Who Owns Oregon?

Way back in 1791, Yankee "sea peddler" Robert Gray, master of the merchant vessel Columbia, sailed into Nootka Sound in Oregon Territory while pursuing the rich fur trade with China.  Gray was looking for a mighty river of which the Indians had spoken.  On May 11, 1792, Gray crossed the estuary and traveled 30 miles upstream on the river he named for his ship, the Columbia River.  He was the first white man to explore Oregon's interior and claim the entire region for America.

British claims date back to Captain Cook's 1778 voyage along the northwest coast.  He too, sailed into Nootka Sound.  The Nootka Sound Treaty of 1790 recognized Britain's claim to Oregon by Spain.  The British representative, John McLoughlin served from 1824 to 1846 as the chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company in the region stretching from the Alaska border to California and east to the Rockies.  McLoughlin's actual responsibility to the Crown was to discourage American competition and settlement in the region. 

The problem was McLoughlin knew the Americans had as much right to Oregon as anyone else.  In 1818, the entire region was to be jointly occupied by both the Americans and British.  McLoughlin's hospitality allowed travelers seeking help to use Fort Vancouver.  By 1864 the British were ready to concede American ownership of the region between the Columbia River and the Californian border but not above the 49th parallel.  That, they stated could be claimed only by war.  Washington Territory was not for sale!

Next time - Closer look at the men who opened up the Pacific Northwest
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Today in Pioneer History:  On December 8, 1894, humorist James Thurber is born in Columbus, Ohio.  His works include The Owl in the Attic (1931), The Seal in the Bedroom (1932), and My Life and Hard Times (1933). His short story “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty,” published in The New Yorker in 1939, became one of his best-known works.