Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 14.djvu/44



36 LIEUTENANT HOWISON REPORT ON OREGON, 1846

The Puget's Sound Agricultural Company is merely a nom- inal affair, being only a new name with new privileges, under which the capital of persons belonging to the Hudson's Bay Company is turned into profit. It would be difficult to get exactly at the true relationship between it and the other, as the parties who manage them are the same, and they have endeav- ored to make them appear as separate interests. When, there- fore, a new farm is taken possession of, stocked and put under cultivation, or a fine mill erected and put into profitable opera- tion, these are acts and privileges of the agricultural society; but when the products of these establishments are ready for a market, the company, with trading privileges, takes them in hand. As before stated, persons wishing to hold land under the provisional government, having selected the same, were re- quired to mark out its limits, and have it recorded by a person selected to keep a book of all such entries. Lands thus marked out were called "claims" ; and in compliance with this require- ment, the Hudson's Bay Company had entered all their landed property in the names of their officers and clerks; they have omitted no means or forms necessary to secure them in their possessions. Fort Vancouver is surrounded by 18 English "claims," viz : nine miles on the river and two back ; and besides the dwelling houses, storehouses and shops in the fort, they have a flour mill a few miles up the river, and above that again a saw mill. The Vancouver grounds are principally appropri- ated to grazing cattle, horses, sheep and hogs. On the Cowlitz the company has a large wheat-growing farm, and I believe these are the only land claims they have below the mountains. They have, besides, a post on the Umpqua. Around their posts at Fort Hall, Boise, and on the northern branches of the river, they have hitherto enclosed no more ground than was neces- sary for garden purposes; but finding themselves confirmed by treaty in their hold upon property "legally acquired," God knows what may be the extent of their claims when a definite line comes to be drawn. The company have three barques, employed freighting hence to England and back, via the Sand- wich islands, besides a schooner and small steamer in the trade