Mythology – a popular belief or assumption that has grown up around someone or something; one of the definitions of the word. Synonyms include “legend”, “tradition”, “lore”, “legend”, “knowledge”, “wisdom”, “folktale” and “anecdote” among other words. These words go a long way in describing the events at Champoeg, Oregon on 2 May 1843 and how those events lie remembered in our minds today.
According to the myths intertwined with 2 May, here the State of Oregon gained true birth. And like many myths, truths do cling to the myths. That does not mean all the events and especially how people remembered those events in later years, equal the total truth. So, let’s dig a bit deeper into just what happened and the meanings of those events.
OREGON COUNTRY
At the time of the meeting of settlers in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, approximately only 275 adult Americans lived in the entire Oregon Country – which extended far beyond the Willamette Valley where most lived. Another 200 French-Canadian farmers, retired or out-of-contract with the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), also lived mostly in the Willamette region. John Hussey in his book Champoeg: Place of Transition – 1967 – written for the Oregon Historical Society and the Oregon State Highway Department (at the time, the Highway Department responsible for Oregon’s State Parks as well as roads) relates, “Since about 50 of the Americans were dissatisfied with Oregon and were about to depart for California, the two groups were about evenly divided, particularly in the Willamette Valley.”
The even distribution was about to change, however. Emigration to Oregon had slowly risen since 1840. In 1843, 700-900 American emigrants arrived permanently swaying the numbers in the favor of American settlers. Those numbers dramatically increased in following years. The following year saw another 1,400 and in 1845, around 3,000. An English observer noted in September 1845, of the 3,000 settlers in the Willamette Valley, only 600-700 were French Canadian or British – mostly Scottish or Irish.
“MASTERLY INACTIVITY”
It was the “masterly inactivity” on the part of the American government which Fort Vancouver Chief Factor James Douglas saw as crucial in the final decision on the Oregon Question. “…no doubt of the final success of the plan, if the country remains open a few years longer.” Douglas urged HBC North American governor James Simpson to gain a speedy settlement to the border question or the Americans would win the entire coast. He already noted, by October 1845, England would not gain a border along the Columbia River – something they had planned on from the initial co-sharing agreed in the Treaty of Ghent in 1818 (the treaty which ended the War of 1812). The Columbia River had been the hope of the HBC and its supervisors – Simpson and the head man for the Columbia District, Dr. John McLoughlin – since the 1818 signing.
BEGINNINGS
The HBC, also known simply as the Company, did not live in the Oregon Country until the 1821 merger with the competing Canadian fur trading company, the North West Company – NWC. Before 1821, HBC centered its attentions on the lands “given” to them by the royal charter of Charles II in 1670 – all of the lands within the drainage systems of the Hudson’s and James’ Bays – or about 1.5 million kilometers, about 40 percent of present-day Canada. Within this territory the company and its officers were to be “the true and absolute Lordes and Proprietors of the same Territory.”
The NWC started a century later, headquartered in Montreal instead of London, like the HBC. Their initial focus was on the areas north of the upper Great Lakes. But late in the 18th century and into the early 19th, both companies began expanding into areas where they came together. And where they came together, they clashed – sometimes with violent consequences. Those consequences led the British government to forcibly merge the two companies together in 1821.
The NWC had moved to the far west with famous explorers like Alexander McKenzie and Simon Fraser leading the way. A series of trading posts became established along the Columbia River drainage system west of the Rocky Mountains. Their hope of establishing a direct trade route between the Pacific Coast and China lay in ruins initially however through the actions of the competing American Pacific Fur Company – PFC – a subsidiary of the larger American Fur Company owned by John Jacob Astor.
The Astorians
Now, Astor had approached the NWC with just such a project. Turned down, Astor financed his own program. He recruited several partners and employees of the NWC and in 1810, he sent two parties out to create a trading post at the mouth of the Columbia River. One party went by sea around Cape Horn. Some 33 men went ashore near the mouth of the big river on 12 April 1811.
With some difficulty, the men established a stockade inside which they added a trading store, men’s quarters, blacksmith’s shop, and a storage shed for the fur pelts which they received from either trapping themselves, or Native Americans. The other party arrived across the continent overland during February 1812. Fort Astoria was to serve as the main center for satellite trading posts like the Willamette Post – not far from Champoeg – and Fort Okanogan. The NWC countered with posts east of Okanogan at Spokane House, Kootanae House and Saleesh House.
