, 2:340.

4. Gray, A History of Oregon, p. 150.

5. Tolmie, Journals of William Fraser Tolmie, p. 170.

6. Emmons, "Journal," 3: entry for August 25, 1841.

7. Br. & Am. Joint Comm., Papers, [8:]128.

8. Ibid., [2:]176-77

9. Beaver, Reports and Letters, p. 73.

10. For an example, see Farrar, "The Nisqually Journal," Washington Historical Quarterly 13 (January, 1922): 61.

11. See Summary Sheet, Archeological Excavations, Fort Vancouver National Monument [1947-1952], in Caywood, Final Report, map no. 11 (reproduced as Plate I, vol. I of this report). Mr. Caywood believed that certain of the "trash pits" were along the outside (west side) of the west wall of the 1829-ca. 1836 stockade (line BE), but it subsequently has been shown that the 1828-ca. 1836 fort was actually the western portion of the post-1836 fort. Thus these pits were on the inside of the east wall of the earlier fort. Caywood, ibid., p. 23.

12. Ibid., pp. 20, 22-25.

13. Ibid., p. 23 and fig. 4.

14. Hoffman and Ross, Fort Vancouver Excavations--I, pp. 12-13 and fig. 4.

15. For pictures showing the gable-roofed type see the view, "Fort Qu'Appelle in 1867," in Cowie, Company of Adventurers, opp. p. 202; and the primitive drawing of Rocky Mountain House in 1873 published in The Beaver Outfit 279 (December, 1949): 55.

16. Hoffman and Ross, Fort Vancouver Excavations--I, pp. 12-13, 84.

17. Caywood, Final Report, p. 23.

18. Hoffman and Ross, Fort Vancouver Excavations--I, p. 82.

19. As will be seen by reference to the illustrations cited in fn. 15 earlier, however, a post and horizontal fill type of construction was also used for latrines at H.B.C. establishments. In such cases, the posts probably rested on a light sill or may even have been sunk in the ground. The upright posts were grooved, and the infill slabs or perhaps puncheons were inserted as in the heavier timber construction.