Fort Vancouver Cultural Landscape Report

Outlying Areas

Willamette Valley

The Hudson's Bay company buildings at Champoeg, inventoried in 1847 as including a dwelling, a granary and outbuildings, stood until a major flood in 1861, which effectively destroyed what had become a small settlement at that location platted in 1844 on land belonging to Robert Newell and Andre Longtain. But even in the mid-1840s, the Company's business at the place was reduced through competition by an American, Francis Pettygrove, who built a granary and warehouse there. The trade store was closed in or around 1851, and the granary a few years later, although they were apparently leased to others to maintain the Company's rights to reimbursement from the United States. The 1861 flood spared the Company's granary, but it was damaged and apparently not used after that time. [1130]

Sauvie Island

In 1852, Fort Vancouver's administrator John Ballenden reported that he had "broken up" the dairies on Sauvie Island, because they were, according to him, both "useless and expensive," but that he left an employee in residence there to protect the Company's property, probably James Logie, one of the Company's dairymen, who made a provisional claim to 640 acres surrounding "his" dairy in 1845, and later claimed the land under the Donation Land Act of 1850. Two other Company employees, James Taylor and Pierre Gilbouts were also settled on the island by the mid-1840s. In the mid-1840s a between six and ten American immigrants made provisional land claims on Sauvie Island, followed by many more in the late 1840s and 1850s. When the Company's holdings at the post were evaluated by Americans under Isaac Stevens' direction in 1854, for the purpose of preparing an American assessment of the Company's claims, Stevens' report said the firm had: "A farm of six hundred and forty acres, on Sauvie island, at the mouth of the Willamette, with a house, dairy, and garden; the buildings about six years old." [1131] It seems likely this farm was Logie's, although by that time he had made two claims for it in his own name. It seems that for all practical purposes, Fort Vancouver's tenure on Sauvie Island terminated with Ballenden's actions in 1852.

Fort Nisqually

After returning from leave in England in 1843, Dr. William F. Tolmie was sent to Fort Nisqually as superintendent and agent for the Puget's Sound Agricultural Company, replacing Angus McDonald. During his tenure the farm became the company's principal pastoral arm, on which thousands of head of sheep and cattle were grazed: in 1846 Tolmie reported over 6,500 sheep and 3,500 head of cattle on the Nisqually plains. After the news that the boundary issue had been settled, Tolmie, like his colleagues at Fort Vancouver and Cowlitz Farm, was obliged to resist encroachment on company land by American squatters. [1132]

The number of buildings, cultivated acres, and improvements grew under Tolmie's direction; through the middle of the 1850s Nisqually seems to have had much better success with retaining employees than Cowlitz Farm. Its operations were sustained to some extent by the establishment of a U.S. Army post at Steilacoom, which contracted for meat to be supplied by Nisqually. Also, with the removal of the Hudson's Bay Company's main depot from Fort Vancouver to Victoria, Nisqually became a port of call enroute to it. Towards the end of that decade, however, by 1859, the number of laborers had diminished to four. Tolmie, who had been appointed a Chief Factor for the Hudson's Bay Company in 1856, was transferred to Victoria, where he was assigned to manage the Puget Sound Agricultural Company farms on Vancouver Island. Company clerk Edward Huggins replaced Tolmie, and operated the farm for the Puget's Sound Agricultural Company until 1869 and the settlement of the company claims with the United States. Huggins then homesteaded and claimed the remaining Nisqually acreage as an American citizen.

Cowlitz Farm

In December of 1846, George Roberts, who had served as a Hudson's Bay Company clerk for a number of years at Fort Vancouver, was placed in charge of Cowlitz Farm by Chief Factor Peter Skene Ogden, succeeding Charles Forrest. At that time, production at the Cowlitz Farm was near its peak, with over fourteen hundred acres of land under cultivation, piggeries, stables, two large granaries, several store buildings, houses for the superintendent and employees, over a dozen barns, and an incomplete sawmill. [1133] The Puget's Sound Agricultural Company later claimed the Cowlitz Farm included 3,572 acres in total. As at Fort Vancouver, the 1849 gold rush took its toll on the labor force; by 1850-51, the number of employees at Cowlitz had been reduced from nineteen in 1847-48 to six. In 1851 Roberts resigned from the Company and was replaced by Henry Peers, another alumnus of Fort Vancouver. By this time, the bulk of the Cowlitz livestock had been transferred to Forts Nisqually and Victoria, and agricultural operations at the farm had been sharply reduced. In 1854, Isaac Stevens reported the the U.S. Department of State, that the Puget's Sound Agricultural Company claimed eight thousand acres of land at the Cowlitz, although, he said, "According to plat deposited at Surveyor General's office, their tract contains only about three thousand acres. Some years back about fifteen hundred acres of land were under cultivation, but of late years the cultivation of land has been almost entirely abandoned. The fences have been allowed to go to decay; much of the hay even has not been cut." [1134] According to his agent, Isaac Ebey, "The buildings are becoming old and dilapidated." [1135].

Until 1856, minor operations of the company continued to be conducted at the farm, although encroachments by Americans had significantly reduced its holdings. In 1859, Roberts made arrangements to occupy the remaining Cowlitz Farm lands and buildings for the Puget's Sound Agricultural Company to maintain its claim to the property until settlement of the company's claim with the United States; his obligation was to keep the buildings in good repair. From that time until 1871, when Roberts left for Cathlamet, Washington, he was embroiled in a number of disputes with Americans who refused to recognize the company's claims to the land. [1136]

The granaries built at the mouth of the Cowlitz were, by 1854 in poor condition. In 1857, according to Dugald Mactavish, the buildings--but not the land--were sold to an American. [1137]