Thomas McKay was born at Sault Ste. Marie, and when a lad (1811) came with his father to Oregon. After the failure of the Astoria enterprise, he entered the North West Company, and fought under their banner in the battle on Red River in 1816. Returning to Oregon, he became an important agent of the Hudson's Bay Company, under his step-father's management, usually in charge of the Snake River brigade. He was brave, dashing, a sure shot, and the idol of the half-breeds. He had a farm in Multnomah valley, and became a United States citizen, raising a company of militia which did active service in the Cayuse War of 1848.
[112] Compare Irving's account of this meeting, in Rocky Mountains, ii, pp. 175-182.—Ed.
[113] Blackfoot River is an eastern affluent of Lewis (or Snake) River, next above Portneuf. Its general course is northwest, entering the main river at Blackfoot, Idaho. Wyeth passed only along its upper reaches.—Ed.
[114] Townsend probably refers to the Three Buttes of the Lewis River plain, about forty miles west of their camp. The Three Tetons—a magnificent group of snow-clad mountains—were sixty miles northeast, in the present Teton Forest Reservation, Wyoming.
Portneuf is an eastern affluent of Lewis River, and a well-known halting pace on the Oregon Trail.—Ed.
[115] Ross's Creek is in reality an affluent of Portneuf. The usual route from Soda Springs, on Bear River, was by way of the Portneuf; the route by Blackfoot and Ross's Creek was somewhat shorter, although rougher.—Ed.
[116] This statement concerning the site of Fort Hall does not agree with that of later writers; possibly the fort was removed later, for Frémont in 1844 describes it as being nine miles above the mouth of Portneuf, on the narrow plain between that and Lewis River. The fort was named for Henry Hall, senior member of the firm furnishing Wyeth's financial backing. Wyeth sold this fort to the Hudson's Bay Company in 1836. The present Fort Hall, a government post, is forty miles northeast of the old fort, on Lincoln Creek, an affluent of Blackfoot River. It was built in May, 1870, and there, since that time, a garrison has been maintained.—Ed.
[117] I have repeatedly observed these exhibitions of feeling in some of our people upon particular occasions, and I have been pleased with them, as they seemed to furnish an evidence, that amid all the mental sterility, and absence of moral rectitude, which is so deplorably prevalent, there yet lingers some kindliness of heart, some sentiments which are not wholly depraved.—Townsend.
[118] For the Chinook, see Franchère's Narrative in our volume vi, p. 240, note 40; for the Cayuse, Ross's Oregon Settlers, our volume vii, p. 137, note 37.—Ed.
[119] According to Wyeth's journal his name was Kanseau, and the services were Protestant, Catholic, and Indian—"as he had an Indian family; he at least was well buried."—Ed.