PART IV
1821-1871
The Passing of the Company—McLoughlin’s Transmontane Empire of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, California—The Famous Mountain Brigades—How the Company Lost Oregon—Why the Chartered Monopoly Was Relinquished.
CHAPTER XXX
1821-1830
RECONSTRUCTION CONTINUED—NICHOLAS GARRY, THE DEPUTY GOVERNOR, COMES OUT TO REORGANIZE THE UNITED COMPANIES—MORE COLONISTS FROM SWITZERLAND—THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN BRIGADES—ROSS OF OKANOGAN.
It fell to Nicholas Garry to come out and reorganize the united traders, because he chanced to be the only unmarried man on the Governing Committee. The task was not easy. Bitter hatreds must be harmonized. Indians must be conciliated. Fire-eaters must be transferred to new districts, where old animosities would be unknown. Williams, the swashbuckler governor, must be replaced by George Simpson, the tactful man of business. Necessarily, a great many officers must be displaced altogether from both the old Companies.
It was not desirable that Garry should come out with active partisans of either Company. Bethune and Simon McGillivray and Doctor McLoughlin—the Nor’Westers—and Colin Robertson, the Hudson’s Bay man, all arrived at Montreal by different routes and took passage to Fort William by different canoes. So eager were the partisans, Garry was met in New York by such well-known Nor’Westers as Judge Ogden, and such well-known Hudson’s Bay agents as Auddjo, the Company’s lawyer. Leaving Montreal, Garry proceeded up the Ottawa in a canoe followed by Robertson and Simon McGillivray—all bound for Fort William, where the partners would sign the deed of union and Garry re-arrange the positions of the officers. At Long Sault the canoes passed the house of Red River’s first governor—Miles MacDonell—now mentally a wreck from the terrible struggle. Frobisher dead of starvation, Selkirk of a broken heart, Sir Alexander MacKenzie of ills contracted through exposure in the wilds, Miles MacDonell out of his mind—men of both sides had paid a deadly toll for mistakes and wrongs. Ottawa City when Garry passed West, in 1821, consisted solely of Wright’s farm at Hull. At the Sault was David Thompson, surveying boundaries for the government. Then Garry’s canoe landed him safely at Fort William, where the deed of union was signed that extinguished the lawless glory of that famous place. Then with partners assembled, old enemies glaring at each other across the table, the tactful George Simpson doing his best to help to suppress the ill-concealed hatred of former rivals, both sides proceeded to distribute the officers.