Fort Vancouver Historic Structures Report

1. Louis R. Caywood, Exploratory Excavations at Fort Vancouver, 1947 (mimeographed, San Francisco: U. S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, [1947], 2.

2. Louis R. Caywood, Final Report, Fort Vancouver Excavations (mimeographed, San Francisco: U. S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service, July 1, 1955), 27-30.

3. John A. Hussey, The History of Fort Vancouver and Its Physical Structure ([Tacoma]: Washington State Historical Society, [1957]), 118-127.

4. Caywood, Final Report, 28; Hussey, History of Fort Vancouver, 144-146.

5. For a presentation of the evidence concerning the new manager's residence see below, Chapter IX, "The Big House."

6. Francis Ermatinger to Edward [Ermatinger], Colvile, March 19, 1838, in Francis Ermatinger, Letters of Francis Ermatinger, 1823-1853, MS, p. [121], in the Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery; James Douglas to Governor and Committee, Fort Vancouver, October 18, 1838, in E. E. Rich, ed., The Letters of John McLoughlin from Fort Vancouver to the Governor and Committee, First Series, 1825-38 (Publications of the Champlain Society, Hudson's Bay Series, IV, Toronto, 1941) (hereafter cited as H. B. S., IV), 260.

7. George Foster Emmons, Journal Kept While Attached to the South Sea Surveying & Exploring Expedition. . ., MS, III, entry for July 25, 1841, in Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University

8. Thomas Lowe, Private Journal Kept at Fort Vancouver, Columbia River [1843-1850], MS, 12, typescript in Provincial Archives of British Columbia, Victoria, B. C.

9. See Chapter III below on Bastion.

10. Caywood, Final Report, 28-30.

11. This 1844 map is henceforth referred to in this report as the "Line of Fire Map."

12. The problem of the succession of structures in the northwest corner of the fort is discussed in greater detail below in Chapter XXV on the Root House.

13. Lowe, Private Journal, MS, 5, 7.

14. Of course, it is entirely possible that the new east wall existed before the bakery was commenced, the latter structure merely being fitted into a gap made in the stockade. No archeological evidence of such a wall was found.

15. It is probable that this construction was prior to June 8, 1844, since the journal of Thomas Lowe, which resumes on that date after a gap from October 1, 1843, does not mention any work on the east palisade. Lowe ordinarily noted such labors.

16. On March 20, 1845, Chief Factor John McLoughlin, in charge of Port Vancouver, wrote to Governor George Simpson: "In the month of January last, some Americans seeing us repair our pickets erect a bastion. . .spread a report. . .we were fortifying the Fort." Robert Carlton Clark, History of the Willamette Valley, Oregon (3 vols., Chicago, 1927), I, 809. The word "repair" may indicate that the existing west wall had already suffered from rot and that McLoughlin may thus not have been hesitant to move it outward to connect with a suitably sited bastion.

17. Lowe, Private Journal, MS, 12.

18. Since Lowe seems to indicate that the bastion had not been started at the time the new northwest corner was enclosed, it must be assumed that some sort of temporary palisade was erected between points H and I. Perhaps further archeological excavations will throw light on this matter.

19. Lowe, Private Journal, MS, 29, 33, 64, 72, 73-74.

20. British and American Joint Commission for the Final Settlement of the Claims of the Hudson's Bay and Puget's Sound Agricultural Companies, [Papers] (14 vols., Washington; Montreal, 1865-1869) (hereafter cited as Br. & Am. Joint Comm., Papers), [VIII], 237.

21. Lowe, Private Journal, MS, 64.

22. Caywood, Final Report, 8-9.

23. Ordinarily one would expect a survey as carefully executed as that by Col. Bonneville to provide the exact dimensions of a structure as prominent as the Fort Vancouver stockade. But such is not the case. C. A. Homan, a civil engineer, later calculated the lengths of the north and west walls as shown by Bonneville to be 724.2 feet and 340.8 feet, respectively. The two measurements as shown by archeological excavations were 731 feet and 326 feet. Caywood, Exploratory Excavations. . .1947, 9.

24. Hussey, History of Fort Vancouver, plate XV (plate XIX of the present report). However, another copy of the same map continues to show the southwest gate as being directly south of the north wall gate. Ibid., plate XVI.

25. Ibid., plates XXI and XXIV (plates XXIV and XXX of the present report).

26. Caywood, Exploratory Excavations at Fort Vancouver, 12. For a more detailed discussion of the evidence on this point, see Hussey, History of Fort Vancouver, 127-128.

27. Testimony of D. Mactavish, in Br. & Am. Joint Comm., Papers, [XI], 71.

28. William Henry Gray, A History of Oregon, 1792-1849, Drawn from Personal Observation and Authentic Information (Portland Oregon; and New York, 1870), 150; Emmons, Journal, MS, III, entry for July 25, 1841; testimony of J. W. Nesmith, in Br. & Am. Joint Comm., Papers, [IX], 35.

29. Caywood, Exploratory Excavations at Fort Vancouver, 12.

30. John D. Combes, A Report of the Fort Vancouver Archeological Excavations of the North Wall (Processed, Vancouver, Washington, 1966), pp. 3-4 and fig. 1.

31. K. G. Davies, ed., Northern Quebec and Labrador Journals and Correspondence, 1819-35 (Publications of the Hudson's Bay Record Society, vol. XXIX, London, 1963), 165-166.

32. Edward Belcher, Narrative of a Voyage Round the World. . . 1836-1842 (2 vols., London, 1843), I, 294. For testimony on this topic by a list of visitors, see sources cited in Hussey, History of Fort Vancouver, p. 129, note 20.

