Ewing Young lived a life of adventure. A major figure in the fur trade in the Far Southwest both as a trapper, but mainly as a leader. He migrated to the Oregon Country in 1834, where Young amassed a land claim of some 50 square miles. In his life, he figured big, but it was his early death at the age of 41 in the winter of 1841 for which he is best remembered. Dying without known heirs, local settlers came together to figure out how to settle his estate. That process is considered a germinal moment in the eventual founding of a local government in the divided Oregon.