Hawaiians who remained on board were murdered with the other members of the crew when the Tonquin was surprised by Indians while in Clayoquot Sound a few weeks later.
One of the Hawaiians who helped to build the post that was named Astoria was given the name of John Coxe. He later joined the party led by David Stuart that was sent up the Columbia in July, 1811, to establish a post in the interior. Stuart transferred Coxe to David Thompson, of the North West Company, who carried him across the Rocky Mountains to Fort William on Lake Superior. When the Isaac Todd was sent by the North West Company from Quebec to the Columbia by the way of Portsmouth, England, Coxe was on board. On the way he transferred to the British war vessel, the Raccoon, which arrived at Astoria in December, 1813. In August of the next year he started back to his Hawaiian home where he eventually arrived. He returned to Oregon later and be came a swineherd at Vancouver.[1]
When the Beaver, another of Astor's ships, arrived at Astoria in 1813, she brought with her 12 more Hawaiians. There they were employed as unskilled laborers for the most part though some were used for building small boats at which task they were expert. They were also sent with fur hunting parties into the interior. Several Hawaiians were members of the party of David Stuart that went up the Columbia and built Fort Okanogan in September, 1811. While out on a hunting expedition in 1819 to the Snake River country two of the islanders were killed in the neighborhood of the Owyhee River and thus that stream received its name.[2]
In 1813 the Astor partners sold to the North West Company all the property and posts of the Astor company in Oregon and its employes for the most part, including the Hawaiians, entered the service of its successor. For some years afterward the North West Company sent ships to the Columbia with supplies and carried furs to China. These vessels visited the Hawaiian Islands and brought away more natives for employment on the
- ↑ Barry, "An Interesting Hawaiian in Old Oregon," Hawaiian Historical Society, Report, XXXVIII, 20-24.
- ↑ Ross, Adventures of the First Settlers on the Columbia, (1849), 97.
