by Scott Sinclair
Early Life, Education, and work with Hudson Bay Company (HBC)
James is possibly the best known of all the Sinclair siblings and D. Geneva Lent has written a full-length book about him.[2] He was the son of William Sinclair, from Eastaquoy in Harray Parish, Orkney and his half-Cree wife Nahovway or Margaret Norton. There is some debate over when he was born. Although Wikipedia and the Dictionary of Canadian Biography give 1811 and Lent 1806[3], he was according to Sutherland[4] and an 1821 Census[5] born circa 1809 most likely at Oxford House. He died on March 26, 1856 in a Yakima Indian attack at the Cascades of the Columbia River on his way to Fort Walla Walla Washington. He was buried at Fort Washington south of Vancouver.
William Sinclair died at York Factory in 1818 when James was around 9. William had instructed that “two of my younger sons shall go to Britain to be educated before the age of fourteen years.”[6] William Sinclair’s executor, Alexander Kennedy (1781-1832) followed William’s instruction that his son James be sent to school in Orkney. Kennedy took him and his own two eldest sons, John and Alexander Jr. Kennedy to Britain on the HBC ship Prince of Wales in 1819. James “was listed as passenger #23, in the care of Mr. Kennedy.”[7] The three boys were taken to Alexander Kennedy’s sister Mary and her husband James Allan house in St. Margaret’s Hope, South Ronaldsay, Orkney. Although William Sinclair’s brother and two sisters lived on Ponoma, Orkney, there is no record of James actually living with them.[8]
In 1822[9] James went to the University of Edinburgh and studied the arts and law. James’ father was hopeful he would stay in Scotland and go into business there. However, he had been born in Rupert’s Land and longed to become a fur-trader and explorer with the HBC, the same as his older brother William ‘Credo’ Sinclair. After completing his four years in Edinburgh, in 1826 he signed on with the Hudson Bay Company (HBC) as an apprentice for one year, which entailed him being a seaman on the company’s annual ship, the Camden, and his return to the Moose Factory. James’ daughter Harriet later wrote that he only worked for HBC one year because “he was too ambitious and energetic to be content with less than being an adventurous trader for himself.”[10] He served out his year under Chief Jacob Corrigall (1772-1844) at Albany Post and then in 1827 he headed to Red River Selkirk Colony (Winnipeg, Manitoba) where his mother and siblings had relocated.
Establishing a home in Red River
Along the way he became acquainted with Andrew McDermott (1791-1881), a retired Irish HBC employee who had established himself north of Lower Fort Garry as a leading merchant and private fur trader. McDermott was a free trader, operating under a special license from Governor Simpson and with the good-will of Chief Factor Donald Mackenzie, in charge at Fort Garry. The HBC found it useful to have some traders like him to supply the settlers with little odds and ends. Their goods were brought in on company ships and it was then the traders’ responsibility to transport the goods from York Factory to Red River. McDermott’s special license allowed him to trade in furs in 1824, so that he could compete with American traders and drive them off. He could continue to do so, as long as he sold the furs to the HBC. Sinclair’s brother-in-law, Thomas Bunn introduced him to McDermott, who took him on initially as an assistant. This was probably partly to repay the gratitude McDermott felt to William Sinclair, for his help many years earlier. Sinclair began work for McDermott, probably in 1827, making friends with the people of the Red River settlement and the Indians and Metis. He travelled widely with the Metis, down into the United States as far as St. Louis. The Metis were half-French, but Sinclair came to identity with them and be accepted by them. As he travelled widely with them, he came to realize that Fort Garry was linked by riverways to the American fur posts and ultimately to the great fur trading center at St. Louis. Waterways converged on Fort Garry from almost every direction. Like McDermott, James disliked the slow advancement offered by the HBC fur trading and wanted to be his own master. In the summer of 1827, James began a partnership with McDermott.
