Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival by Peter Stark
Authors: Peter Stark
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rocks. He raised his shotgun and fired. The goose fluttered. The captain quickly reloaded and fired again. The goose fluttered again. Captain Thorn hurried over to the presumably wounded goose before it fluttered away and escaped.
As he approached, he saw that the goose’s leg was tied to a rock. This had been the work of one of the clerks, Farnham, who wanted to have some “sport” with it.
“[W]hen he discovered his mistake,” wrote Ross, “ . . . we all burst out laughing.”
Captain Thorn was not amused. He spun around and immediately returned to his boat and ordered it to take him back to the Tonquin .
A stray sailor ashore had already put Captain Thorn in a foul mood about lack of discipline on land. Nor was it exactly clear when the Tonquin was due to weigh anchor after refilling the water casks. The Scottish partners understood that it wouldn’t be until the following day. As the captain stalked off angrily to the Tonquin after being tricked, the passengers went on with their carving, and two of the Scottish partners hiked over a sand spit to hunt birds.
“While we were thus eagerly employed, little did we suspect what was going on in another quarter,” reported Ross, “for, about two o’clock in the afternoon, one of our party called out, ‘The ship’s off!’—when all of us, running to the top of a little eminence, beheld, to our infinite surprise and dismay, the Tonquin, under full sail, steering out of the bay.”
CHAPTER THREE
W HILE THE T ONQUIN WORKED ITS SQUABBLING WAY toward Cape Horn that late fall of 1810, Wilson Price Hunt and his Overland Party stopped their travels for the winter about four hundred miles up the Missouri River from St. Louis. Already they’d fallen behind Astor’s schedule. Explored by Lewis and Clark only six years earlier, the Missouri was the only known route across the vast terra incognita of this part of the North American continent. It made sense to follow that known route and stay at the Lewis and Clark wintering camp at the Mandan villages, in what is today North Dakota. But Hunt’s accommodating and loyal nature, compounded by his inexperience, slowed the Overland Party from the start. He’d fallen a thousand miles short of the Lewis and Clark winter camp. The consequences of this and other delays would build like a gathering storm.
Hunt had insisted on stopping at various points along the way to recruit more personnel, though Donald Mackenzie, the Scottish partner traveling with Hunt, had warned him about the folly of this. Astor, valuing Mackenzie’s decade’s worth of wilderness experience with the North West Company, and thinking he would make a good counterbalance to Hunt, initially appointed Mackenzie and Hunt as co-leaders of the Overland Party, or had at least given this arrangement his tacit approval. Together they’d left Manhattan for Montreal in the early summer of 1810 to gather recruits for the Seagoing Party, passing around Astor’s “gilded prospectus,” as Ross, one of the recruited clerks, put it.
Hunt and Mackenzie had sent the Scottish clerks and French-Canadian voyageurs to New York to board the Tonquin . But when it came time at Montreal to hire for their own Overland Party, Hunt balked. Mr. Astor had instructed them to include as many Americans as possible for the West Coast settlement; Hunt didn’t want to go against his wishes, by hiring the British subjects available in Montreal.
Mackenzie objected—forcefully. Not only did the “Northwesters” possess far more experience in the fur trade than the Americans, but it would be tough to hire competent woodsmen of any stripe once the Overland Party traveled beyond Montreal. He told Hunt that the good men at interior settlements or posts would already be engaged in work, and only good-for-nothing rabble would be available to hire.
The big Scotsman presented an intimidating figure for young Hunt to challenge. Powerfully built, he was an expert marksman and woodsman who
As he approached, he saw that the goose’s leg was tied to a rock. This had been the work of one of the clerks, Farnham, who wanted to have some “sport” with it.
“[W]hen he discovered his mistake,” wrote Ross, “ . . . we all burst out laughing.”
Captain Thorn was not amused. He spun around and immediately returned to his boat and ordered it to take him back to the Tonquin .
A stray sailor ashore had already put Captain Thorn in a foul mood about lack of discipline on land. Nor was it exactly clear when the Tonquin was due to weigh anchor after refilling the water casks. The Scottish partners understood that it wouldn’t be until the following day. As the captain stalked off angrily to the Tonquin after being tricked, the passengers went on with their carving, and two of the Scottish partners hiked over a sand spit to hunt birds.
“While we were thus eagerly employed, little did we suspect what was going on in another quarter,” reported Ross, “for, about two o’clock in the afternoon, one of our party called out, ‘The ship’s off!’—when all of us, running to the top of a little eminence, beheld, to our infinite surprise and dismay, the Tonquin, under full sail, steering out of the bay.”
CHAPTER THREE
W HILE THE T ONQUIN WORKED ITS SQUABBLING WAY toward Cape Horn that late fall of 1810, Wilson Price Hunt and his Overland Party stopped their travels for the winter about four hundred miles up the Missouri River from St. Louis. Already they’d fallen behind Astor’s schedule. Explored by Lewis and Clark only six years earlier, the Missouri was the only known route across the vast terra incognita of this part of the North American continent. It made sense to follow that known route and stay at the Lewis and Clark wintering camp at the Mandan villages, in what is today North Dakota. But Hunt’s accommodating and loyal nature, compounded by his inexperience, slowed the Overland Party from the start. He’d fallen a thousand miles short of the Lewis and Clark winter camp. The consequences of this and other delays would build like a gathering storm.
Hunt had insisted on stopping at various points along the way to recruit more personnel, though Donald Mackenzie, the Scottish partner traveling with Hunt, had warned him about the folly of this. Astor, valuing Mackenzie’s decade’s worth of wilderness experience with the North West Company, and thinking he would make a good counterbalance to Hunt, initially appointed Mackenzie and Hunt as co-leaders of the Overland Party, or had at least given this arrangement his tacit approval. Together they’d left Manhattan for Montreal in the early summer of 1810 to gather recruits for the Seagoing Party, passing around Astor’s “gilded prospectus,” as Ross, one of the recruited clerks, put it.
Hunt and Mackenzie had sent the Scottish clerks and French-Canadian voyageurs to New York to board the Tonquin . But when it came time at Montreal to hire for their own Overland Party, Hunt balked. Mr. Astor had instructed them to include as many Americans as possible for the West Coast settlement; Hunt didn’t want to go against his wishes, by hiring the British subjects available in Montreal.
Mackenzie objected—forcefully. Not only did the “Northwesters” possess far more experience in the fur trade than the Americans, but it would be tough to hire competent woodsmen of any stripe once the Overland Party traveled beyond Montreal. He told Hunt that the good men at interior settlements or posts would already be engaged in work, and only good-for-nothing rabble would be available to hire.
The big Scotsman presented an intimidating figure for young Hunt to challenge. Powerfully built, he was an expert marksman and woodsman who
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