WE Have Followed Up The Fortunes Of The Maritime Part Of This
Enterprise To The Shores Of The Pacific, And
Have conducted the
affairs of the embryo establishment to the opening of the new
year; let us now turn back
To the adventurous band to whom was
intrusted the land expedition, and who were to make their way to
the mouth of the Columbia, up vast rivers, across trackless
plains, and over the rugged barriers of the Rocky Mountains.
The conduct of this expedition, as has been already mentioned,
was assigned to Mr. Wilson Price Hunt, of Trenton, New Jersey,
one of the partners of the company, who was ultimately to be at
the head of the establishment at the mouth of the Columbia. He is
represented as a man scrupulously upright and faithful his
dealings, amicable in his disposition, and of most accommodating
manners; and his whole conduct will be found in unison with such
a character. He was not practically experienced in the Indian
trade; that is to say, he had never made any expeditions of
traffic into the heart of the wilderness, but he had been engaged
in commerce at St. Louis, then a frontier settlement on the
Mississippi, where the chief branch of his business had consisted
in furnishing Indian traders with goods and equipments. In this
way, he had acquired much knowledge of the trade at second hand,
and of the various tribes, and the interior country over which it
extended.
Another of the partners, Mr. Donald M'Kenzie, was associated with
Mr. Hunt in the expedition, and excelled on those points in which
the other was deficient; for he had been ten years in the
interior, in the service of the Northwest Company, and valued
himself on his knowledge of "woodcraft," and the strategy of
Indian trade and Indian warfare.
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