On December 3, 1829 James married Elizabeth Maria Bird (1806-1845) daughter of Elizabeth Montour and Chief Factor James Curtis Bird[11] (1773-1856). James Bird had been in charge of Edmonton House for many years and had been a close friend of James’ father. Bird had settled in Red River and was recognized as its unofficial leader. The marriage was performed by the Reverend David Jones (1796-1844) at St. John’s parish church near Red River.[12] By 1832 they had a fine residence between two of the leading persons in Red River, his partner Andrew McDermot and the Scottish Alexander Ross. Ross had worked with John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company in the building of the first Fort Okanagan on the Columbia River, later in 1812 continued on with the North West Company, and still later worked with the HBC after it merged with the North West Company in 1821. He helped establish Fort Walla Walls and was in charge there for three years. Ross had become the schoolmaster and historian[13] in Red River and became the closest friend and confidant to James. James’ daughter Harriet later wrote that ‘the Rosses, McDermots, Logans and oursclves were like one family.”[14]
In 1830 their first daughter Elizabeth was born. On July 9, 1832 their daughter Harriet was born in St. Paul’s Parish (East St. Paul; Birds Hill). James Curtis[15] was born in February 1834. Later in 1834 an epidemic took the lives of Elizabeth and James Curtis.[16]
By 1838 James had become a member of the inner circle of the Red River Metis (sometimes called half or mixed breeds) but this role put him at odds with the HBC Governor Alexander Christie who was trying to restrict any trading of furs outside the control of HBC. In 1840, as the representative of the Metis people, James formally petitioned Christie for a reduction of freight rates for the goods of the Metis.
The Treaty of 1818 between the United States and British North America set the boundary along the 49th parallel of north latitude stretching from present day Minnesota in the east to the “Stony Mountains” (now known as the Rocky Mountains) in the west. Under the treaty, the boundary in the Columbia District had not been fixed under a policy of “joint occupation’ of lands west of the continental divide. The HBC, which controlled much of the Oregon Country, discouraged settlement because it interfered with the lucrative fur trade. However, by 1838, American settlers were coming across the Rockies. Many departed from St. Louis, Missouri following the Oregon Trail, a direct, but difficult route.
Conversely, British traders, missionaries and settlers used the Carlton Trail, which followed the Red River north, then crossed Lake Winnipeg and followed the Saskatchewan River system west to Fort Edmonton. They then went on to Jasper House and the southern leg of the well-established HBC York Factory Express route over the Athabaska Pass and down the Columbia River to Fort Vancouver. This route while longer, was easier than the route followed by the Americans.
Belatedly realizing that settlers would ultimately decide who controlled the Columbia district, Sir George Simpson created the Puget Sound Agricultural Company about 1840, a subsidiary of HBC. The purpose of the company was ostensibly to promote settlement by British subjects of land on the Pacific coast of North America. Company operations were centered at Fort Nisqually, near present day Olympia, Washington, where the company developed dairy, livestock and produce farms.
First Oregon Expedition
George Simpson instructed Alexander Ross to organize and lead a party of Red River settlers across Rupert’s Land and over the Rockies into Oregon country, to be settled on HBC farms. Ross felt that he was too old for such an arduous journey and suggested that his friend James Sinclair should go instead, describing him as a recognized authority on prairie travel, able to deal competently with any Indians met on the way, and compatible with the Metis who would make up a large portion of the party. Sinclair was very willing to do so and realized that the journey would be shorter and easier if new passes could be found over the Rockies. Sinclair knew from his friend Ross that those passes existed and was keen to discover them. He sought information from his father-in-law, who knew about southern passes within British territory from the Indian scouts at Fort Edmonton.
On June 3, 1841, Sinclair left Fort Garry for the 1,700 mile, 134-day journey guiding a large group of Red River Settlers aimed at retaining the Columbia District in Rupert’s Land as part of British North America. Twenty-three families, comprising one hundred twenty-one people, were of mixed-race (Metis), headed by men who were well known to Sinclair and who were capable hunters, well-suited to living off the land while on the trail and as pioneers in Oregon Country. It is evident from the names that several of the families were of Orcadian stock.
Henry Buxton, wife and 1 child
James Birston, wife and 3 children
John Cunningham, wife and 1 child
John Tait
Julien Bernier, wife and 2 stout boys
Horatio Calder, wife and 7 children, 3 grown up
William Flett, mother and 4 children
John Spence, wife and 4 children
James Flett, wife and 4 children
John Flett, wife and 4 children
David Flett, wife and 2 children
Joseph Klyne, wife
Toussaint Joyale, wife and 4 children
Francois Gagnon, wife and 5 children
Baptist Rhelle, wife and 1 child
Pierre St. Germain, wife and 5 children
Charles McKay, wife and 4 children
Francois Jacques, wife and 4 children
Alexander Birston, wife and 4 children
Gonracque Zastre, wife and 6 children
Pierre Larocque, wife and 3 children
Louis Larocque, wife and 3 children
Archibald Spence, wife and 7 children
Each family had been told to bring two or three Red River carts and enough horses, cattle, and dogs. The men and boys rode while the women and children travelled in the horse-drawn carts, covered with canvas or buffalo hides, shot, power, guns, flints, knives, blankets, and tobacco. They were allowed just enough kettles, frying pans, tin plates, mugs, water pails, wooden kegs, butcher and hunting knives, axes, shovels, and shaganappi (rawhide rope) and sufficient clothing to deal with any weather that might be encountered between early summer and late autumn.
