Next, astoria by author john jacob. This an is hour and 14 minutes. Thank you powells books and thank you for being here. Normally i have a more formal presentation. I have a reading i show at readings. But tonight is a special night so i am going to do something different. And i want to tell stories a little bit more and, of course, i will do some readings. It is special we are at powells books, we are in oregon, astoria is nearby and we are also here with cspan so we have a national and oregon audience. I will tell stories and you may know some of them and may not some of the others. But i will start with how i came to this story. And actually, what is surprising about it is how this story was verywell known in its day. In 1836, when Washington Irving was commissioned by john John Jacob Astor to write these, irvings book also called astoria was a best seller in 1926. They have been forgotten now. I think some of you know about them. But in the National Consciousness they are largely forgotten except along historians and people that follow western history. It is a really important story. It is historically significant and a great adventure story. That is partly what attracted me to it. It is also a store that i feel needs to be told because those events have had a big impact on the shape of the north american c continent and on the course of the american empire over the years from 18101813. I stumbled across this story randomly. There are many things about being a freelance writer, which have been for 30 years, that are a struggle. Uncertainty. But the cool thing is how one idea leads to another. That is what happened in this case. 78 years ago i was working on my last book, a book called the last empty places in which i profiled four unpopulated areas of the country. And of course, one of them had to be Eastern Oregon as i am sure some of you can guess. I was driving, in the course of my research, one evening in late may, down a very long, lonely empty highway in Eastern Oregon. It was getting dark and i thought i was going to sleep by the road. I came to a town finley with a hotel and spend the night there with gratitude of this being there. And the next morning i said how did the town get the name of john day. And i know you have heard of the john day river, and dam and there are many things called john day. But i am not sure Everybody Knows how all of those john days got their name. I did research on john day and in a nearby Historical Society and it turned out john day was one of the original historians who was sent from john jakeer pastor in 1810 to find the first colonial on the west coast. What john day, i didnt know the bigger story at that point, i just knew john day was this guy who, i am trying to think of where the trauma started, but it started early. He was a 40yearold kentucky hunter and he ended up being starved to death and poisoning himself with cames. Survived by shooting a wolf and eating its skinned. Was helped by a number of indians on the way. Was left behind by his main party. Wandered a winter trying to find the tracks of the main party. Found abandoned indians he thought would help him who ended up stripping him of his clothes and leaving with him nothing. After that, john day was done with the wilderness. He had to go back the same way he can and he had what looked like to me to be ptsd. He tried kill himself. He tried to shoot himself. He didnt survive. But he sent back. So i read that and thought that was incredible. The more i looked into john days story i realized he was just one tiny part of this undertaking John Jacob Astor took to the west coast. That is what got me intrigued and the more i looked into it and i thought this should be told in a book. I write exploration history. These are the stories i love. So i took it on as a book publisher. And luckily i found a publisher with Harper Collins and becker. In the introduction you heard a little bit about what the expedition was. John jacob astor had a vision of global grade on the pacific rim. This is five years after lewis and clark were here. And Thomas Jefferson had the same vision. Astor had this idea, approached jefferson and he endorsed it at the whitehouse. It was astors idea to capture all of the furs through and funnel them through the mouth of the Columbia River and sell them to china. In china these furs, especially sea otter, fetched high prices because the chinese mandarin used the sea otter furs which were luxury and the finest and densest coast of any animal in the year. Astor wasnt the first ship on the west coast but he was one of the earlier ones. He came up with this idea of sending trade goods from new york around cape horn by ship to the mouth of the columbia trading them to the coastal indians here for furs. Trading things like knifes, beads and pots. And then taking those furs to china, trading them to the chinese for incredible markups in both places. Taking chinese luxury goods like silks, keys, porcelain back around the world to london and new york. His idea was to have especially a fleet of ships circling the globe continuous and trading along the way at an incredible markup. And Thomas Jefferson was hoping that the settling along the west coast would be the first seeds of a democracy. Not even an american democracy. But just the first seeds of a democracy. Something like a sister democracy to the United States and it would speed to the east and the two would join in the middle and make the whole continent a democracy. That is the background. So what i am going to do is read a snipit from four characters. And that is what attracted me to the story. There are different leaders and characters and personalities. They react in very different ways in these situations and their actions in the course of these expeditions going across the country and at cape horn determined a lot of what happened in the decades to fall. In some ways, these personalities shapes our