TIMING
Timing can be everything in business and so it was in 1812 for the PFC. The War of 1812 left the PFC dangerously exposed. There was no hope of military support from the United States. Aware that British military forces were on their way to capture the PFC post at Fort Astoria, the Astorians decided to sell out their holding in the Oregon country to the NWC. With that many of their employees joined up with the Nor’Westers. Most stayed on with the HBC after the 1821 merger.
Étienne Lucier and Joseph Gervais were two members of the overland group. They would work with the NWC and then the HBC before becoming two of the original French-Canadian trappers who retired to farms on the French Prairie immediately to the south of the Willamette River near Champoeg. They went on to play a crucial role – according to some – in the settler meeting at Champoeg in 1843.
POST 1818 OREGON
The Treaty of Ghent ended the War of 1812 between the US and England. One of the points of the treaty allowed for co-occupation of the Oregon Country. That meant both countries gained free navigation rights on the Columbia and its tributaries. Both parties received the right to use the lands, as well. At the time, very few non-Native men actually lived in the Oregon Country. Each country claimed the region by right of discovery – more significant on the British side – but Fort Astoria also played a role.
the United states sneaks back in
Renamed Fort George by the NWC, the American naval vessel, the USS Ontario paid a visit in 1817. The treaty allowed each side’s restoration of captured territory. In the case of the now-Fort George, it had been sold to the NWC. But the captain of the Ontario, James Biddle, briefly lowered the British flag and raised the American formally reclaiming the Oregon Country for the United States. The ceremony was purely symbolic, and the fort went on its way afterwards as the main post of the NWC in the Columbia region. After 1821, the post became the main trading post for the enlarged HBC, remaining until the development of Fort Vancouver in 1825.
While the Joint Occupancy Treaty left Oregon to the British and Americans, the treaty did little to establish a presence of either government in the area. The real purpose of the treaty, keep the Russians in Alaska and the Spanish in California from encroaching. For the HBC, this treaty meant competition in the region was limited to the Americans and other British trading companies. With the PFC and the NWC gone, the HBC operated in the Pacific Northwest as a complete monopoly.
HBC Sovereignty
For the next thirteen years, HBC represented European civilization within the vast Oregon Country. They did so by license after their merger with the NWC. This license from the British government extended their fur trading monopoly from Rupert’s Land – which they maintained from their royal charter – all the way to the crest of the Rocky Mountains – an enlargement to some 8 million square kilometers. Another license extended the monopoly to the Pacific over the Oregon Country. That license would be renewed again in 1838. With the fur trade dying down and colonization taking off, the license lapsed in 1859.
A common thought is the British Crown and the Hudson’s Bay Company were allied together in this wilderness, harmonious partners in a single empire. That harmony, however, did not exist. Much like with the other trading monopolies chartered by England, the British East India Company and the British South Africa Company, the HBC acted as its own empire rather than an agent of the government. Left to itself in the Oregon Country, the Company acted on its own.
EMPIRE WITHIN AN EMPIRE
In place of the government, the HBC supplied a basic structure and services usually undertaken by government – roads, schools, hospitals, as well as providing security through its network of forts. The HBC’s main agenda remained to use its considerable power promoting the Company’s own unique interests which normally centered around how much profit could be extracted from a region. Here in Oregon, the HBC actually developed an effective government through its remarkably independent organization, policies, and infrastructure.
While all basic company directives from London, those missives became processed through regional officers who took into account the many contingencies arising on an isolated continent. With this flexible yet tiered structure, the company operated in the distant territory of the Pacific Northwest with few major problems of authority.
During the period in which the HBC operated without interference in the Oregon Country. The Company alone oversaw goods and services traditionally administered by government. But in bestowing those goods and services, the HBC was thoroughly autocratic in its operations. Like any other government, the HBC had its own foreign agenda. As early frontiersman Pierre Esprit Radisson boasted, “We were Caesars, being nobody to contradict us.” And just like Caesar, the company remained disinclined to submit itself to another power.
