Fort Clatsop Administrative History

Settlement of the Site, 1806-1899

On March 22, 1806, Lewis recorded in his journal the visit of Chief Comowool and three Clatsops. He states "to this Chief we left our houses and furniture." [7 ] According to descendants of Comowool, he used the fort during hunting season for several years after the Expedition left. [8] Beginning in 1811 with the arrival of John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company and the establishment of the fur post at Fort Astoria, there is a record of visitation to the site by American and European traders, explorers, and settlers. On October 2, 1811, Gabriel Franchere, a member of the Pacific Fur Company, reported visiting the ruins of the fort and seeing only a pile of rough unhewn logs. A second trip was made by Ross Cox in May or June 1812. He noted that logs from the fort were still standing and marked with the names of several of the party.

In 1813, after the outbreak of the War of 1812 and the loss of their annual trade ship, the Pacific Fur Company sold out to the North West Company. Fort Astoria was taken over by the British and renamed Fort George. [9] In 1813, Alexander Henry of the North West Company and a captain of the British Royal Navy made a canoe trip to the site. At that time they found two Clatsop houses at the site, saw the remains of the fort and reported willows growing up inside the remains. They reported that the Clatsops had cut down and used a good portion of the wood from the fort walls. An 1821 Congressional report on settlement of the Oregon Country stated the fort remains could still be seen. [10] Various other travelers and settlers took the time to visit the site and their documentation gives a record of the site's condition over time. [11]

In 1849, S.M. Henell of Astoria attempted to claim land containing the site of Fort Clatsop through a donation under an Oregon Provisional Government land claim law. The next year, however, Thomas Scott jumped Henell's claim under the federal 1850 Donation Act and shortly thereafter traded the property to Carlos Shane. Shane built a house a few feet from the remains of the fort. In 1852 or 1853, Carlos Shane's brother, Franklin Shane, moved to the site. Carlos Shane moved up river and transferred the site to Franklin. The claim consisted of approximately 320 acres along the west bank of the Lewis and Clark River, and included the fort site and the site along the river bank believed to be the Corps' canoe landing. In 1852, Richard Moore wanted to build a mill at the canoe landing site. An agreement was reached between Shane and Moore resulting in the movement of Shane's boundary slightly north so that Moore could claim the landing. [12] Moore built a mill and from 1852 to 1854 the area around the mill was logged and lumber sent by boat from the canoe landing site to San Francisco. [13]

During this time, Franklin Shane put in an orchard on his property. In 1853, Fort Clatsop was its own voting precinct with 56 votes polled. [14 ] In 1854, the bottom fell out of the lumber market and the mill closed. Three years later, when Franklin Shane refiled papers for his claim, the boundary returned to its original place and included the landing in his property. [15] Donation Certificate number 5001 was issued to Franklin Shane in 1857. The claim was 320.5 acres, stretching about half a mile along the west bank of the river and extending about a mile inland.

Franklin Shane died between 1860 and 1867 and his property was inherited by his two daughters. In 1872, the husband of Mary Shane, William (Wade) Hampton Smith, was given title to the half of the Shane claim that contained the Fort Clatsop site. Smith built a new house on the property, the house Carlos Shane built reportedly having burned down. William Smith, Mary, and their children lived at the site for eight years until they moved to Portland in 1880.

One of William Smith's sons, Harlan C. Smith, returned to the Fort Clatsop site during the summer of 1957. [16] On July 6, 1957, National Park Service officials conducted an interview with Smith about his childhood at the site. Harlan was 2 years old in 1872 when his family moved to the site and his father built their house. While living at Fort Clatsop, Harlan remembered his father worked as the postmaster for the Fort Clatsop post office, distributing mail out of their home. He also operated a brick manufacturing business for awhile. According to Smith, his father built the road from Fort Clatsop to the Clatsop Plains under contract with the Oregon Steam and Navigation Company.

Harlan Smith was able to share his memories of the site as well as his mother's, who had spent a good deal of her childhood there. She remembered seeing the ruins of Fort Clatsop and recounted to Harlan where they were. She also told Harlan that a decaying, half buried log, running east-west along the north edge of their house, was the last remaining timber of the fort ruins. [17]

When the Smiths moved to Portland in 1880, the Joseph B. Stevenson family, who had been the Smiths' neighbors, rented the house and property from William Smith. Over several years, one of Stevenson's occupations at the site was making and selling charcoal. He was also engaged with the Oregon Steam and Navigation Company operations at the canoe landing site.

The canoe landing site continued to be used in other ventures. During the summers of 1860-1862, the United States Revenue Service docked their cutter for maintenance at the landing. [18] The landing site had also become part of the main route used by tourists traveling to the coast. Travelers would take ships from Portland or Astoria to Fort Clatsop and then take a carriage or horse to Seaside. In 1862, the Oregon Steam and Navigation Company established a regular summer service from Portland to Fort Clatsop and in 1875, William Smith sold 5 acres along the river to the company. [19] While the Stevensons were tenants at Fort Clatsop, they ran a carriage service from the landing to Seaside. By 1900, however, new transportation routes to meet the needs of the increasing numbers of tourists eliminated the Fort Clatsop route. The Oregon Steam Navigation Company had become the Oregon Railroad and Navigation Company, and continued to own the five-acre parcel along the river.

Another economic development at the Fort Clatsop site was the discovery of clay deposits. William Smith extracted clay from three locations near the fort site. [20] In 1887, Mary Shane Smith sold half of the clay and mineral rights on the Shane claim to the Oregon Pottery Company. [21] Clay and mineral rights at the site were bought and sold several times during the next thirty years. From 1887 until probably 1920, clay was apparently extracted from an area just southwest of the three acres obtained as the fort site in 1900 by the Oregon Historical Society. [22]

During the period from 1806 to 1899, the site of Fort Clatsop was generally known to the local population. The Clatsops certainly remembered the site and from 1811 until 1850, remains of a log structure at the present site were considered to be the remains of Fort Clatsop and pointed out as such to visitors and new settlers. After natural deterioration, the affects of agricultural production, home building, and other pursuits had obliterated those log remains, the site remained known as Fort Clatsop to the local population through oral tradition. Those settlers who had seen the remains pointed out the location to their children.