Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/408



JOURNAL OF ALEXANDER ROSS-SNAKE COUNTRY EXPEDITION, 1824

EDITORIAL NOTES BY T. C. ELLIOTT

Alexander Ross, whose day-to-day experiences in 1824 ap- pear in this journal, did service in many parts of the Old Ore- gon country. As a member of the Pacific Fur Company he arrived on the Columbia in March, 1811, and assisted in the building of Fort Astoria, and in the fall of the same year as- sisted in the building of the first Fort Okanogan, at which post he was stationed for several years; from there he made trips south to the Yakima country, west to the summit of the Cas- cades, north to Thompson river and beyond, and east to the Spokane country. Later, while staff clerk of the Northwest Company at Fort George, he ascended the Willamette, and in 1818 assisted Donald McKenzie in the building of Fort Nez Perce at the mouth of the Walla Walla river, of which fort he was in charge until 1823. That summer he started to cross the mountains and quit the service, the Hudson's Bay Com- pany having succeeded the Northwest Company, but was stopped at Boat Encampment by a letter from Deputy Governor George Simpson, asking him to take charge of the Snake Country Expedition that fall. This appointment he ac- cepted and returned to Spokane House and thence proceeded to the Flathead Post in what is now Montana, where this journal begins. Returning from this expedition he spent the winter at the Flathead Post and in April, 1825, joined Gov- ernor Simpson at the mouth of the Spokane river on the way east to the Red River settlements, where he resided until his death in 1856.

Mr. Ross is one of the four writers upon whom we depend for much that is known about the early exploration of and fur trade in this vast Columbia river basin. In 1849, more than twenty years after his active experiences here, he pub- lished a book entitled "Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River," and in 1855 he put out another book entitled, "Fur Hunters of the Far West." It is related that