destiny on this continent. The first one is from marie dorman. She was the wife of piere who was the interpreter. One went up oversight and investigations overland and the other was near cape horn. The senior was the ininterprete for lewis and clark. And maria was a native american women. And dorian insisted his wife come along. She wasnt too happy about the idea. She had two small boys and learned inroute she was pregnant. She has the most incredible survival story you can imagine. A friend in missioula has studied a lot about lewis and clark and pointed out to me as i was reaching this story that sack juwea met with dorian and they certainly did. They were in the same camp. This is when she was going back up the river to, i think, the man dan villages and marie dorian was going up the river for the first time. Sally said well i have always wondered what sack gee said to marie dorman and wouldnt that be an interesting conversation to hear. So i tried to guess a little bit. I am speculating. This is a Nonfiction Book but i say one likes to think what they said to each other. It is likely they knew each other. Two indian women in the small settlement of st. Louis and wise interpreters in the fur trade. What would they have said to each other . It will be very long and difficult to reach the ocean. You and your children will suffer. By then, five years after her journey with lewis and clark, she adopted european dress and manners and understand whites with powerful guns and urge for furs and profit had just begun their long reach for the ocean. She might have started this represented the end of her peoples nomadic life. One imagines her saying to marie dorman dont go. Or join them because they will come to our homelands whether we join them or not. Or you will see amazing things. Organizing into four river boats layed with 20 tons of goods and equipped with ors, sand and tow ropes the party left from winter camp on april 21, 1811 with sails set in a favorable wind. They hoped to reach the pacific in late summer or autumn. The second passage i am reading takes place as they are going up the river from their winter camp which was about 400 miles up river from st. Louis. And as i mentioned, they were to follow the lewis and clark trail that is going up the missouri, over the rockies and down the columbia. Thaws went up the missouri, the father they went the worse the stories got about the indians at the head water. The overland leader was a young new Jersey Business man named wilson price hunt who was known as a nice guy, serious minded, conscious, and liked to lead by c concensus but he had never been in the wilderness before. Astor knew that hunt would remain loyal to astor. But astor hired a lot of other scottish fur traders, french canadian voyagers. He was looking for the best and that happened to be the canadian fur traders but they were loyal to the British Crown and not necessarily america. So he had wilson hunt leave his party that was twice the size of lewis and parks expedition. Several hunters and wilson price hunt, marie dorman. As they are going up the missouri, they are hearing about the black feet and one of the problems is mary Heather Lewis had killed two young black feet. And they left a jefferson medal hanging around one of the black feets neck and thread the territory. And the black feet were angry about that insult. So there had been a Previous Party going up the missouri to try to establish a fur Pacific Coast at the head waters or the missouri. And it disappeared. And no one new what happened to it. So as hunts party is going up the missouri one day in may of 1811, they are sitting on the river bank and resting after the mornings poling and rowing having breakfast. They see canoes and in it are white men. And there are three ken tutucki. And Edward Robinson is one of them and he is wearing a scarf around this head. Underneath the scarf he was s p scalped. This told deeply on wilson price hunt. The young new Jersey Business man. And the three trappers said, well, look you dont want to go up to the head waters of the missouri, we know a better way. We know a way that you can leave the missouri, strikeout overland, cross several mount ranges and we think we can get you to the river that is part of the head line of the columbia. And that meant for wilson price hunt to strike out into a thousand miles at least of uncharted terrain that was unmapped. Hunt, the serious conscious businessman had to deliberate what to do. So that is the next passage i am reading is hunts decision in this situation. The four boats made Good Progress up river under sail that day. That is day they had breakfast and met the three trappers. And camp that night. May 27th, 1811 on little cedar island. They were 1, 075 miles up the island of st. Louis. A grove of cedar tree grew in the center surrounded with vines and flowers. Brad bury and nettle, these are two british bought botonist scrambled about gathering plants. Hunt was bothered by his own problems of deciding if he had to turn from missouri. The best route became a subject of anxious inquiry. Hunt closely questioned the three kentuckians about the proposal and consulted with others who ent went up the island. Hunt polled them as we would throughout the journey on their opinion about the way to go. One pictures hunts party camped on the islands in the river that granted safety from indian attack with a large fire of long driftwood longs throwing sparks at the bright stars. 