They were expected to largely live off the land but took 50 pounds of pemmican per person, enough for two months. Very limited amounts of flour, sugar, and tea were allowed as luxuries to relieve the monotony of the diet. Sinclair carried a good gun, toilet articles to make himself presentable to company officers and clothes suitable to his position. He also had a medical kit, a compass, and spyglass. He had a limited amount of alcohol for emergencies but no one else was allowed any.
Sinclair was recognized as a firm, but fair leader and he established his authority from the start. Rules were laid down and everyone was expected to do his or her fair share. All the men were expected to know how to make camp efficiently, repair carts, negotiate streams, build bridges, handle horses and hunt game. In an emergency every member of the party was expected to conduct themselves with fortitude, restraint, consideration, and good humor. Their lives depended on their livestock, so the men and boys took the cattle, oxen and horses to water and pasture at regular intervals and at night they were placed within the ring of cars and a watch was kept.
The track led at first between HBC posts – two hundred miles to Fort Ellice, three hundred miles to Carlton House, and four hundred miles to Edmonton House. The group rendezvoused at White Horse Plain and the carts were allotted their places in the line. They camped on the first night on the shores of Long Lake. They did not pitch tents but slept in and under the carts, with buffalo robes beneath and over them. On the first leg of their journey they had to pass through the Bad Woods with their swarms of bulldog flies and mosquitoes and then an escarpment covered in tree stumps before they reached the Big Plain. After about a hundred miles they had to cross several wide and deep creeks and the carts often had to be eased down the banks on rawhide ropes or the men had to push the carts through muddy streams, wading waist deep in water.
Sinclair’s party reached Fort Ellice on June 22. They stopped for three days there to repair their carts, exchange their horses and replenish their stores. Travelling was then relatively easy until they reached the South Saskatchewan River in Mid-June, swollen to two hundred feet wide by flood waters and within banks one hundred and fifty feet high. The carts had to be turned into rafts and the horses were driven across. A log raft was then made to ferry the oxen and some of the women and children unwilling to cross in the crude boats. Sinclair crossed last, after seeing everyone else safely across. They spent three days at Fort Carlton, where the York boat brigades stopped between York Factory and Fort Edmonton. Two trails led from Fort Carlton to Fort Pitt and Sinclair chose the northern route, where there was less danger of Blackfoot attack. This trail had many streams to cross and some of them could only be crossed by building bridges. Logs were cut, hauled into place and lashed together with rawhide ropes. They had to be strong enough to bear the weight of the animals and the laden carts. It must have been a nerve-wracking business, driving the first cart across.
The emigration party left Fort Garry twenty-eight days ahead of HBC Governor George Simpson, who was on the first stage of his round-the-world journey. On his sixteenth day out of Red River on July 19 the speedy Simpson overtook Sinclair near the Turtle River,[17] in present day western Saskatchewan, two days after they had left Fort Carlton. He had set off from London on May 3 and was travelling fifty miles a day on horseback and up to one hundred miles a day by canoe. Simpson told Sinclair that instructions had been left at Fort Edmonton as to how he was to cross the Rockies. Simpson wrote in his diary and later published:
“[1]These emigrants consisted of agriculturists and others, principally Natives of Red River settlement….[2] The band contained several very young travelers, who had, in fact, made their appearance in this world since the commencement of the journey….[3] Each family had two or three carts, together with bands of horses, cattle and dogs…. As they marched in single file their cavalcade extended above a mile long….The emigrants were all healthy and happy; living with the greatest abundance and enjoying the journey with the highest relish.”[18]
There were more members in the party at the finish than when they started. This was due to several births that had delayed the party who tried to travel at least twenty miles a day. The settlers’ next stop was at Fort Pitt, which had been established ten years before on the banks of North Saskatchewan and was an important exchange base for horses. The party exchanged their horses, made their repairs, replenished their supplies, and took on an Iroquois guide called Michele. There were many creeks still to cross, and many more bridges to be built, delaying them as they hurried to reach the Rockies before bad weather set in.