As a result, it often acted against the interests of both the British and the Americans. First, the HBC frustrated British policy by selling supplies to American settlers. Next, it frustrated settlers by trading arms to the Indians. Once the settlers created a territorial government of their own, the company imposed itself on that, too.
Changes slow in coming
In 1827, with the 10-year treaty about to expire, diplomats again took up the “Oregon Question.” With the HBC’s British employees as the only settlers in the area, the 1818 treaty was renewed for another 10-year by the two countries. Many think British interests aligned directly with the HBC during this era. The Company, however, had no intention of holding onto this territory at the expense of its broader interests. The areas south of the Columbia River remained unprofitable due to a lack of fur-bearing animals to trap.
George Simpson, HBC’s North America governor, wrote, “… our interest to reap all the advantage we can for ourselves, and leave it in as bad a state as possible for our successors. [With these] exertions necessary for the protection of our own interests, and to prevent our rivals in trade from profiting by their encroachment … if we do not relax there is little doubt we shall ~ soon be left Masters of the Field.”
However, by abandoning the area south of the Columbia River, the HBC gave the American government more justification for its possession. HBC’S presence provided American settlers, who started coming west in the late 1830s, the only safety net in the frontier wilderness. Trading posts provided settlers with necessary food and supplies. In facilitating American settlement of Oregon, the HBC dealt a mortal blow to Britain’s claim. As the 1830s became the 1840s, Americans settlers fast became a sizeable presence in the region. This presence would prove to be the tipping point in favor of the United States eventually in 1846.
BEGINNING MOVES TOWARDS LOCAL GOVERNMENT
Ewing Young lived a colorful life as he walked all over the Rocky Mountains, spending nine years after 1821 – the former Spanish colonial trade system collapsed with the success of the Mexican Revolution – trapping and exploring the regions between Santa Fe and Missouri. In 1830, he traveled to California, trapping and trading before meeting up with Hall J. Kelley. They traveled north to the Willamette Valley in July 1834.
Young established a home on the bank of the Willamette across from Champoeg claiming a vast area of 50 square miles all the way to Wapato Lake – Sauvie’s Island. He had a hard time in his relationship with the HBC director of the Columbia District – their name for the Oregon Country – Dr John McLoughlin. That became solved in part by the intercession of American emissary William A. Slacum in 1837. Young then headed up the Willamette Cattle Company bringing a herd of 800 cows north from Alta California. At the time, all cattle belonged to the HBC. And while Dr McLoughlin leased some cows to the settlers in the valley, the cows remained the property of the HBC. With the new influx of cattle, settlers began to slightly inch away from HBC orbit.
death of ewing young
Early in 1841, Young died – probably from complications of a stomach ulcer. He died without a will or known heirs, and he died with not only considerable property, but also built grist and saw-mills along with farms and lots of cattle. The lack of planning on Young’s part left the local settlers – mostly French Canadian-Indian families or those related in someway to the Methodist Mission further to the south – with the question of how to settle his estate in a land without law.
PROBATE COURT
French Canadians still numbered slightly more than the later American settlers. However, it was up the Methodists to decide upon an arrangement where his estate could be settled. After burying Young – the old oak tree where he laid still flourishes appropriately on an estate which distills whiskey – a committee was formed and missionary David Leslie made estate administrator with another meeting scheduled to draw plans for a public meeting for 18 February. Those plans presented included for a committee to draft a constitution and code of laws to extend to all settlers in the Oregon Country not connected with the HBC, including areas north of the Columbia River. Along with those laws, a slate of candidates and offices became drawn up.
At the meeting, most of the male population of the Willamette Valley met at the Methodist Mission House north of today’s Salem. The Methodist package was presented – along with seventeen officials from governor to two overseers for the poor. Father François Blanchet, the head of the two-man Catholic missionary team which came out west in 1838 to counter the Methodist Mission in the valley (established a few years earlier in 1834), objected to the package as representing the wishes of only a minority of those living in the valley. Without the votes, the Methodists compromised. Dr. Ira Babcock, previously at the Wascopum Mission, was made supreme judge with probate powers and an HBC retiree, William Johnson – an Englishman – became sheriff with three constables to help, two of whom were French-Canadian.
BEGINNING OF A GOVERNMENT?
