Fort Vancouver Historic Structures Report

Furnishings

No inventory of "articles in use" in the Harness Shop prior to 1848 has yet been found by this writer. As has been noted previously in this study, the 1848 lists of Company-owned items employed in depot operations were unusually detailed that year. Nevertheless, the following list of "articles in use" in the "Saddlers Shop" at the time of the spring, 1848, inventory seems remarkably short for a shop that even at that late date must have turned out a considerable quantity of saddlery and harness:

Elsewhere in the depot inventories there are indications of the type of equipment that was manufactured and repaired in the Harness Shop. Probably at any given time there would have been a number of such items in the shop waiting to be repaired, in the process of fabrication or repair, or completed and waiting to be taken to the warehouses, sale shop, or farm.

For example, among the "Country Made" (locally manufactured) products found in the Fort Vancouver inventory for Outfit 1840 were:

4 Spanish Saddles
2 Spanish Saddles Infr. [inferior] [22]

In the inventory of 1844 the following items were among the articles in use listed under the heading "Farm Utensils &c":