Fort Astoria Clatsop Oregon United States

The Tonquin arrives at the Columbia River on March 22, 1811, but its dangerous bar poses a major problem.

Thorn sends five men in a boat to attempt to locate the channel, but the rough surf capsizes the vessel and its crew is lost.

Two days later another attempt by an additional small boat also sinks.

Of the five crew members, which include two Hawaiian Kanakas, only an American and a Hawaiian survive.

In total eight men die attempting to find a safe route past the Columbia Bar.

Finally, on March 24, the Tonquin crosses into the Columbia’s estuary and lays anchor in Baker’s Bay.

The personnel then proceed fifteen miles up the river to present-day Astoria, Oregon, where they will spend two months laboring to establish the first American-owned (if Canadian-staffed) outpost on the Pacific Coast, Fort Astoria (present-day Astoria, Oregon) which is near the Lewis and Clark 1805–1806 winter camp of Fort Clatsop at the mouth of the Columbia River.

Some trade goods and other materials that compose the cargo will be transferred to the new trading post.

During this work, small transactions with curious Chinookan Clatsop people occur.

The only known survivor of the Tonquin's crew is Joseachal, who arrives back at Fort Astoria with the assistance of prominent Lower Chinookan noble Comcomly.

His account is the only one detailing the fate of the Tonquin.

This puts the occupants of Fort Astoria in a tough position, having no access to seaborne transport.

David Thompson, arriving at the partially constructed fort on July 14, two months after the Tonquin, becomes the first European to navigate the entire length of the Columbia River.

Thompson and a group of Astorians begin to journey up the river.

The overland component of the Astor Expedition had divided itself in Twin Falls, and three main groups had formed, two of explorers, one of trappers.

The faction led by Donald MacKenzie had traveled generally north and made its way via the lower Snake River and Columbia to reach Fort Astoria in January 1812.

The factions led by Ramsey Crooks and Wilson Price Hunt had traveled on opposite sides of the Snake River until they met each other again near the upper end of Hells Canyon.

The remnants have reunited and are later guided west by Indians to reach the Columbia River near Umatilla, and then down the river to Fort Astoria, where the main Hunt party arrives on February 15, 1812, with only forty-five of the original sixty members of the expedition having reached their destination.

Crooks and Day are the last stragglers of the original party to reach Fort Astoria in April after falling in with David Stewart, who had arrived by ship and ventured up the Columbia to establish a trading post on the Okanagan River, and was returning to Fort Astoria.

Most Astorians had survived the trip, but they had failed utterly to blaze a dependable trail to Oregon and had gotten there just barely ahead of the competing British expedition.

A party led by Robert Stuart (including John Day, who will be left by Stuart on the lower Columbia River after being declared mad) is dispatched back to St. Louis, leaving Fort Astoria in June 1812.

Wintering on the Platte River, they will arrive at St. Louis the following year, in the process discovering South Pass through the Rocky Mountains route via the Snake River in Wyoming, through which hundreds of thousands of settlers will follow along the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails.

John Jacob Astor's plan for gaining control of the fur trade in the Pacific Northwest has established the first United States settlement on the Pacific coast, but the accomplishment is short lived.

During the War of 1812, the Pacific Northwest is a distant region of the conflict.

Prior to the war, both the Montreal-based North West Company (NWC) and Astor's Pacific Fur Company (PFC) had operated in the region peaceably with each other.

Both the Americans and the British subjects in the jointly occupied Oregon Country are apprehensive that a ship from the other side should arrive and seize their property as a spoil of war.

News of a coming British warship has put the American company into a difficult position.

In October 1813, management meets at Fort Astoria and agrees to sell the fort and all the concern’s property in the Oregon Country to the NWC.

Naukane was soon traveling east as well, crossing the continent to Fort William (today's Thunder Bay, Ontario) on Lake Superior, and from there by water to Quebec.

The ship Isaac Todd had taken Naukane to England in 1812.

He returns to the Pacific Northwest in November 1813 on the British warship HMS Racoon, which brings a partner of the North West Company and supplies for the Canadian concern.

Fort Astoria is renamed to Fort George in honor of George III of the United Kingdom.

Entrepreneurs, most notably John Jacob Astor, had quickly seized the opportunity and expanded fur trading operations into the Pacific Northwest.

Astor's "Fort Astoria" (later Fort George), at the mouth of the Columbia River, becomes the first permanent white settlement in this area, although it is not profitable for Astor.

He sets up the American Fur Company in an attempt to break the hold that the Hudson's Bay Company monopoly has over the region.

By 1820, Astor had taken over independent traders to create a profitable monopoly; he will leave the business as a multi-millionaire in 1834.