As John Hussey points out in his Champoeg: Place of Transition, “… the settlers, whether they realized the fact or not, became an organized community at these February meetings. The decision to take over and hold in trust the estate of Ewing Young implied a de facto government, or quasi-government, to carry out those functions.” While the power taken over by those put into place did not emanate from a constitutional base, the authority did come directly from the settlers.
The Young estate was next auctioned off over the next three years with the $5,000 receipts – today worth $184,750 – held in trust for possible heirs while also partly employed for community purposes.
STALEMATE
The divide between the Methodist and the still majority of French-Canadian settlers prevented further moves toward a local government in the next couple years. Enter Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, leader of the United States Exploring Expedition. While tasked with exploring the world, at large, Wilkes also had the task of finding out exactly what conditions were on the ground in the Oregon Country. Well received by Dr. McLoughlin at Fort Vancouver, he contrasted that with a generally low opinion of the missionaries himself. He saw them as too concerned with matters not dealing with the spiritual enlightenment of the local Native Americans.
When Wilkes visited the Mission Bottom, 7 June 1841, the Methodist constitutional committee – five man-strong – “waited upon” the lieutenant. “Their principal reasons appear to me to be that it would give them more importance in the eyes of others at a distance, and induce settlers to flick in, thereby raising the value of their farms and stock.” As Malcom Clark, Jr. points out in The Eden Seekers: The Settlement of Oregon 1818-1862, “… he recognized them immediately for what they were: governors, legislators, judges and placemen in embryo.”
“WAIT”
Wilkes’ advice to the men was against further organization beyond the probate arrangement presently set up. With another 116 French-Canadian settlers recently arrived from the Red River onto farms either on the Cowlitz or further north at the Nisqually Plains, laws they suggested were not desired by the majority of the population. “I further advised them to wait until the government of the United States should throw its mantle over them.” The meeting stilled the moves toward forming a government for another year. One settler related to a visitor, those living in the Willamette Valley were a happy group, though “without any forms of law” they were also free of fees and taxes.
THE DAM BEGINS TO BREAK
Numbers began to change with the emigration of 1842. Many of the 114 to 140 new settlers moved onto California, but enough remained to equal or slightly outnumber the French-Canadians in the valley. McLoughlin and Father Blanchet kept the French-Canadians together as a block putting the Methodist idea of a local government out of reach. But the new emigrants brought news of the measures found within very generous land grant provisions of a recent bill introduced by Senator Lewis Linn of Missouri. While that bill eventually failed to pass, if it had, new settlers would have flocked to Oregon to claim land. There existed no legal works to protect claims of earlier settlers. This threat to their farms and homes would change the thoughts of many as to a need for some form of local government.
Wolf Meetings
A general concern of all settlers in the valley was losses of livestock due to wolves and other animal predators. A call went out for a public meeting to take place to address the problem. The first response occurred 2 February 1843 at the house of William Gray at the Oregon Institute – in today’s Salem. Both American and French-Canadian settlers attended and a committee of six was appointed – three were French-Canadian – tasked to propose measures at a further general meeting at the home of Joseph Gervais on the first Monday the following month.
The second meeting took place – 6 March – with a large proportion of all Willamette settlers present – no priests or missionaries nor representatives of the HBC attended. Without problems, the meeting went quickly, and all agreed to establish a bounty on predators with elected officials to administer the program and “voluntary contributions” given to defray the costs.
BEYOND WOLVES
One attendee supposedly spoke up near the end of the meeting with harmony exuding all around, “How is it, fellow-citizens, with you and me, and our children and wives? Have we any organization upon which we can rely for mutual protection?” From his proposition for a further committee be appointed for “taking measure for civil & military protection [of] this colony.” A committee of twelve was then selected with Gervais and Etienne Lucier representing the Canadians. So, the second “Wolf Meeting” seemingly included the French-Canadians together with the Americans to consider the possibility of a local government.
The committee met nine days later – 17 March – in Oregon City. Here, there were few Frenc-Canadians but plenty of Methodist missionaries. Jason Lee and George Abernathy – the missionary’s accountant – opposed the idea of organization, a reversal from where they stood previously. Also, too many people angled for the governor’s role so that the final report mentioned no one to lead the executive branch. The main item on the agenda was to call for another public meeting at Champoeg for 2 May “for the purpose of taking steps to organize themselves into a civil community.”
