The Nome daily nugget., 1935-01-26

two sides and by slough forming protection on the third Arrivingethere 0n July IA, Wyeth lost no time in getting to work on the fort According to Townsend part of the men began felling trees collecting drift logs and making corraIs for their horses while the rest were sent out to hunt for meat Osborne Russell, young ster from Maine who accompanied the party as a trapper, records In his journal that "On the 18th we commenced the actual construction of the fort which was a stockade eighty feet square, built of cotton wood trees set on end, sunk two and one-half feet in the ground and standing about fifteen feet above with two bas- tions eight feet square at the opposite angles"
 When the hunters returned on Saturday, July 26 they found the stockade virtually completed and the men working on the houses inside The next day Wyeth invited Jason Lee, the leader of the missionaries, to preach to the men and at two o'clock that afternoon the whole party as- sembled in the shade of cottonwood grove to listen to the first sermon ever delivered within the boundaries of the state of Idaho.
 On July 30 Mckay decided to leave for Fort Vancouver and Lee and his followers, in order to reach their new fields of missionary labors the sooner, joined them.
 After the completion of the fort on August 4 and the fagraising ceremony the next day, Wyeth and his men commenced packing on Au- gust 6 to push on to the Columbia, leaving Fort Hall in charge of MT. Evans who kept with him I'll men, 14 horses and mules and three cows" Thus began the history of this famous fort.
 As for the later fortunes of the leader and others who had played part in it's building: Wyeth continued on to Walla Walla where there was happy reunion with his friend, Jason Lee He reached Vancouver on September 14 and was again courteously received by Doctor McLough- lin On the lower end of Wapatoo island, later called Sauve island. he built another post which he called Fort William. But during the next two or three years, although he worked tirelessy, the competition of the Hudson's Bay company under the management of his friend, Doctor Nc Loughlin, was too strong for him to overcome
 So his enterprise for which he had had such high hopes ended in failure.y In 1887 Fort Hall was sold to the Hudson's Bay company and Fort William was left in charge of O. M Walker with instructions to lease 1t to some trusty person for 15 years" Then Wyeth returned to his home town of Cambridge to attempt to retrieve his lost fortunes by going into the ice business again
 In 1844 Jason Lee also went back to his home town, Stanstead in eastern Canada, and there he died the next year. But his fame as the pioneer missionary of Oregon and the founder of school which later became Willamette university was already secure. In 1857 Doctor Mclaughlin died poverty-stricken and broken-hearted. a Man Without Country" For the Hudson's Bay com pany had removed him from his position be- cause he had not exerted himself to discourage American settlement in the Oregon country and his efforts to become an American citizen were thwarted by Americans who remembered only that he had once been an employee of British company and who forgot how he had befriended their fellow-countrymen when they were in dire need.
 In contrast to this sad ending to the man who was once the Emperor of the Vest" 1t is pleas ant to record that when death had come to Nathaniel J. Wyeth the previous year it had fonnd him once more prosperous man of affairs. even though a century was to pass before his name would be widely honored in connection with the celebration of the fort which he founded Fort Hall on the Oregon Trail
 @ by Western Newspaper Union.