The Willamette Cattle Company was formed in 1837 by pioneers in the Willamette Valley of present-day Oregon, United States. The company was formed with the express purpose of purchasing cattle in Mexican California. Nearly 750 head of cattle and 40 horses were purchased in total. Ewing Young led the overland party as they drove these animals north back to the Willamette Valley.
Prior to the activities of the Willamette Cattle Company, all cattle in the region were owned by the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). Chief FactorJohn McLoughlin had for sometime a general arrangement with the Willamette settlers and missionaries for access to livestock. They were loaned out in pairs to farmers, never sold, and all calves born were then HBC property. The Methodist Mission in Oregon was in 1834 given "seven oxen, one bull and eight cows with their calves" by McLoughlin.[1] Despite later claims by Samuel Thurston, no settler was charged for any cattle that died.[1] The growing herds of cattle tended outside Fort Vancouver numbered only 27 in total in 1825, though by 1837 Slacum estimated their number closer to a thousand.[2]
Navy Lieutenant William A. Slacum arrived on board the Loriot at Cape Disappointment on 22 December 1836.[3] Slacum had been given orders by the United States Secretary of StateJohn Forsyth to visit and detail "the different settlements of whites... and also at the various Indian villages" in the Oregon Country and in the Columbia River basin.[4] John McLoughlin welcomed the naval official and informed Jason Lee of his arrival, who met Slacum at Champoeg in January.[5] A common topic Slacum had with French-Canadian and American settlers residing in the Willamette Valley was about livestock. Finding the Willamette settlers in the supposed "thraldom of the Hudson Bay Company",[6] Slacum proposed that cattle from Alta California be procured to end the local cattle monopoly of the HBC.
Agreement
A variety of settlers, including missionaries such as Jason Lee of the Methodist Mission in Oregon, former French-Canadian HBC employees, and American pioneers agreed to create the joint-stock company in January 1837. A group of men would sail on the Loriot to Alta California and purchase as many head of cattle as they could. The articles of incorporation were signed on January 13, 1837 at Campment du Sable.[7] The cattle would then be driven overland north to the Willamette Valley. Once there, they would distributed on an amount proportional to the amount invested by each subscriber. The company would pay $1 a day for expenses of those journeying to Mexican held California, in addition $20 per month in wages, in the form of cattle.. Ewing Young was selected as the leader of the company and in charge of going to California with Philip Leget Edwards as treasurer.[7][1] In his report to the United States, Slacum "omitted a graceful and generous recognition of the aid given the Cattle Company by Dr. McLoughlin,"[8] as McLoughlin purchased half of all available shares. [1]
On January 22, 1837, the overland party of eleven men and three Native American boys set sail aboard the Loriot from Wappatoo Island on the Willamette River.[9] They first sailed into San Francisco in March. However permission to purchase any cattle had to come directly from Governor Juan Bautista Alvarado, who resided in Santa Barbara. At the provincial capital Young received permission to buy cattle from Alvarado. This agreement had the stipulation that the bovine had to come from government owned herds. Young then returned north and met the group in Monterey on May 12, 1890. The Willamette Cattle Company then purchased 746 head of cattle at $3 per head, held at two different locations.[10] The group also purchased 40 horses at $12 each.
In June the enterprise had procured enough cattle and started driving them north back to the Willamette Valley.[11] On July 27 the group began traveling through the Sacramento Valley after a minor delay. A stockpile of gunpowder became wet which required a small group of men to return to San Francisco to purchase more. They passed through the valley during the hot summer and crossed over the Siskiyou Mountains of northern California and southern Oregon. On September 14 they forded the Shasta River and eventually met group of Shasta natives, who courteously greeted the cattle drivers. A Shasta boy about the age of ten accompanied the cattle company for the day. Some of the men began to discuss killing natives of the area. William Bailey and George Gay murdered a native man and also attempted to kill the boy but he escaped.[12] This violence was committed as they had previously skirmished with some Takelma natives of Rogue Valley directly to the north. The distinctions between the Shasta and Takelma weren't recognized by the outsider Willamette settlers. Edwards himself noted that the men Gay and Bailey had fought "may have been of another tribe."[13]
The murder of the native man angered Young and raised tensions in an area that still had sizable populations of Native Americans. The following day matters only became more heated among the settlers. Gay, Bailey, Carmichael and Turner became aggressive and refused to follow orders from Young. Edwards recalled that "Curses, guns and knives were bandied for 15 minutes."[13] Eventually however Young was able to reassert control and the party continued to drive the cattle north. Finally in October they returned to the non-indigenous settlements of the Willamette Valley. They had arrived with approximately 630 head of cattle and 15 horses left from what was purchased in California. Some of these animals were lost by natural causes, some were killed by natives, at least one was killed by the group for feed, and others simply wandered off. The remaining animals were then divided amongst the investors with a value of $8.50 per head, with Young receiving the largest allotment of 135. Expenses of the group that traveled to California totaled $42.75, with 200 cattle lost on the trip.[14]
Legacy
The procurement of cattle began to help break the dependence of the settlers on the cattle of the Hudson's Bay Company. Young's role made him the wealthiest of the settlers, which would lend a part in the attempt to form a government after his death in 1841 to deal with his heirless estate. However, even with over 600 cattle among the approximately 500 Europeans in the valley, there was still more demand for cattle. In time the settlers would come up with a novel enterprise with the Star of Oregon episode in 1840-1843 to get more cattle.[15]
Slacum, William A.; Forsyth, John (1912), "Slacum's Report on Oregon, 1836-7", The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, Portland, OR: The Oregon Historical Society, 13 (2): 175–224, JSTOR20609903
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Jason Lee was a Canadian Methodist Episcopalian missionary and pioneer in the Pacific Northwest. He was born on a farm near Stanstead, Quebec.