They arrived at Edmonton House in August, more than two months after leaving Red River. Sinclair found his instructions there from Simpson to travel by the Athabasca River but disregarded them in favor of finding a new overland route. At Edmonton Sinclair met a Cree Indian chief called Mackipitoon, also known as Broken Arm, who said he knew passes that no white man had crossed and that he would guide the party over one. It was also Blackfoot territory and dangerous. They would follow the same trail as Governor Simpson until they reached Devil’s Lake (Lake Minnee-wah-kah) at the foot of the Rockies, then they would follow this new path. Good horses were chosen for riding and packing and very few carts were taken. They took warm clothing and enough pemmican to last all the way over the mountains and set off in the second week of August. As they set off, most of the party were on horseback, including the women with their children behind them. The most trusted men had been trained in the art of packing by the men who prepared the pack trains at Edmonton and they all carried the very minimum of equipment. The party soon adjusted to the new mode of transport, they slept in shelters made of buffalo hides and headed south at about twenty to thirty miles a day.
In their approach to the Rockies they had to cross the Red Deer River. The trail to the only good crossing followed the Little Red Deer River, crossing it and its tributaries forty times but this was much easier when travelling by pack train. They entered the Rockies by the Devil’s Gap into a valley with four lakes, Mimmee-wah-kah being the largest, where they rested for a few days. They then followed a trail that went halfway down the east and south side of the lake and then turned to go through a little gorge into the valley of the Bow River. They forded the river and headed southwest up past the Goat Range through a country of fine lakes.
The change as they crossed the Great Divide was barely noticeable, apart from the difference in the flow of the streams and the softer air. They travelled up the Kootenay Valley to the awe-inspiring Red Rock Gorge, now called Sinclair Canyon. Its walls are over a thousand feet high, but it is so narrow they had to follow a dangerous path beside a mountain stream, now the Sinclair River. The path led down to hot springs that were called Sinclair Hot Spring, but are now Radium Hot Springs.
The settlers soon reached the valley of the Columbia River and rejoined the route that Simpson had expected them to take. They followed the river down to the Canal Flats where a canal had been dug by the North West Company to join the Columbia and Kootenay rivers and then followed the Kootenay and then overland to Grand Quete Lake. After some hard travelling through dense forest they reach Fort Colville and their guide left them to return to Edmonton. The commander at Fort Colville, Chief Trader Archibald McDonald, an old friend of William Sinclair, was surprised to see his son arrive at the head of a pack train, as he had been told by Governor Simpson to expect him to arrive by boat down the Columbia.
From Fort Colville they moved on to Fort Walla Walla, a pseudo-Spanish mission fort, built of adobe. It was in dangerous Indian country and had deteriorated since the death of Pierre Pambrum, so the party didn’t linger. They loaded themselves into the HBC boats to travel the last two hundred miles to Fort Vancouver. They had to portage around the Celilo Falls, where the river fell more than eighty feet in twelve miles and the Dalles, where the river was forced into a passage deeper than it was wide. After passing more rapids at the Cascades the party floated down to Fort Vancouver. Sinclair had brought them safely across the Rocky Mountains and half a continent.
Alexander Kennedy had chosen the site of Fort Vancouver, about a quarter of a mile from the bank of the Columbia River and about ninety miles inland. Under the leadership of Dr. John McLoughlin, it was the great trading center of the Northwest Pacific region. The party had to hang around at the fort while waiting to be allocated farms. They became increasingly disgruntled as nothing happened, but Sinclair could do nothing to help them as it was up to McLoughlin to place them and he seemed to be in no hurry. After many weeks, some settlers were placed on farms at the Cowlitz and Nisqually, but conditions were not good and not at all what the settlers had been led to expect. Most of the settlers eventually moved to the Willamette Valley in Oregon and HBC plan for populating the Columbia River area was not successful.
Return to Red River and other travels
Sinclair left Fort Vancouver in December, intending to travel from Fort Colville to Fort Edmonton by boat, but the weather forced him to spend the winter at Fort Colville. He decided he would like to settle in the area someday. In the spring he joined the first HBC brigade of bateaux and then a pack train over the mountains to Jasper House, then to Edmonton and by York boat brigade to Fort Garry. Sinclair returned to Red River during the spring of 1842, arriving during the summer.
