Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/181



Louis Labonte (or Le Bonte), son of Louis Labonte of the Astor expedition, who accompanied Hunt across the continent in 1811–12, is still living at Saint Paul, Marion County, Oregon. He is now eighty-two years old, and is in good health. His remembrance of earlier experiences and life is still fresh and his mind seems very vigorous for one of his age. He says, however, that his recollection of the Indian languages that he once knew has now largely slipped away. These were the Clatsop or Chinook, the Tillamook, Tualatin and Calapooya, of which he says he knew a few words, and the Spokane which he understood almost perfectly. Besides these, he talked fluently in the Indian jargon and in French and English.

He was born at Astoria in 1818, his mother being a daughter of Chief Kobayway, and an older sister of Celiast, or Mrs. Helen Smith. Three years of his early life, about 1824 to 1827, were spent at Spokane Falls, and the three years succeeding at Fort Colville. Then two years, probably 1830 to 1833, were spent on French Prairie. His father had removed to that place and was engaged in raising wheat on a piece of land owned by Joseph Gervais, whose wife was a sister of his mother. From this place he accompanied the family to the farm of Thomas McKay on Scappoose Creek near Sauvie's Island, where he spent three years. In 1836 he removed with the family to a location on the Yamhill River near Dayton. In 1849, being then a well matured man, he accompanied a party headed by William McKay to the