Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 24.djvu/385

 More About Astorians 357 Mr. MacKenzie, in the letter referred to, states that the money in Astor's hands belonging to John Day was never paid over to the legatees until the Court compelled him to do so ; that Astor had acknowledged the debt from time to time, but his final objection was to the paying of two and a half per cent interest on the same. Final set- tlement was made of the estate June 25, 1838. Benjamin J ones This man was also a member of Robert Stuart's over- land party. He and Alexander Carson were returning from a two years' hunting trip on the upper Missouri when they met Hunt and his party near the Omaha vil- lages, in May, 1811. It has been suggested that Jones was one of the forty "Americans and expert riflemen" who escorted the Mandan chief to his nation. 29 Irving says Jones and Carson before they met the Hunt party had been leisurely floating down the turbulent Missouri, through regions infested by savage tribes, yet apparently frle^en, on halves for Spanish river." And on page 875 of the same volume, under date April 4, 1814, his name is listed among the passengers up the Columbia river in the large brigade of canoes departing from Fort George (Astoria) on that day. Spanish river would be the Green river of the present time, but the reference would be to the entire interior basin of Southern Idaho, Western Wyoming and Northern Utah, to which Donald MacKenzie returned in the Fall of 1818. We are to presume then that our John Day was engaged in trapping and hunting in that dangerous and extensive region until his death in February, 1820, as a free hunter for the NorthWest Company, . ... The name of one of the witnesses to his will should be spelled Kittson, who is very clearly identified as William Kittson, who came to the Co- lumbia river district in 1817-18, and who is described by Alex. Ross at page 207, vol. 2 of his Fur Hunters of the Far West In the probate records of the will the name appears as Rettson. William Kittson was prominent in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company until his death at Fort Vancouver, Cowlitz or Nesqually in 1840 or 1841. His brother, Norman Kittson, was an associate of James J. Hill in early real estate and railroad affairs at St. Paul, Minn. Contemporaneous with Kittson there came to the Columbia district James Birnie, afterward prominent at Astoria and Cathlamet on the Columbia. Descendants of these two men are connected with prominent families of Montana and British Columbia and Washington and Oregon. 29 Chittenden, Hiram M. — The Amer. Fur Trade of the Far West. Vol. 1, p. 187.