22 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846
Canada, but born of Irish parents; his name is seldom spelt aright by any one but himself ; he is well educated, and, hav- ing studied medicine, acquired the title of doctor, which is now universally applied to him. Of fine form, great strength, and bold and fearless character, he was of all men best suited to lead and control those Canadian adventurers, who, influenced partly by hopes of profit, but still more by a spirit of romance enlisted themselves in the service of the fur trading companies, to traverse the unexplored country west and north of Hudson's bay. He came, I think, as early as 1820 to assume the direc- tion of the Hudson's Bay Company's interest west of the Rocky mountains, and immediately organized the necessary trading posts among the Indians of Oregon and those on the more northerly coasts. 1 He continued to maintain the super- intendence of this increasing and most profitable trade, and by judicious selections of assistants, the exercise of a profound and huma'ne policy towards the Indians, and unremitting stead- iness and energy in the execution of his duties, placed the power and prosperity of his employers upon a safe and lasting foundation. So much of his early life was passed away in the canoe and the camp, that he seems to have been prevented from cultivating those social relations at home which have their finale in matrimonial felicity, and (as was customary among his brethren of that day similarly employed) he rather uncere- moniously graced the solitude of his camp with the society of a gentle half-breed from the borders of lake Superior. This lady occasionally presented him a pledge of her affection and fidel- ity, of whom two sons and a daughter survive, and I believe before her death was regularly married to the doctor, whose example in this particular was followed by all the other offi- cers of the Hudson's Bay Company who had acquired the responsibility of parents. The doctor's oldest son, Joseph, is a respectable land owner and farmer in the Wilhammette ; his daughter, the widow of a deceased Scotchman ; and the other son, David, who received his education at Woolwich, in Eng-
i. He came in 1824.
