The Coolidge examiner., 1936-01-24

charge in 1924 abandoned Astoria and moved
up the river to establish Fort Vancouver it be-
came apparent that here was the man who could
rule both the Indians and the turbulent trappers
and fur traders. Rule he did, sternly but justly,
and the Indians, who called Mclaughlin the
"White-H Headed Eagle" because of his shock of
SnOW-white hair, respected and loved him quite
as much as they feared him.
For period of ten years Fort Vancouver was
the center of a feudal empire the like of which
the New World never BEFORE and seldom since,
has seen. 1t was sanctuary of civilization
in the heart of the savage western country" and
to it came many a traveller and explorer whose
name is written large in the history of the West
-Jedediah Smith, Nathaniel J. Wyeth, Hall j.
Kelly, Jason Lee, Marcus Whitman Captain
Bonneville and host of others.
One of the notables who came to Vancouver
was Capt. Aemilius Simpson of the British navy
and symbol of his visit is to be near the
site of Fort Vancouver to this day.
During his sojourn at Vancouver, Simpson
unwittngly contributed in no small degree to-
ward the agricultural progress of the commu-
nity." writes Montgomery. while dining one
evening with the doctor he was reminded by one
of his men of a promise he had made a certain
young lady back in London. 1t appears that dur
ing the dessert course of a farewell banquet
given in his honor, this young lady had extracted
the seeds from an apple and had laughingly pre-
sented them to Simpson with the request that
he plant them when he reached his destination
in the Northwest wilderness. The incident had
been forgotten until that moment but when the
captains attention was called to it by his aide
he reached into his coat pocket and there repos-
ing under his kid gloves, he found the little
packet of seeds. A ripple of laughter around
the table he handed them over to his host.
Doctor John was not he man TO underrate
such gift. The very next day he entrusted the
apple seeds to Robert Bruce, the venerable
Scotch gardener of the fort, who planted them
with great care Gnder glass. Thus in the spirit
of jest, the redOubtable white-gloved AemliuS
made possible the first Oregon apple" That was
100 years ago. One of the trees which sprang
from those seeds still stands where the venerable
Robert Bruce planted them and it still bears
fruit, as the writer of this article, who took the
photograph of it shown above, can testify.
Unhappily for Mclaughlin other seeds were
also being planted in the fertile soil of the Ore
gOn country and they bore crop of trouble
for him. For just when he was well established
as the Emperor of the West" the energetic
Yankees who to dispute with Great Brit
ain ownership of the Northwest began to appear
first as competitive fur traders and later as
missionaries and settlers.
The doctor, being of pious disposition (he
was baptized a Catholic, his mothers faith, but
grew up an Episcopaan, the faith of his father),
was naturally weldisposed toward the mission
aries and he gave both medical and other aid
to them when, so often happened in their
early days, they were in Distress For that mat
ter, he did the same for the settlers even though
he, as factor for the HudsOn's Bay company and
therefore obligated to consider it's interests first,
would have been justified by the rules of big
business which were even then in vogue, in
letting them starve
Instead of doing that he gave generously from
his own resources and that very generosity re-
suited in his downfall. Governor Simpson had
never approved of his Open-handed hospitality
to the American settlers and that combined with
innumerable other disagreements between the
head of the Hudsons Bay company and its rep
resentative in Oregon, resulted in 1915 in Nc
LOughns retirement from the H. B. c., a re-
tirement which seems to have been little more
than a summary dismissal.
In the meantime the American settlers who
had been coming into Oregon in everncreasing
numbers since 1912, had been beseeching con-
gress to guarantee their land titles on the Colum-
bia and had taken steps to form a local gov
ernment Mc1.nnghlin had become involved in