[178] Mr. Parker has since published an account of this tour, to which the reader is referred, for much valuable information, relative to the condition of the Indians on our western frontier.—Townsend.
Comment by Ed. The Journal of an Exploring Tour beyond the Rocky Mountains (Ithaca, 1838). Five American editions and one English appeared. The popularity of the work was considerable, and it spread information concerning the Oregon country.
[179] This was Wyeth's vessel, the "May Dacre."—Ed.
[180] Probably an individual of what Lewis and Clark call the large brown wolf of the wooded regions of the Columbia (canis lupus occidentalis).—Ed.
[181] This appears to be the chief mentioned by Franchère in our volume vi, p. 246, and by Ross in our volume vii, p. 118.—Ed.
[182] Dr. William Fraser Tolmie was born in Inverness, educated at Glasgow, and joined (1832) the Hudson's Bay Company as a physician. The following spring he arrived at Vancouver by way of Cape Horn, and was sent north to the Puget Sound region with a party engaged in planting a new post. There he remained until the return noted by Townsend. He lived at Fort Vancouver and vicinity until 1841. A visit to England (1841-43) was made in the interest of the Puget Sound Agricultural Company, of which Tolmie was superintendent at Fort Nisqually (1843-59). Upon the final cession of all the territory to the United States Dr. Tolmie removed to Victoria, British Columbia, where he was still living in 1878.
Fort Langley was founded in 1827 upon the left bank of the Fraser River, about thirty miles above its mouth.—Ed.
[183] For the habitat of this tribe, see Franchère's Narrative, in our volume vi, p. 245, note 49.—Ed.
[184] Archibald McDonald was a Hudson's Bay officer who had been in charge of forts in the Thompson River district (1822-26), when he became chief factor for Kamloops. In 1828 he was chosen to accompany Sir George Simpson in a transmontane tour, and his diary thereof was published as Peace River: A Canoe Voyage from Hudson Bay to the Pacific (Ottawa, 1872). On this expedition he was left in charge of the newly-built Fort Langley, where he remained about eight years, constructing Fort Nisqually on Puget Sound (1833). In 1836 he was appointed to Fort Colville, where he remained for many years. This post was on the upper Columbia, not far from Kettle Falls, in the present state of Washington; built in 1825, it was maintained by the Hudson's Bay Company until the discovery of gold in that region (1858), whereupon the stockade was removed across the border into British Columbia, to avoid United States customs duties.
Samuel Black had been a North West Company trader; but later was placed in charge of Hudson's Bay posts at Fort Dunveyan (1823) and at Walla Walla (1828). He commanded at Fort Kamloops (see our volume vii, p. 199, note 64), on Thompson's River for some years, before his murder (1841) by a neighboring native.—Ed.