33. Joseph Schafer, ed., "Documents Relative to Warre and Vavasour's Military Reconnoissance in Oregon, 1845-6," in Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society (hereafter cited as OHQ), X (March, 1909), 46, 85, and plan ff. p. 100.

34. Testimony of J. Nesmith, in Br. & Am. Joint Comm., Papers, [IX], 35; testimony of L. Brooke, in ibid., [VIII], 128.

35. Testimony of L. Love, in ibid., [VIII], 237.

36. P. N. Compton Forts and Fort Life in New Caledonia under Hudson's Bay Company Regime, MS, 6, in the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley; Gray, op. cit. 150; Joel Palmer, Journal of Travels over the Rocky Mountains. . .Made During the Years 1845 and 1846. . . (Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels, vol. XXX, Cleveland, Ohio, 1906), 209.

37. Emmons, Journal, MS, III, entry for July 25, 1841.

38. Caywood, Exploratory Excavations at Fort Vancouver, 13.

39. Combes, A Report of. . .Excavations of the North Wall, 4.

40. Testimony of Thomas Nelson, Br. & Am. Joint Comm., Papers, [IX], 88; Compton, Forts and Fort Life, MS, 6.

41. What appears to be Warre's original on-the-spot pencil sketch which was the basis of the lithograph is now preserved in the American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts. It is reproduced as plate 40 in Henry J. Warre, Sketches in North America and the Oregon Territory, By Captain H. Warre, with introduction by Archibald Henna, Jr. (Barre, Massachusetts: Imprint Society, 1970) The pickets seem to be shown as pointed in this drawing, although details in this regard are not as clear as could be desired. It is possible to interpret this picture as showing an uneven row of flat-topped pickets, although more probably pointed pickets are intended.

42. For another Pacific Slope example see the 1860-1861 photograph of Fort Colvile in Erwin N. Thompson, Grand Portage National Monument, Great Hall Historic Structures Report, History Data Section (Multilithed, Washington, D. C.: National Park Service, May, 1970), illustration 22.

43. For an example of this type of construction at a post east of the Rockies see the restored Rocky Mountain House, Heritage Park, Calgary.

44. Thomas Nelson, who visited Fort Vancouver in 1851-1852, later definitely stated that at that time the upper ends of the pickets were "sharpened." Br. & Am. Joint Comm., Papers, [IX], 88.

45. Compton, Forts and Fort Life, MS, 6.

46. Clarence B. Bagley, ed., "Journal of Occurrences at Nisqually House," in Washington Historical Quarterly, VII (April, 1916), 147. Possibly the use of a similar technique by the North West Company at the post built by Alexander Henry on Park River in 1800 is indicated by the fact that the list of materials used included 564 "stockades" 15 feet long and 564 "stockades. . .for rembrits" 8 feet long. Elliott Coues, ed., New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest: The Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry. . . and of David Thompson. . . 1799-11 . . . Reprint ed., 2 vols., Minneapolis, 1965), I, 123.

47. Lowe, Private Journal, MS, 29.

48. Caywood, Exploratory Excavations at Fort Vancouver, 12.

49. Br. & Am. Joint Comm., Papers, [IX], 35.

50. Compton, Forts and Fort Life, MS, 6.

51. Bagley, "Journal of Occurrences," in Washington Historical Quarterly, VI (July, 1915), 192, 193, 194; (October, 1915), 267, 268.

52. Victor J. Farrar, ed., "The Nisqually Journal," in Washington Historical Quarterly, X (July, 1919), 216, 217-218. The purpose of the wedging, evidently, was to keep the pegs tight as they dried out and shrank. It is sometimes said, upon what authority is not known, that square pegs were driven into round holes to make a tight fit and/or to prevent splitting if the pegs swelled upon absorbing moisture.

53. A Committee of assessors noted in 1866 that the pickets at Fort Colvile on the upper Columbia River were "ten feet high and pinned near the top to horizontal timbers." Br. & Am. Joint Comm., Papers, [VIII] 276.

54. Emmons, Journal, MS, III, entry for July 25, 1841. Emmons stated that the girths were placed on either side of the palisade, but in this assertion he was clearly in error. A drawing of Fort Vancouver made by one of his fellow officers, Lieutenant Henry Eld, shows that there were no girths on the exterior face of the stockade (see plate IV), nor are such girths shown on any other known pictures of Fort Vancouver.

55. Palmer, Journal, 209.

56. Glyndwr Williams, "Highlights of the First 200 Years of the Hudson's Bay Company," in The Beaver, Outfit 301 (Autumn, 1970), 52.

57. A note in Hudson's Bay Company, Catalogue of Pictures in Beaver House, London (typescript), in the Hudson's Bay Company Archives states, on the basis of family tradition, that this picture was drawn by Lieutenant Coode, of H. M. S. Modeste. Since this ship sailed from Fort Vancouver for the last time on May 3, 1847, the picture could not have been made after that date if Coode was the artist. Barry M. Gough The Royal Navy and the Northwest Coast of North America, 1810—1914. . . (Vancouver, B. C.: University of British Columbia Press, 1971), 82. The sketch does not show the Old Catholic Church, which was torn down on June 18, 1846. Lowe, Private Journal, MS, 42. Therefore the picture must have been made after that date.

58. Lowe, Private Journal, MS, 33.

59. Combes, A Report of . . . Excavations of the North Wall, figure 4.

60. Coues, New Light on the Early History of the Greater Norhtwest, I, 123.