Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 17.djvu/382



374 T. C. ELLIOTT

John Day was soon assigned to accompany Robert Stuart back across the plains to St. Louis with dispatches for Mr. Astor, and the party set off on the 29th of June; but during the night of July 2nd while encamped on or near Wapato Island he suddenly became deranged and the following morn- ing attempted to commit suicide and was sent back to Astoria in the care of some friendly Indians. This is all told by Mr. Irving on pages 111-12 of Vol. 2 of "Astoria/' with the final statement that "his constitution was completely broken by the hardships he had undergone and he died within a year."

With this reference John Day's name disappears from the writings of the annalists of the Pacific Fur Company's and North- West Company's careers upon the Columbia river, that is, until 1824. Tradition only (as far as known to the writer) is responsible for the infrequent statement that he retired from his associates and died in a small hunter's cabin on the banks of the large creek which empties into the Columbia a few miles above Tongue Point, which has for years been mapped and known as John Day creek.

But Mr. Irving was either inspired or mistaken, for John Day did not die within a year, although he is not again men- tioned until 1824 by any of the fur traders of the Columbia river. When the North-West Company's bargain with the Pacific Fur Company was completed it provided that those of the Astorians who did not then and there join the North- West Company be conveyed back to Montreal, or elsewhere east of the Rocky Mountains; and a "brigade" of ten canoes containing nearly eighty men left Astoria on April 4th, 1814, bound for the Athabasca Pass. The names of the party are all listed by Alex. Henry in his Journal, and Canoe No. 7 carried as "passengers, Mr. David Stuart and Mr. Joshua Day." Now there is nowhere any mention of such a person as Joshua Day among the gentlemen of either company, and Alex. Henry having been at Astoria only since the 15th of November, 1813, probably was not intimate with the names of all the Pacific Fur Company's men; so there is good reason