 | This biography needs additional citations for verification .(April 2013) |
Mervin Vavasour | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1821 |
| Died | 27 March 1866 |
| Occupation | member of Royal Engineers |
Mervin Vavasour (1821 – 27 March 1866) was a member of the Royal Engineers, one of the corps of the British Army.
He was probably born at Fort George, Upper Canada in 1821, to Captain Henry William Vavasour of the Royal Engineers and Louisa Dunbar, daughter of Sir George Dunbar. [1] He enrolled in the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, England in February 1837, and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers on 19 March 1839. [1] He was eventually sent to Montreal, arriving on 18 September 1841. [1] In 1842, he was promoted to lieutenant.
In 1845–46, during the Oregon Boundary Dispute, Lieutenants Vavasour, and Henry Warre were dispatched on a mission to evaluate the logistics of a military campaign in the Columbia District (known then to Americans as the Oregon Country). This was done in response to a territorial dispute generally known as the Oregon Question, and the stated policy of President of the United States James K. Polk to expand into and control those territories along the west coast of North America, much of which the British contested as belonging to them. Vavasour and Warre travelled in the guise of civilians “for the pleasure of field sports and scientific pursuits,” through territory controlled by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), confidentially evaluating the strategic value of both the land and the HBC's facilities. This information made its way back to London in 1846. [2]
HBC officer Peter Skene Ogden traveled with the British officers and held a low opinion of Vavasour. In a letter written in April 1846 to Governor George Simpson, Odgen complained that Vavasour was "to the last hour a disagreeable Puppy and at times most disgusting particularly when under the influence of Brandy and Opium." [3]
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| Fort Victoria Plan | Fort Edmonton Plan |
Despite the rhetoric neither Britain or USA wanted a third war in 70 years; and a war over the Oregon Country was averted by diplomacy when Britain gave up all claims to lands in the lower Columbia Basin and Puget Sound. Vavasour's report concluded that the British Army, if deployed in the region, would be faced with substantial obstacles. These included: their poor evaluation of the readiness of the HBC forts and other facilities for military uses, the significant number of American settlers crossing into the territory via the well established Oregon Trail, and the considerable obstacles posed by the Rocky Mountains to British supply lines.[ citation needed ]
Vavasour sailed to England in October 1846, and served in the British Isles, being promoted to 2nd captain in 1849. [1] He was later posted to the West Indies from 1851 to 1852. [1] He went on half-pay in 1853. [1]
Vavasour published his notes and the images drawn by Warre in Sketches in North America and the Oregon Territory (1849). From this comes some of the earliest European artistic renderings of the Rocky Mountains and also valuable records such as an 1846 plan diagram of Fort Edmonton to scale. This plan influenced the reconstruction of the fort as Fort Edmonton Park, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, in the 1960s.
There is also Mount Vavasour in Alberta, Canada, named for Vavasour in 1918; it is south of Mount Warre, named for Warre.
Vavasour Street, in Savona, B.C., is named after Mervin Vavasour as well.
John McLoughlin, baptized Jean-Baptiste McLoughlin, was a French-Canadian, later American, Chief Factor and Superintendent of the Columbia District of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver from 1824 to 1845. He was later known as the "Father of Oregon" for his role in assisting the American cause in the Oregon Country. In the late 1840s, his general store in Oregon City was famous as the last stop on the Oregon Trail.
Fort Vancouver was a 19th-century fur trading post that was the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department, located in the Pacific Northwest. Named for Captain George Vancouver, the fort was located on the northern bank of the Columbia River in present-day Vancouver, Washington. The fort was a major center of the regional fur trading. Every year trade goods and supplies from London arrived either via ships sailing to the Pacific Ocean or overland from Hudson Bay via the York Factory Express. Supplies and trade goods were exchanged with a plethora of Indigenous cultures for fur pelts. Furs from Fort Vancouver were often shipped to the Chinese port of Guangzhou where they were traded for Chinese manufactured goods for sale in the United Kingdom. At its pinnacle, Fort Vancouver watched over 34 outposts, 24 ports, six ships, and 600 employees. Today, a full-scale replica of the fort, with internal buildings, has been constructed and is open to the public as Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.
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Sir George Simpson was a Scottish explorer and colonial governor of the Hudson's Bay Company during the period of its greatest power. From 1820 to 1860, he was in practice, if not in law, the British viceroy for the whole of Rupert's Land, an enormous territory of 3.9 millions square kilometers in northern North America.
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Sir James Douglas was a British Columbian fur trader and politician who became the first Governor of the Colony of British Columbia. He is often credited as "The Father of British Columbia." He was instrumental to the resettlement of 35 African-Americans fleeing a life of racial persecution in San Francisco who arrived in the province aboard the steampship Commodore in what later became known as the Pioneer Committee. In 1863, Douglas was knighted by Queen Victoria for his services to the Crown.
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James Carnegie, 9th Earl of Southesk KT DL was a Scottish nobleman, explorer and poet.
The Colony of Vancouver Island, officially known as the Island of Vancouver and its Dependencies, was a Crown colony of British North America from 1849 to 1866, after which it was united with the mainland to form the Colony of British Columbia. The united colony joined Canadian Confederation, thus becoming part of Canada, in 1871. The colony comprised Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands of the Strait of Georgia.
Oregon pioneer history (1806–1890) is the period in the history of Oregon Country and Oregon Territory, in the present day state of Oregon and Northwestern United States.
William Fraser Tolmie was a surgeon, fur trader, scientist, and politician.
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