Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 21.djvu/64



54 T. C. ELLIOTT

The site selected by David Thompson for this trading post has been quite positively identified as a rather rocky point of land projecting from the peninsula already mentioned, about two miles from the mouth of the main channel of Clark Fork river and a half mile from Memaloose Island, and locally known as Sheepherders Point. Kullyspell House was the name as- signed to it and it consisted of two log houses, one for the trading goods and furs and the other for the use of the men. At noon on September 23rd, 1809, Mr. Thompson took an observation of the sun and calculated that he was standing at latitude 48 12' 14" (and near longitude 116) and so recorded. Comparison with the latest quadrangle maps of the U. S. Geological Survey shows that he was astonishingly correct in this calculation. Sheepherders Point is located very close to the northwest corner of Section fourteen in Township fifteen North, of Range one East of the Boise Meridian, according to maps of the U. S. Land Office.

Reasons for the selection of this location were its proximity to the canoe route from all parts of the lake and its freedom from the mosquitoes. Two years later Mr. Thompson had found that the trail by land was used as well as the canoe route and that the Indians going to the lake to fish and visit were neither numerous or industrious trappers for furs and so he ordered it abandoned in favor of the Spokane House, which was built in the summer of 1810. But the distinction of being the trading post first opened for commercial transactions in the whole Oregon Country south of the 49th parallel belongs to Kullyspell House. Finan McDonald, officially designated as clerk, was in charge during the winter of 1809-10, while Mr. Thompson in November built another trading post known as Saleesh House at Thompson's Prairie in Montana, and win- tered there in company with another clerk named James Mc- Millan, who had arrived from the Saskatchewan country with more trading goods.

From Kullyspell House David Thompson made two jour-