Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/81

 EARLIEST TRAVELERS ON OREGON TRAIL 73 nights in that state as well as in this valley, for that was before the control of the birth of mosquitoes by scientific de- vices. He was therefore less than thirty years of age when here one hundred years ago. He later became one of the prominent men of St. Louis when that city was the emporium for the entire region West of the Mississippi and by Pres. Monroe was appointed postmaster and held that office for nearly twenty years, and that when it meant something more than mere political skill to be appointed to such an office. He married in later life into a leading family and died there in April, 1842. With his neighbor, Gen. William Clark, an earlier traveler on the Columbia, he was one of the charter members of Christ Church, and his name plate appeared upon a pew in the former edifice of that, the oldest Protestant Episcopal Church of the Great Southwest. He was also prominent in Masonic circles. Upon Mr. Hunt devolved the chief authority in the conduct of the affairs of the Pacific Fur Company on the Columbia, and but for his enforced absence from Astoria the business of the Company might possibly have been brought to a different conclusion. We read of his passing bon mots and crossing commercial swords with Count Baranoff at Sitka, in Alaska, and of his purchasing for ten thousand dollars upon credit only the brig Pedlar at the Sandwich Islands in order to return to the Columbia and protect the interests of the Com- pany, transactions which reflect handsomely his forcef ulness and integrity. Quite appropriately might his name be honored by tablet or monument in this city, or by a peak of the Elkhorn Mt. range, as the man who first traveled the Oregon Trail from Shoshone Falls to the Pacific Ocean. Wilson Price Hunt did not see this Valley again, nor did many of those who were, in his party. The following summer (1812) a few of the Astorians returned through here, Mr. Robert Stuart to carry dispatches to Mr. Astor and Messrs. Crooks and McClellan to quit an enterprise with which they were already disgusted ; their journey to St. Louis lasted until the following spring and was full of peril and hardship. In spite of that Ramsay Crooks became eloquent about the coun-