National Historic Sites in Washington (U.S. State) - Fort Vancouver, Fort Vancouver National Historic Site (Paperback)

Chapters: Fort Vancouver, Fort Vancouver National Historic Site, Whitman Mission National Historic Site, Officers Row. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 25. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Fort Vancouver was a 19th century fur trading outpost along the Columbia River that served as the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company in the company's Columbia District (which covered the northern half of the region known to Americans as the Oregon Country). Named for Captain George Vancouver, the fort was located on the northern bank of the Columbia River in present-day Vancouver, Washington, near Portland, Oregon. Today, a full-scale replica of the fort, with internal buildings, has been constructed and is open to the public as Fort Vancouver National Historic Site. Fort Vancouver in 1845The outpost was established in 1824. At that time, the region known as the Columbia District of the Hudson's Bay Company, and increasingly as the Oregon Country to Americans, was jointly occupied by the United States and Britain; a situation agreed to in the Anglo-American Convention of 1818. British interests were represented by the Hudson's Bay Company, which had exclusive trading rights to most of the land that is now Western Canada. To protect their interests north of the Columbia River, they sought to set up a headquarters somewhere along the northern bank that would secure the area and act as the hub for their fur trading in the Pacific Northwest; replacing Fort George (Fort Astoria) in that capacity as it was on the river's south bank and not as convenient to the inland trade. Hudson's Bay Company FlagSir George Simpson was instrumental in establishing the fort, and Dr. John McLoughlin was its first Chief Factor (manager); a position he held for nearly 22 years. James Douglas spent nineteen years in...More: http: //booksllc.net/?id=17096