Fort Vancouver Cultural Landscape Report

Site
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The Landscape Beyond Fort Plain

After Lieutenant Colonel B.L.E. Bonneville surveyed the military reservation in 1854, in conformance with the orders to reduce its size to 640 acres, there was no effective means for the Company to protect most of its holdings beyond the reduced size of the reserve. Although encroachments on company lands had begun earlier, after the reserve's boundaries were decreased, squatters moved in right up to its edges. The Company at Vancouver simply did not have the personnel to police its establishment, and the army--of some assistance when the lands were within its previous four-mile square boundary-certainly had no political reason or incentive for enforcing the Company's claims. By posting employees at the Mill Plain Farm site, the Company managed to hang on to most of it until 1859 or '60, and a few fields in Lower Plain continued under the Company for a few more years, but beginning in 1854, most of its vast holdings fell into the hands of others.

Lower Plain

A storm in October of 1846 did some damage to the farm: Thomas Lowe noted in his journal on October 31 that "...a great many trees in the wood [were] rooted up. One fell upon the Dairy in the Lower plain and destroyed it, and the roads are very much obstructed with fallen timber." [1115] It is not clear if the dairy was rebuilt, but it was in 1846 that Amos and Esther Short laid claim to 640 acres in the vicinity of the dairy. By 1849-50, Archibald McKinlay said, all the lands of Lower Plain had been occupied and "jumped by Short, Laframboise, Petrain, Proulx and several others..." William Crate testified that by 1849 settlers had taken possession of at least part of Lower Plain. [1116]

Assistant quartermaster Rufus Ingalls later wrote that Short was one of four Americans "...living and cultivating within the limits of the [military] reservation on the 31st October, 1850. He is an American citizen, called A.M. Short. He had at that date improvements not to exceed $1,500 cash value, though he has kept on regularly increasing the number and value of his improvements subsequently, against the frequent and most positive warnings of myself and the commanding officer of this post....this man was a trespasser upon the possessory rights of the Hudson's Bay Company...I have been informed he was forcibly ejected under the old provisional government of this territory..." [1117] Short's house and enclosures were at the easternmost edge of Lower Plain; he had Vancouver City platted to the east of his farm, on what is really Fort Plain, along the west edge of the Kanaka Village site, in 1850.

The long line of fencing to keep the cattle on the lower range of Lower Plain, which A.C. Anderson described as existing in 1841 was, by 1851, "...removed or wantonly destroyed, and the whole or greater part eventually disappeared." [1118] The timothy and clover seeded along the river's edge by the Company yielded "...annual harvests of those grasses of great value to parties in possession of lands up to 1858," according to Dugald Mactavish. [1119] Mactavish reaffirmed that Lower Plain, by the time he left in 1858, was in the possession of squatters.

The 1859 Covington map indicates squatters had subdivided, and cultivated and enclosed any cultivable land in the Lower Plain. Amos Short's claim was in the vicinity of the Company's former dairy. To the north, encompassing the former West Plain farm, partially demolished by the 1844 fire, were a string of cultivated fields with barns and houses, following the pattern of cultivation established by the Company, up to the northern pastures bordering what is now Lake Vancouver. To the northwest, along the river edge, was another series of cultivated fields, barns and houses, primarily on lands formerly cultivated by the Company. The claimants to these lands included those listed by McKinlay, including former Company employees, as well as several others.

