Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson's Lost Pacific Empire: A Story of Wealth, Ambition, and Survival (36 page)

mangeurs de lard
, or “pork-eaters”
: Nute,
The Voyageur,
p. 5.

45 
“I could carry, paddle, walk and sing with any man”
: Ibid., p. vi.

On July 22, 1810
: Chittenden,
The American Fur Trade of the Far West,
vol. 1, p. 182. The exact dates of the Hunt Party departure from Montreal and arrival at Michilmackinac vary slightly in different accounts, but agree on an early July departure and late July arrival.

paddling at top speed, voyageurs singing
: Nute,
The Voyageur,
p. 60. Nute gives a vivid description of the arrival of a typical voyageur canoe.

46  “
resembled a great bedlam”
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 176.

47  canot du nord: Nute,
The Voyageur,
p. 24.

“Perhaps Satan never reigned”
: Bryan Leigh Dunnigan,
A Picturesque Situation: Mackinac Before Photography, 1615–1860
(Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2008), p. 91. The quotation is in a letter from Alice Parks Bacon, wife of a Protestant missionary, in winter 1803.

47 
A whispering campaign
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 129, and Ronda,
Astoria & Empire,
p. 119.

the first Mackinac recruit signed
: Ronda,
Astoria & Empire,
pp. 119–20. Ronda cites the company ledger, and says that Landry is the first name that appears among the recruits at Mackinac.

48 
“stool-pigeon”
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 129.

$11.25 fine levied against him
: Ronda,
Astoria & Empire,
p. 120.

49 
“inevitable pipe”
: Nute,
The Voyageur,
p. 13, citing various travelers’ accounts for voyageur clothing. See also Orville D. Menard, “Voyageurs with the Lewis and Clark Expedition,” in
We Proceeded On
38, no. 1 (February 2012): 21–29. This article gives illustrations of the dress of voyageurs.

“Je suis un homme du nord”
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 128. Irving had traveled in voyageur canoes and knew voyageurs personally, as well as their paddling techniques and construction of their canoes.

brightly colored feather
: Nute,
The Voyageur,
p. 60.

50 
Leaving Mackinac Island in mid-August
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 132.

51 
under the leadership of Andrew Henry
: Chittenden,
The American Fur Trade of the Far West,
vol. 1, pp. 138–44.

Reports had come downriver
: Ibid., vol. 1, p. 142, and Irving,
Astoria,
p. 140.

knew they had to get a start
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 136.

Two days later
: Ibid., p. 137.

CHAPTER FOUR

53 
making good speed
: Franchère,
Narrative,
pp. 46–47, and Ross,
Adventures,
pp. 23–25.

54 
“The weather now grew more violent”
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 25.

“upon those barren rocks”
: Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 48.

55 
“you are a dead man”
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 25.

“The coast of the island”
: Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 54.

watching the island’s approach
: Ibid., pp. 53–54. Ross gives the name of the young man overboard as Joseph LaPierre. Ross,
Adventures,
p. 28.

56 
The
Tonquin
had rounded the Horn
: Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 51.

“Sullen and silent, both parties passed and repassed”
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 26.

57 
“Had the wind not hauled ahead”
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 62.

When the
Tonquin
had rounded Cape Horn
: Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 50.

“Crews with clique structures”
: Sheryl L. Bishop, “From Earth Analogs to Space: Getting There From Here,” in
The Psychology of Space Exploration,
ed. Douglas A. Vakoch (Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 2011), p. 72.

58 
Arguments and power struggles
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 63.

58 
“[A]nd within fifteen minutes”
: Ibid., p. 63.

never learned to swim
: “Sailors Who Cannot Swim,”
New York Times,
May 3, 1883.

59 
sliced the lines that secured it
: Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 53.

by rolling him in blankets and rubbing him with salt
: Ross,
Adventures,
pp. 28–29.

Dozens of native canoes paddled out
: Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 55.

60 
“For other traits, they are very lascivious”
: Ibid., p. 74.

“not accustomed to have his intentions frustrated”
: George Gilbert,
The Death of Captain James Cook (From Gilbert’s Narrative of Cook’s Last Voyage, 1776–1780),
Hawaiian Historical Society Reprints, No. 5 (Honolulu: Paradise of the Pacific Press, 1926), p. 11.

61 
they now wanted souvenirs
: Irving,
Astoria,
p. 68.

62 
“Storming and stamping on deck”
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 32.

63 
served as boatswain aboard a New England ship
: “Boatswain John Young, His Adventures in Hawaii Recalled,”
New York Times,
February 14, 1886.

rowed ashore at Tohehigh Bay
: Franchère,
Narrative,
pp. 59–60.

“He received us kindly”
: Ross,
Adventures,
pp. 32–33.

generating profits for the royal treasury
: Franchère,
Narrative,
pp. 60–61.

anchored in Waikiki Bay
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 34.

64 
“It would be difficult to imagine”
: Irving,
Astoria
, pp. 75–76.

wanted to hire thirty or forty Hawaiians
: Ibid., p. 75.

65 
“[F]rom the good conduct of the sailors”
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 41.

CHAPTER FIVE

67 
Here wind squalls from the northwest:
Franchère,
Narrative,
pp. 85–86.

They can literally stand:
Interview with Daniel Evans, professional sea captain,
Adventuress,
May 2012.

68 
Captain Thorn gave orders to prepare
: Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 86; Ross,
Adventures,
pp. 54–56; Irving,
Astoria,
pp. 78–80. Ross gives the most complete and detailed account of the interaction between Thorn and Fox over the launching of the small boat. He was on the
Tonquin
at the time and added details that did not appear in Irving’s account, which was published earlier than Ross’s account.