2 MAY – A MYTH EMERGES
On 2 May at a mass meeting of settlers, the vote to organize a government passed. The myth passed down since the vote was not recorded, the vote for local government won the day 52-50 with two French-Canadians jumping to the American side – Étienne Lucier and François Xavier Matthieu.
Matthieu was a recent emigrant from 1842. Born in Quebec (Lower Canada), he sided with Quebecois rebels in an 1835 uprising against British rule – Papineau’s Rebellion. The rebellion went nowhere and Matthieu fled Canada for the United States with a forged passport. He had worked with the American Fur Company, the parent company of the PFC, but came to Oregon because of his opposition to company policy of giving alcohol to Native Americans.
The myth which emerged was Matthieu and Lucier crossing from the HBC-Catholic controlled French-Canadian block to that of the Americans. Matthieu, who served in the Oregon legislature later for two terms in 1874 and 1878, would go down as the man “whose vote saved Oregon” for the US. Of course, the vote of 100+ locals had no sway on the final results of the Oregon Treaty of 1846, but there you go.
Mythological ORIGINs
William Henry Gray came to the Oregon Country in 1836 as a lay member of the Whitman missionary effort near today’s Walla Walla. Resigning in 1842, he moved to work at the Oregon Institute. It was his house where the first “Wolf Meeting” was held. At Champoeg, Joseph Meek – another one of those Oregon figures who blended myth and reality – called out, “Who’s for a divide? All for the report of the committee and an organization, follow me!” Gray seconded the motion and later became a member of the provisional legislature.
He published A History of Oregon in 1870 in which he noted the vote count. That count seems to differ from what others saw. Robert Newell, a brother-in-law of Meek’s, counted not a majority of two but of five, and he noted among the majority included more than five French-Canadians. Dr. Melinda Jetté has written, “I would say [the story of the vote is] apocryphal or mythic. We can’t really pin that down for sure. It makes a great story, but it’s still, in a way, illustrative of what people were thinking at the time. Even if they tell this story, you know, settlers and their progeny, they tell the story. For them, it explains how they see things, so it’s instructive, even if it’s not literally true.”
post mythology
Joe Meek’s work to muster the votes for a provisional government that day in Champoeg was only the beginning of his labors on behalf of Oregon. He was named sheriff on July 5, but then he also became something of a goodwill ambassador to the United States. Amy Platt, editor of the Oregon Historical Society’s Digital Oregon writes, “After the May meeting in 1843, they sent Joe Meek out to Congress with another petition and said, ‘Hey, look what we’re doing – look what you forced us to do – we’ve created our own government because you left us out here in the howling wilderness to fend for ourselves. So now you see that we mean business,’”
Platt said. “[The American settlers at Champoeg] had every intention of [the provisional government] pushing them toward territory-hood, certainly . . . and then eventually statehood,” Platt said. According to Malcom Clark, Jr. at least seven French-Canadians voted for organization. Most of the dissenters did withdraw after the vote. According to Hussey, at least six French-Canadians voted for local government in spite of the HBC and Dr. McLoughlin’s positions.
REASONS FOR FRENCH-CANADIANS TO GO AGAINST THE WISHES OF THE HBC
The main reason to vote against the Company? Simply to protect their land claims and farms. With more emigrants now living in the valley, and the promise of many more to come, some process became necessary to protect those who came before.
Those French-Canadians voting with the American settlers did so simply because they liked the movement to provide for mutual protection of lives, property and land claims. It was known that successive emigrations would bring many more American settlers to the valley. They simply needed protection for their land claims in the face of the many who would subsequently come.
IMMEDIATE CONSEQUENCES
The immediate thought was the vote was a result of Methodist swindles. The Americans succeeded with their government, but without a power to tax – still voluntary – the government had no ability to run. Plus, the measure still faced opposition from almost half of the settlers in the valley. That would quickly change with the emigration of the rest of the 1840s.The so-called “Methodist” party – like the French-Canadians, would soon find itself swamped by a new spirit of American emigrants.