Mill Plain

Archibald McKinlay, at Fort Vancouver in 1849-50, said there were some settlers "on the far end" of Mill Plain, but that the Company "had land there under cultivation; I think there was as much fenced as in 1846 but the fences were not in as good condition." [1120] In the spring of 1852, Chief Factor John Ballenden, facing severe labor shortages, leased some, if not all, the cultivated fields at the farm in exchange for half the production returns; the soil, which he said was not good to begin with, had been "...impoverished by overcropping." [1121]

Isaac Ebey reported to Isaac Stevens that in late 1853 or early 1854 that most of the Company's "possessions" in the Mill Plain area had been abandoned. [1122] However, the Company still retained acreage there: in 1855 Chief Factor Dugald Mactavish told George Simpson a reported loss for Fort Vancouver was mainly due to the need to erect new buildings at the Mill Plain Farm. By 1857-58, the Mill Plain Farm was still in operation: it suffered a reported loss of £84.17.9 [1123] When Mactavish left in 1858 he said the farm buildings on Mill Plain were still in possession of the Company and "in good order." [1124] In February of 1859 Chief Trader James Grahame reported that although the Mill Plain farm had been uncultivated for several years, the Company still had a servant living on it, and the fences were still maintained. That year the farm at Mill Plain suffered a series of incursions by squatters, who began to run fences through the Company's land there; one tore down a Company fence and used the rails to build a new fence inside one of the Company's fields. By the end of the year the Company farm was no longer in its hands. Covington's 1859 map shows fenced enclosures and an unidentified structure at the west end of the farm, in what had been Company pastures, and a house and barn belonging to a "Murray" in the center of the south edge of the Company's cultivated fields. [1125]

Sawmills

By 1853-54, the mill sites were claimed by several individuals. Daniel Harvey, McLoughlin's son-in-law and the Company employee in charge of the Mill Plain farm had a claim dating to the mid-1840s which included both the grist and sawmills. The Company's millwright, William Crate, claimed 640 acres, which included the gristmill; Isaac Ebey said that in 1853 Crate had not made any improvements on it, but that a house, barn and about fifty acres were in cultivation on the claim, almost certainly Company improvements dating to the 1840s. A Gabriel Barktroth claimed 640 acres, which included the sawmill, and a Mr. Maxon also claimed 640 acres of land in the vicinity of the mills, overlapping Barktroth's claim. [1126]

Dugald Mactavish said that, by 1858, the sawmills were "virtually in possession of a man named Taylor, "but that one of the flour mills was in fair condition and still working. [1127]

Back Plains

The appearance of the country between Fort Vancouver and the Back Plains during this period is best described in the 1853-54 report of the U.S. Pacific railway survey expedition:

From this stream [Burnt Bridge Creek] the country along the trail breaks into small openings or plains having no timber on them. They vary from a half to several miles in extent, are very level, as well as the adjacent country, and are separated from each other by narrow strips of woods. Kolsas, the largest of these plains, about seven miles from Vancouver, is six or seven miles long, and three or four in breadth, and connects on the south with a swampy arm of Camas plain, which stretches off to the eastward, in which direction there is a large tract of the same character of country lying along Mill creek, and running down towards the Columbia. From Kolsas the trail bears to the northeast for six miles to a plain called Simsik, about a mile and a half long. The country between Vancouver and Simsik is similar in character--heavily timbered with fir, spruce, and a dense undergrowth of maple and hazel bushes. The soil is sandy and gravelly, especially the open plains; the soil in the woods between Kolsas and Simsik is the best. The country up to Simsik is quite level; leaving Simsik east of north the country becomes hilly and broken along the trail, the hills becoming higher and more rocky as we approach the Cathlapoot'l river. Between these points the trail crosses several branches of the Cathlapoot'l...the main stream uniting with the Cathlapoot'l four miles from its junction with the Columbia. [1128]

The Back Plains fell to squatters early in this period. By 1849-50, Archibald McKinlay said, all of the back plains were occupied by "others." [1129] Isaac Ebey reported that a Mr. Maxon, an "American Citizen," had claims both at the Company's sawmill site, and on Camas Plain in 1853-54, and that a number of Americans had settled on the Camas Plain. The Covington map of 1859 shows two settlers on First Plain: Durgan and Jameson, both with houses and barns; Shaw occupies Second Plain with a house and barn, and Morrow has a house and barn on Third Plain.