Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/31



LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846 23

land, is engaged in commercial business with an American named Pettygrove, of whom something will be said hereafter. The doctor's present wife is a half-breed, the widow of one McKay, a celebrated old trapper, who came out with Astor's people in 1810, and was killed oil board the ship Tonquin the same year.

The doctor is now about seventy years of age; is still strong and active, of robust figure and rosy complexion, with clear gray eyes, surmounted by huge brows and a full head of hair, white as snow. He is a strict professor of the Catholic religion. He resides now altogether at Oregon city ; is said to be on fur- lough from duty in the company's service, and devotes him- self to the operation of a fine flour ahd saw-mill which he has built at the falls. He is active and indefatigable, and has by his advice and assistance done more than any other man to- wards the rapid development of the resources of this country ; and although his influence among his own countrymen, some few of the most respectable America'n settlers, and throughout the half-breed and Indian population, is unbounded, he is not very popular with the bulk of the American population. Some complaints against him of an overbearing temper, and a dis- position to aggrandizement increasing with his age, seem not to be entirely groundless. He is, nevertheless, to be considered a valuable man ; has settled himself on the south side of the river, with full expectation of becoming a citizen of the United States, and I hope the government at home will duly appre- ciate him. 2 With Dr. McLaughlin came many others engaged in the Hudson's Bay Company's service; and these, as before remarked, are now the longest settled residents of the land. Few of those who filled everi so high a post as that of clerk have separated themselves from the company's service and still continue to reside in the Territory; but of the boatmen, trappers, farmers, and stewards, almost every one, upon the expiration of his five years' service, fixed himself upon a piece of land and became a cultivator.

2. This wish of Lieutenant Howison was not gratified. Section eleven of the Oregon Donation Land Law of 1850 dispossessed Dr. McLoughlin of his claim known as the "Oregon City Claim."