Fort Wrangell was the first settlement made in southeastern Alaska, after Sitka. It was established in 1834, by Lieutenant Zarembo, who acted under the orders of Baron Wrangell, Governor of the Colonies at that time.
A grave situation had arisen over a dispute between the Russian American Company and the equally powerful Hudson Bay Company, the latter having pressed its operations over the Northwest and seriously undermined the trade of the former. In 1825, the Hudson Bay Company had taken advantage of the clause in the Anglo-Russian treaty of that year,—which provided for the free navigation of streams crossing Russian territory in their course from the British possessions to the sea,—and had pushed its trading operations to the upper waters of the Stikine, and in 1833 had outfitted the brig Dryad with colonists, cattle, and arms for the establishing of trading posts on the Stikine.
Lieutenant Zarembo, with two armed vessels, the Chichagoff and the Chilkaht, established a fort on a small peninsula, on the site of an Indian village, and named it Redoubt St. Dionysius. All unaware of these significant movements, the Dryad, approaching the mouth of the Stikine, was received by shots from the shore, as well as from a vessel in the harbor. She at once put back until out of range, and anchored. Lieutenant Zarembo went out in a boat, and, in the name of the Governor and the Emperor, forbade the entrance of a British vessel into the river. Representations from the agents of the Hudson Bay Company were unavailing; they were warned to at once remove themselves and their vessel from the vicinity—which they accordingly did.
This affair was the cause of serious trouble between the two nations, which was not settled until 1839, when a commission met in London and solved the difficulties by deciding that Russia should pay an indemnity of twenty thousand pounds, and lease to the Hudson Bay Company the now celebrated lisière, or thirty-mile strip from Dixon Entrance to Yakutat.
In 1840 the Hudson Bay Company raised the British flag and changed the name from Redoubt St. Dionysius to Fort Stikine. Sir George Simpson's men are said to have passed several years of most exciting and adventurous life there, owing to the attacks and besiegements of the neighboring Indians. An attempt to scale the stockade resulted in failure and defeat. The following year the fort's supply of water was cut off and the fort was besieged; but the Britishers saved themselves by luckily seizing a chief as hostage.
A year later occurred another attack, in which the fort would have fallen had it not been for the happy arrival of two armed vessels in charge of Sir George Simpson, who tells the story in this brief and simple fashion:—
"By daybreak on Monday, the 25th of April (1842), we were in Wrangell's Straits, and toward evening, as we approached Stikine, my apprehensions were awakened by observing the two national flags, the Russian and the English, hoisted half-mast high, while, on landing about seven, my worst fears were realized by hearing of the tragical end of Mr. John McLoughlin, Jr., the gentleman recently in charge. On the night of the twentieth a dispute had arisen in the fort, while some of the men, as I was grieved to hear, were in a state of intoxication; and several shots were fired, by one of which Mr. McLoughlin fell. My arrival at this critical juncture was most opportune, for otherwise the fort might have fallen a sacrifice to the savages, who were assembled round to the number of two thousand, justly thinking that the place could make but a feeble resistance, deprived as it was of its head, and garrisoned by men in a state of complete insubordination."
In 1867 a United States military post was established on a new site. A large stockade was erected and garrisoned by two companies of the Twenty-first Infantry. This post was abandoned in 1870, the buildings being sold for six hundred dollars.
In the early eighties Lieutenant Schwatka found Wrangell "the most tumble-down-looking company of cabins I ever saw." He found its "Chinatown" housed in an old Stikine River steamboat on the beach, which had descended to its low estate as gradually and almost as imperceptibly as Becky Sharpe descended to the "soiled white petticoat" condition of life. As Queen of the Stikine, the old steamer had earned several fortunes for her owners in that river's heyday times; then she was beached and used as a store; then, as a hotel; and, last of all, as a Chinese mess- and lodging-house.
In 1838 another attempt had been made by the Hudson Bay Company to establish a trading post at Dease Lake, about sixty miles from Stikine River and a hundred and fifty from the sea. This attempt also was a failure. The tortures of fear and starvation were vividly described by Mr. Robert Campbell, who had charge of the party making the attempt, which consisted of four men.