60 men, women and children move in to the fire. Hunt moves from this fire and tent interviewing and deliberating. What lay out there in the vast prairie night in the whole western continent. When mountains would let them past . Which rivers and tribes seemed unroamed in the darkness . On little cedar island, wilson price hunt tasted the flavor of unknown. Hunt, responsible for a large group of people and the expectations of great men probably found it either romantic or exhilarating. There were men that surely awaited him and on the other was the route that left missouri and skirted south of the black feet where his party might wander loss through snowy mounts and starvation deserts. The questions confronting one are mundane, this route or that, this river drainage or another, the implications are profound and sometimes fatal. By morning he decided. It isnt surprising that on a concern fight or venturing out on terrain, hunt who waited fighting, chose the latter. Fear of retreating for the party and himself. Whatever the prospective, hunt made the faithful decision. The Overland Party would leave the missouri and veer to the south of the planned route avoiding the black feet and go on foot and horse back into the swath of unknown terrain. The decision made. Hunt sat down to write mr. Astor of his change of plans. I will skip back to astor. He was a focused business man. Came to the country as a young man from waldorf, germany. We have heard the name waldorf, astoria and it is named after that. We started importing Musical Instruments from england and exported furs from the north American Continent to londoned. He was a very focused, driven toward his bottom line. Meticilous in his planning. He spent years laying the ground work for this expedition. In all of his planning and preparation, he had not allowed for one major factor. Mountain climbers talk about exposure meaning the risk in a situation. On a cliff when a small mistake can result in major consequen consequences. In 1810, this far wild edge of the north American Continent with his brutal storms, hostile neighbors, difficulty of communication, vulnerability to empires, exposed as any habitable place on earth nor was it able to what this would do on to the men chosen to host the empire. Under stress, each one succumsu to traits. This trading scheme joined the dream of two powerful men. Astor would dominate the market, pacific rim trade and reef profits as would his fur trader partners. Through John Jacob Astor, president jefferson and his successors established an outPacific Coast on the dim Pacific Coast. Jeffersons vision embraced the envision of north america and recorded astors enterprise in shaping the undertaking. I view your take as it was said on your side of the continent and liberty and several government spreading from that side and this side will ensure complete establishment over the whole. There was a lot of weight riding on wilson price hunt when he is making the decision. Wilson price hu wrestling on cedar island with this thoughts. Another leader in this is a scottish fur trader by the name of Duncan Mcdougal. He was hired from canada where the experts were. There were many different personalities but Duncan Mcdougal would be short, feisty, looking out for himself and manipulative. Astor made him second in command of the west coast colonial. Hunt was supposed to be first in mand. But in hunts absence, astor said mcdougal would be second. They were supposed to arrive at the mouth of the columbia at that point in the fall of 181 1. But fall came and went and they still hadnt arrived. Duncan mcdougal was in charnel there. So i am going to read some of his thoughts. And what happened was at that point, i should back up a little bit in the story. The one expedition was hunt going over land and the other was the sea going party coming around cape horn. This was led by a sea captain, john thorne, who was a naval hero against the barbary pirates. A fearless guy. The ship was just stuffed with trade goods. It was called the tong kim. And some people in the room might know it. All different ways to pronounce it. It was stuffed with trade goods, 9,000 pound of powder and cannons. It carried captain thorne, his crew of yankee sailors and these fur traders. The scottish fur traders as well as a number of frenchcanadian voyages. And several young clerks from canada. Several educated young men who were keeping journals. Captain was materialisically minded in the sense of discipline. He had a boatload of shaggy fur traders and voyagers and the first night out, by 8 00, they were drawing pistols. When captain thorne ordered lights and out the fur trader said no. And thorne said lights out at 8 00. It came to Death Threats at that testimony and they went down hill from there. These accounts are amazing. The fur traders are in a robo boat and they are sailing out to sea and expecting it to turn around and come back. It is six miles out to sea and they are mildly rowing after it. The falcon islands are barren and uninhabited. What saves them is the nephew is on board and he goes up the thorne and draws two pistols and says turn around the ship or you a dead man. He turned it around. That is one of the misadventures on the way to the columbia. They stop in hawaii and lots of adventures there. They pick up hawaii swimmers and they are experts at canoe and sailing and growing gardens and they buy a lot of pigs from them. Finally make it near the mouth of the columbia. We all know in this room at least what lies off the mouth of columbia and that is the columbia bar. That great sand bar that blocks the mouth of the river where the huge volume of water of the Columbia River goes out and the huge volume of water of the Pacific Ocean and its trumendious swells are kicking in and the swell is like this. And it is one of the most dangerous waters in the world. There was one channel through the columbia bar. Today it was marked it stretch and known. It wasnt known then. So the charge from John Jacob Astor is to drop the men and supplies inside the columbia bar and thorne is supposed to go on his way and trade sea otter furs on Vancouver Island where the rich stretches of sea otter habitat were that at point. Thorne is in a hurry to get past the columbia bar. He starts spending small boats with sailors and voyagers to find the channel. They loose two or three boats. Nine guys di