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Company post at The Dalles. He was at Fort Simpson in British Columbia, where one of the islands outside the harbor now bears his name, and afterwards was in charge of Fort George, now Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia River.

In 1846 he severed his connection with the Hudson's Bay Company and settled in Cathlamet, the first white man to make a home there. Here he and his wife ruled in state and conducted what was in all essential particulars a post of the Hudson's Bay Company. The square Hudson's Bay store just east of the present steamboat landing at Cathlamet still stands. At least it is in the same position and is of the same shape, but clapboards and paint have given it a modern appearance. The old Birnie house was on the crest of the hill just