Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 23.djvu/327



All students of the history of the Northwest Coast have an interest in the story of John Kendrick. For the people of the United States that interest centres around his command of the first American trading voyage from Boston; while for the people of western Canada that interest is based upon the work which he carried on upon their shores. And yet when, in seeking informa- tion concerning him, the histories are searched, it is surprising how little can be gleaned. Some disconnected statements can be found in Greenhow and Bancroft, but they are so fragmentary as to be almost negligible and so inaccurate as to be quite worthless. In truth, it is a shadow rather than a substance that is seen in them.

The fact that the log of the first voyage of the Co- lumbia and the Washington has never been published doubtless accounts, in part, for this condition. In mak- ing this statement I do not overlook the rough precis of HaswelPs Logs which is appended to the 1884 edition of Bancroft's History of the Northwest Coast. But Has- welPs Logs, Hoskins' Narrative, Ingraham's Journal, Martinez's Diary, Menzies' Journal, and Boit's Log of the Union, to our disgrace be it said, still remain in manuscript. Being contemporaneous they each contain