Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 11.djvu/427



To the Editor:—

Two very minor inaccuracies have come to my notice in the "Peter Skene Ogden Fur Trader," article printed in Vol. XL No. 33, (Sept., 1910) number of the Quarterly, as follows:—

Page 253, line 15 should read thirty MILE instead of thirty league limit.

Page 274, line 7, should read AT LAKE instead of of Fort Stuart.

The second paragraph of page 262 also is rendered more valuable historically by an excerpt from a letter dated at Wai- ilatpu Oct. 26th, 1845, written by Marcus Whitman to the Sec. of the Amer. Board of Com. of Foreign Missions and now on file in their archives at Boston and copied there by the late Wm. I. Marshall and printed by him in his H. B. Co. Arch- ives pamphlet at page 26, as follows :

"Mr. Ogden passed down in August last, but was not able to visit us. But Mr. McKinlay, his son-in-law, came up im- mediately and gave us his kindest assurances, together with much interesting information. Mr. Ogden comes back to become the General Superintendent of the Company's busi- ness in this country and vicinity, and is to travel most of his time from Post to Post, while Mr. Douglas is to remain at Vancouver and succeed Dr. McLoughlin, who soon retires on his own private account and settles at the Falls of the Willa- mette on the S. side of which he is the proprietor."

This letter indicates clearly the relative positions in the H. B. Co. held by Mr. Ogden and Mr. Douglas after the retire- ment of Dr. McLoughlin from Fort Vancouver, which was the only Factory (where Factors resided) of the Company on the Columbia. Mr. Ogden's appointment as Chief Factor antedated that of Mr. Douglas by some five years.

T. C. Elliott.

Walla Walla, Dec. 1, 1910.