69 
“Mr. Fox, if you are afraid of water”
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 55.

A mere twenty ships had:
William Henry Gray,
A History of Oregon, 1792–1849, Drawn from Personal Observations and Authentic Information
(Portland, OR: Harris & Holman, 1870), pp. 13–15.

Spaniards first had sailed northward
:
Oxford Atlas of Exploration,
p. 140.

as far as today’s Oregon
: Sir Francis Drake, sailing for Queen Elizabeth, coasted Oregon in 1579 during his circumnavigation, though whether he landed there remains under debate. See John Barrow,
The Life, Voyages, and Exploits of Sir Francis Drake, with Numerous Original Letters from Him and the Lord High Admiral to the Queen and Great Officers of State,
2nd ed., abridged (London: John Murray, 1844), pp. 59–66.

70 
With Russia poking around Alaska’s Pacific Coast
: Ruby and Brown note the Russians discovered the value of sea otter in Kamchatka at the end of the seventeenth century. Ruby and Brown,
The Chinook Indians,
p. 36. A group of merchants formed an association to hunt otters in Alaska in 1785 (p. 78). Later, in 1799, that association became the “Russian American Fur Company,” officially sanctioned by the czar (p. 78). Ruby and Brown note that Russians had been operating from Kodiak Island as early as 1783. The
Juno,
formerly an American ship, now owned by the RAFC, sailed past the Columbia Bar in 1806, while Lewis and Clark were encamped near the river’s mouth. They were looking for another place to begin trade as they’d run into trouble in Sitka. They did not cross into the river (p. 109). Ruby and Brown provide more detail of Russian presence along the Northwest Coast on pp. 117–118, 126, 138.

Franchère tells of meeting an old blind man
: Franchère,
Narrative of a Voyage to the Northwest Coast of America,
pp. 112–13. Ruby and Brown also relate stories told by Lower Columbia tribes of Spanish sailors surviving wrecks and ending up among them. Ruby and Brown,
The Chinook Indians,
pp. 26–29.

Starting in 1769, Franciscan Father Junípero Serra:
For Serra, see Stephen W. Hackel,
Junípero Serra: California’s Founding Father,
esp. chaps. 8–10.

assigned Cook a secret mission
: James Zug,
American Traveler: The Life and Adventures of John Ledyard, the Man Who Dreamed of Walking the World
(New York: Basic Books, 2005), p. 64.

the last major section of the earth’s continental coastline
:
Oxford Atlas of Exploration,
p. 161.

71 
they discovered that the spectacularly lustrous sea otter furs
: Ruby and Brown,
The Chinook Indians,
p. 37.

“
The rage with which our seamen
”: Zug,
American Traveler,
p. 114, quoting Officer King’s official account of the voyage.

he had become the first native-born American citizen:
Zug, p. 78.

72 
Promoting with his memoir
: Ibid., pp. 132–38.

his innovative theory:
Zug, pp. 186–87.

“My friend, my brother, my Father”
: John Ledyard,
John Ledyard’s Journey Through Russia and Siberia, 1787–1788,
ed. Stephen D. Watrous (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1966), p. 114.

73 
Ledyard’s stories opened Jefferson’s eyes
: Donald Jackson,
Thomas Jefferson and the Rocky Mountains
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1981), p. 56. “Ledyard . . . affected Jefferson’s thinking profoundly. . . . [H]e could also see in Ledyard a man whose dreams made sense and were not unlike Jefferson’s own dreams for American growth.”

73 
“[M]y tour round the world by Land”
: Ledyard to Jefferson, St. Petersburg, March 19, 1787,
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson,
vol. 11 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955), pp. 216–18.

As the lone romantic adventurer struck off:
Ledyard later was arrested by Russia authorities and deported. He died several years later in Cairo while making arrangements to attempt to cross the Sahara Desert.

74 
sail for the Northwest Coast
: Barry M. Gough,
Dictionary of Canadian Biography,
vol. 5, s.v. “John Meares.”

Russian traders built a permanent fur post in Alaska
: Ruby and Brown,
The Chinook Indians,
p. 78.

finally returning home to Boston Harbor
: Dorothy O. Johansen,
Empire of the Columbia,
2nd ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1967), pp. 52–54.

“I was sent”
: John Boit, “Log of the Columbia,” ed. F. W. Howay, T. C. Elliott, and F. G. Young,
Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society
22, no. 4 (Portland: Oregon Historical Society, 1921), p. 303.

75 
became the official Euro-American discoverer:
Inglis,
Historical Dicitonary of the Discovery and Exploration of the Northwest Coast of America,
p. 81. Bruno de Hezeta, a Spanish explorer, noted the existence of a large river in August 1775 but did not enter its mouth, although its mouth was subsequently marked on Spanish charts.

Five months later a rival explorer
: Bern Anderson,
Surveyor of the Sea: The Life and Voyages of Captain George Vancouver
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1960), pp. 114–17.

77 
He prepared himself should the partners
: For Thorn’s suspicions of the partners, see Irving,
Astoria,
pp. 93–94. Conversely, Franchère writes that the “idea of a conspiracy against him on board [was] absurd.” Franchère,
Narrative,
pp. 373–74.

“My uncle was drowned here”
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 55.

CHAPTER SIX

79 
on March 22, 1811
: Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 86.

80 
“At last she hoisted the flag”
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 56.

Franchère reported that when those aboard:
Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 87.

“an anxious night”
: Ross,
Adventures,
p. 57.

83 
But no one aboard ship made a move to help
: Ibid., pp. 59–60.

85 
spilling the crew
: Franchère,
Narrative,
p. 91, and Ross,
Adventures,
p. 65.