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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.
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The Star of Oregon episode of American history began in 1840 and ended in 1843. This enterprise by pioneers in the Willamette Valley of present-day Oregon consisted of building a ship they named Star of Oregon and then sailing it to California in order to bring back cattle to Oregon Country. The group was led by Joseph Gale and received assistance from Captain Wilkes of the United States Navy prior to setting sail on the open ocean. These pioneers were able to procure nearly 4,000 head of cattle, sheep, and horses combined.
Loriot was an American sailing ship involved in exploration of the Pacific Northwest coast of North America. This brig took a member of a United States presidential expedition to survey land and the inhabitants of the area in the 1830s. The ship then transported members of the Willamette Cattle Company from Oregon Country to California in an effort to increase livestock in the Willamette Valley settlements.
The Methodist Mission was the Methodist Episcopal Church's 19th-century conversion efforts in the Pacific Northwest. Local Indigenous cultures were introduced to western culture and Christianity. Superintendent Jason Lee was the principal leader for almost a decade. It was a political and religious effort. Two years after the mission began, the church's Board of Foreign Missions described its intent to reclaim "these wandering savages, who are in a very degraded state, to the blessings of Christianity and civilized life." Alongside the missions founded in the region were several secular operations opened. These were maintained to allow for material independence from the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), then the preeminent economic entity in the region among European descendants.
William A. Slacum was an American sailor and diplomat. He served as a purser in the United States Navy and received a Presidential commission to gather information on the Oregon Country. At that time the region was under the jurisdiction of both the United States and Great Britain. Previously, Slacum served as a diplomat to Mexico.
Webley John Hauxhurst Jr. was a pioneer in Oregon Country. He helped build the first grist mill in Oregon, participated in the Willamette Cattle Company, and was a participant at the Champoeg meeting where he voted for the creation of a provisional government.
Étienne Lucier, né Lussier, was a French-Canadian fur trader active primarily in the Pacific Northwest. He was hired by John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company and sent to the region to help establish Fort Astoria. Later he became a settler in the Willamette Valley. Lucier attended the Champoeg Meetings and was one of few French-Canadians or "Canadiens" to vote for the Provisional Government of Oregon, an American and Canadian civil authority for the valley. He is credited with becoming the first European descendant farmer within the modern state of Oregon.
George Kirby Gay was an English sailor and later settler in the Oregon Country. He was a member of the Willamette Cattle Company that brought livestock to Oregon and built the first brick house in the United States west of the Rocky Mountains. Gay also participated in the Champoeg Meetings that created a provisional government in what would become the U.S. state of Oregon.
James A. O’Neil was an American businessman and politician in the Oregon Country and later Oregon Territory. A New York native, he took part in the Champoeg Meetings and helped form the Provisional Government of Oregon. Prior to the formation of a government he participated in the Willamette Cattle Company, and later served as a judge in the Provisional Government.
Philip Leget Edwards was an American educator from the state of Kentucky and first teacher in what became the state of Oregon. After teaching in Missouri, he traveled to the Oregon Country with Jason Lee and helped establish the Methodist Mission. He was also involved with the Willamette Cattle Company before returning to Missouri where he became a lawyer and was on officer in the militia fighting against the Mormons. After moving to California, he served in the state assembly.
Michel Laframboise was a French Canadian fur trader in the Oregon Country who settled on the French Prairie in the modern U.S. state of Oregon. A native of Varennes, Quebec, he worked for the Pacific Fur Company, the North West Company, and the Hudson’s Bay Company before he later became a farmer and ferry operator. In 1843 he participated in the Champoeg Meetings. Though he voted against the measure to form a provisional government, the measure passed and led to the creation of the Provisional Government of Oregon.
John Turner was an American fur trapper and guide who first entered Oregon Country in 1828 and became an early resident of the Willamette Valley. Later he moved to California where he was part of the second attempt to rescue the Donner Party.
The Walla Walla expeditions were two movements of Indigenous people from the Columbian Plateau to Alta California during the mid-nineteenth century. The original expedition was organized to gain sizable populations of cattle for native peoples that lived on Columbian Plateau. Among the prominent members was Walla Walla leader Piupiumaksmaks, his son Toayahnu, Garry of the Spokanes and Cayuse headman Tawatoy. The first expedition arrived at New Helvetia in 1844.
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