HBC’s response became muted with the ongoing feud between Dr. John McLoughlin and the North American governor Charles Simpson, Jr.. The death of McLoughlin’s son, John Jr. at Fort Stikine, and Simpson’s callous response lead to his murder led to a disjointed response on the part of the Company. Simpson, McLoughlin and the London board of the HBC all became embroiled in the ramifications of an isolated fort – rented from the Russian American Company – in the panhandle of the future state of Alaska. McLoughlin would suffer ousting from the Company, Simpson would be put on the back burner, and the HBC would retreat – as did Britain – to the lands north of the 49th parallel.
AFTER CHAMPOEG
The meeting of 2 May 1843 represented but one step on the way to eventual Statehood for Oregon, Washington and Idaho. The HBC recognized the potential loss of land south of the Columbia as early as 1824. The events of 1843 pushed the Company to move the headquarters north, erecting Fort Victoria on the south end of Vancouver Island. “54 40 or Fight” was the chant for James Polk’s presidential campaign in 1844. As president he oversaw the eventual acceptance on the parts of Great Britain and the United States of the 49th parallel as the boundary – no joint occupation.
The meeting at Champoeg became enshrined in Oregon history as the day Oregon truly got on its path to statehood. In 1901, representatives of the Oregon Historical Society located the outdoor site of the 1843 meeting, placing a stone marker with the names of those voting for local government placed there. Joe Meek’s work to muster the votes for a provisional government that day in Champoeg was only the beginning of his labors on behalf of Oregon. He was named sheriff on July 5, but then he also became something of a goodwill ambassador to the United States.
myths become history
Behind the monument stands the auditorium identified as Champoeg Pioneer Memorial Building. The log memorial building becane constructed in 1918, and in 1939 the Oregon D.A.R. dedicated the pictured log building to honor pioneer mothers, and the park was declared a site of national historical significance.
The initial ‘provisional government” failed because of the “voluntary” aspect for taxation. Those changes, two years later, came with a redrafting of the laws. The Provisional Government would succeed from 1845 until 1849 when a territorial arrangement became set up by Congress.
VISITING CHAMPOEG TODAY
Champoeg was a main settlement on the north end of the French Prairie in the mid-19th century. After the momentous meeting of 1843, the settlement developed into one of Oregon’s leading towns. It soon washed away after especially a major flood of 1861. Recovery led to the short-lived emergence of Butteville downriver a few miles. Development of railways and the loss of importance of the river as the main transportation artery in the Willamette Valley led to an abandonment of Champoeg as a viable townsite.
The historical value of the site was seen by the subsequent State, however, and the old townsite became honored as the birth of Oregon with the stone marker showing “those men” who supposedly voted for a local government for the region in 1901. After the granite memorial stoods erected, the idea of Champoeg becoming “the Plymouth Rock of the Pacific Coast” took on special meaning with over 4,000 people on site for the monument’s dedication 2 May 1901.
A STATE PARK
In 1918, twelve fenced acres and the Pioneer Memorial Building remembered the events at Champoeg. Artist Theodore Gegoux moved into the building displaying his 11-foot-long artistic drawing of the historic events charging visitors 75 cents to view it. Most visitors came by steamboat in 1901, but the automobile changed that. The number of visitors changed from 3,000 in 1925 – almost all coming on Champoeg Day – to 133,446 in 1032 with the numbers spread throughout the year. Paved roads made it much easier for a normal family to visit.
expansion of memory
The park expanded to 108 acres in 1929 with restrooms, picnic areas and a campground. One hope was for the main highway from Portland to Salem to come near the park with a 4,000-seat auditorium built to honor “Oregon’s shrine. Rows of giant sequoias became planted in 1943 when the park became an official state park – maybe appropriate, since so many of Oregon’s male population decamped, at least temporarily, for the Gold Rush to the south in the late 1840-early 1850s. There used to be a rose garden near the Pioneer Memorial Building but the massive trees have limited light underneath “nature’s cathedral”.
With the expansion of the Willamette River Greenway in the 1970s, the park expanded to 623 acres with the campground moved out of the historic townsite. An interesting and educational Visitor Center became added in 1977 – today there are 678 acres with over 550,000 visits a year. For local school students, Champoeg remains an experience. While most students know little of the history beyond “the birth of Oregon”, a visit to Champoeg cherished as a chance to get out of the classroom for a field trip. The myth of Champoeg lives on.