Fort Vancouver Historic Structures Report

1. George Washington Fuller, A History of the Pacific Northwest (New York, 1931), 118.

2. J. K. T[ownsend] to [?], Washington, January 26, 1843, in OHQ, IV (December, 1903), 399-402.

3. Charles Wilkes, Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition during the Years 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842 (5 vols., Philadelphia, 1845), IV, 327.

4. H. B.C., Reports on Districts, Fort Vancouver [c.1845], H.B.C.A., B.223/e/4, MS, fols. 4d, 6-6d. See also Francis Ermatinger to Edward [Ermatinger], Willamette Falls, March 23, 1845, in Edward Ermatinger, Letters Received, 1820-1874, MS, 165 [175], in Edward Ermatinger, Papers, in Public Archives of Canada.

5. Lowe, Private Journal, MS, 2.

6. Ibid., 12.

7. Ibid., 13.

8. Ibid., 15.

9. Robert Carlton Clark, History of the Willamette Valley, Oregon (3 vols. Chicago, 1927), I, 809.

10. For sample mentions of salutes upon various occasions, see Lowe, Private Journal, MS, 16, 35, 36, 40.

11. Proceedings of a Board of Officers, Fort Vancouver, June 15, 1860, MS, in A.G. O., Oregon Dept., Doc. File 212-S-1860, War Records Division, the National Archives; also printed in Br. & Am. Joint Comm., Papers, [IX], 75-77.

12. Caywood, Exploratory Excavations at Fort Vancouver, 11-12.

13. M. Vavasour to Col. N. W. Holloway [?] [William Cuthbert Elphinstone-Holloway], Fort Vancouver, March 1, 1846, in Papers Relative to the Expedition of Lieutenants Warre and Vavasour to the Oregon Territory, MS, fol. 41d, microfilm in Public Archives of Canada. A somewhat different version is found on fol. 72 of the same papers, where it is stated that the blockhouse was two stories high. Vavasour's report has been printed in Joseph Schafer, ed., "Documents Relative to Warre and Vavasour's Military Reconnaissance in Oregon, 1845-6," in OHQ, X (March, 1909), 85.

14. Caywood, Exploratory Excavations at Fort Vancouver, pp. 11 12, plate 4. Mr. Caywood believed that the foundation timbers "undoubtedly moved outward a few inches from pressure and perhaps from buckling" during the fire that destroyed the blockhouse. However, there seemingly is no reason why the foundation could not originally have had slightly greater outside dimensions than the structure that rested on it. If Vavasour was correct, the blockhouse was 20 feet square.

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

16. Alfred L. Gehri, "Fort Nisqually Lives Again," in The Beaver, Outfit 265, no. 2 (September, 1934), 54.

17. Interview, J. A. Hussey with Dr. Herbert P. Plasterer, Victoria, B. C., October 1, 1967. Dr. Plasterer obtained the original timbers from the "cook house" of Fort Victoria (which had been preserved at Dr. W. F. Tolmie's "Cloverdale Farm"). The exterior edges of the horizontal members were square, with no evidence of rounding to accommodate chinking. However, there actually was chinking or caulking between the timbers. Dr. Plasterer believes this chinking was composed of goat hair and lime. A number of the horizontal timbers from the "cook house" were examined and photographed by the writer.

18. The Nanaimo blockhouse, built under the supervision of Joseph McKay, was started about August, 1852, and was completed the following year. The actual construction is said to have been performed by "expert fort-builders, notably Leon Labine and Jean Baptiste Fortier." Mabel E. Jordon, "The Century Old Bastion at Nanaimo," in Canadian Geographical Journal, XLIX (July, 1954), 18-19.

19. Based on field visit by J. A. Hussey, October 1, 1967, to the Fort Victoria Museum, 340 Island Highway 1A, Victoria, B. C. This reconstruction was based on photographs of the original Fort Victoria bastion. The original structure was torn down many years earlier, and there were no surviving timbers to serve as models for Dr. Plasterer's project.

20. "Fort Nanaimo, B. C.," in The Beaver, vol. V, no. 4 (September, 1925), 188.

21. William A. Grant to J. A. Hussey, Ladysmith, B. C., December 7, 1971, MS, in possession of recipient.

22. Ibid.

23. Douglas Leechman, Notes and Comments on Hudson's Bay Company Trading Posts in the Mid-nineteenth Century, Extracted from the Literature (typescript, 1958), section on bastion, p. [3]. The Nisqually journal noted on May 4, 1849: "Cowie pining [sic] down flooring of lower stories of Bastions. Victor J. Farrar, ed., "The Nisqually Journal," in Washington Historical Quarterly, X (July, 1919), 215.

24. William A. Grant to J. A. Hussey, Ladysmith, B. C., December 7, 1971, MS.

25. Leechman, Notes and Comments, MS, section on bastion, pp. [2, 4].

26. Schafer, "Documents Relative to Warre and Vavasour's Military Reconnoissance in Oregon, 1845-6," in OHQ, X (March, 1909), 46, 85.

27. Leslie M. Scott, "Report of Lieutenant Peel on Oregon in 1845-46," in OHQ, XXIX (March, 1928), 60-64.

28. Br. & Am. Joint Comm., Papers, [II], 176.

29. Hudson's Bay Company, Account Book, Fort Vancouver, 1844 [Inventories], in Hudson's Bay Company Archives (hereafter cited as H.B.C.A.), B.223/d/155, MS, 128, in Beaver House, London. This and following quotations from materials in the Company's Archives are used with the kind permission of the Hudson's Bay Company.

30. Ibid., 143.

31. H.B.C., Account Book, Fort Vancouver, 1845 [Inventories], H.B.C.A., B.223/d/160, MS, 131.