Oregon as chief factor and virtual governor of the great Northwest. He was born in the city of Quebec, of Irish parentage,[1] in 1784, and educated in Paris for the profession of medicine. He entered the Northwest Company at an early age, and while in their service was stationed at several posts, and finally at Fort Frances, on Lake of the Woods, from which station he was transferred in 1824 to the Columbia River.
Finding Fort George unsuitable for a permanent establishment, such as he desired, he founded Fort Vancouver in 1824–5, leaving the old post at the mouth of the river in charge of Donald Manson. The selection of the new site was fortunate; prosperity reigned, and the days at Fort Vancouver were of the pleasantest in the early annals of the Northwest Coast. Here he held sway for many years, absolute monarch of the district of the Columbia, comprising all the Hudson's Bay trapping-grounds west of the Rocky Mountains, and extending as far south and north as the trapping parties ventured to penetrate.[2]
Of McLoughlin's personal appearance almost every visitor who came to Fort Vancouver has left a sketch. All agree in representing him as of commanding presence, partly the effect of a tall, well-formed person, somewhat inclined to stoutness, flowing white hair, and a benevolent expression of countenance. He seems to have become gray early in life, for he was only thirty-nine when he came to Oregon. To
- ↑ See Hist. Brit. Col, chap, xvii., this series. Howison, Rept. on Coast, 12, affirms that McLoughlin is of Irish parentage; and Jesse Applegate, in his Views of History, MS., 27, says the same; but George T. Allan, who was for many years at Fort Vancouver, and should be good authority on this point, says he was Scotch. 'I am not sure but his grandfather emigrated to Canada. The doctor, though a true Canadian, used to tell anecdotes of old Scotland, possibly furnished by his grandfather. One I remember, of a certain Highland chief who was in the habit of carrying a yellow cane, and of drumming the unwilling of his clan to church with it, so that the faith of that tribe came to be called the religion of the yellow stick.' Allan's Reminiscences, MS., 5.
- ↑ McLoughlin was called 'governor' by courtesy, but he had no right to the title. Sir John H. Pelly was the governor in England, and Sir George Simpson the resident governor. Roberts Recollections, MS., 78.