Sinclair went back to work with McDermott, travelling to York Factory with a fleet of York boats. Word came from Oregon that the settlers had felt the HBC had not delivered what had been promised so they had moved to the better land of the Willamette Valley to become independent farmers. This did not suit the HBC’s purpose, so they decided not to send Sinclair with another party. He returned to business in Red River. James’ oldest daughter Harriet later described her father as,
“a busy man…[who] was often away on his journeyings, by dog trains in the winter, and by Red River cart trains in the summer over the plains. He used to take his furs to St. Peter’s, on the Mississippi. He was the first to send furs from Rupert’s Land to England independently of the Company. Often he went to St. Louis.”[19]
Although the Sinclair family had been safe during James’s absences another influenza epidemic took the lives of Emma and Louisa in 1843. Business difficulties also arose, when Chief Factor Finlayson refused to carry McDermott’s and Sinclair’s goods on company ships. An enormous prairie fire had also made conditions difficult by scattering the buffalo. James’s wife Elizabeth died at an early age in February 1945, leaving him with small children. Harriet, Maria, and Alexander were sent to boarding school and Colin James was in the care of relatives. In July 1845 James Sinclair along with Alexander Ross and Robert Logan wrote the HBC requesting a Presbyterian minister be provided in Red River which they said had been promised by the late Earl of Selkirk.[20]
Governor Christie brought in other regulations to reinforce HBC’s power, issuing new licenses and bringing in an act that no one could have land without agreeing not to trade with the United States. The Metis believed they had a special right to the land and James Sinclair was the first of twenty-three signers of a petition[21] to Christie asking what their rights were, but it received a dismissive answer.[22] Sinclair travelled down the Mississippi River to St. Louis and then to New York, from which he took a ship that took him to Britain in five weeks. Alexander Kennedy Isbister, a former colonist from Red River and a friend from the University of Edinburgh, although only 25, was asked to present the petition on Metis rights. Given the relatively slow process of British law, Sinclair returned to the Red River in the spring of 1847. The petition was to no avail however, as legal opinion supported the side of HBC in 1849.
When Sinclair returned to Red River, he found troops[23] stationed at Fort Garry and business improved. Lent reports a November 1848 baptism of a child of James Sinclair and Jane Whitford,[24] however he married Mary Campbell (1826-1856) on April 20th, 1848 and they had four children. Mary Campbell was the daughter of Chief Trader Colin Campbell of Fort Dunvegan. Tensions between his children and their stepmother led to his placing his daughter, Harriet and Maria, in boarding school, Knox College in Galesboro, Illinois. Sinclair took his daughters there and then moved on to St. Louis. He struck up a friendship there with a young army lieutenant, Ulysses S. Grant, and assisted him financially and in his courtship of Julia Dent. He was a honored guest at their wedding in August 1848 and seems to have remained in America that winter and taken steps to become an American citizen.[25]
In May 1849 there was a trial for Pierre-Guillaume Sayer in Red River on charges of trading furs illegally. James acted as counsel for Sayer, who though found guilty was not given a penalty. Sinclair was also helpful in quieting an armed force of Metis outside the court.[26] Sinclair spent the rest of 1849 away from Red River. Having heard in St. Louis about the gold strike in California, he travelled up the Missouri River in July with seven Yankee miners[27] crossing the Rockies by the California trail and arrived early at the Gold Rush. He seems to have found some gold and was quite active, speaking up at miners’ councils, but did not stay long and returned to St. Louis to plan a return to Oregon. A letter from an officer at Fort Edmonton said that Sinclair found 22 pounds of gold, worth £1,300 sterling, but Sinclair made no comment. In October 1849 he became a citizen of the United States at St. Paul, Minnesota.[28]
Sinclair wanted to move his family to Oregon and so brought his daughters Harriet and Maria back from boarding school. The journey back was difficult because of flooding. A letter arrived from Simpson, asking Sinclair to go to Oregon to discover whether the HBC forts that had fallen into disrepair could be re-established. As the flooding meant he could not emigrate that year, he did this instead and set out with a cart train to Edmonton. There he met up again with Mackipitoon and they quickly crossed the Rockies by the same route. He found Walla Walla in very poor condition and even Fort Vancouver had gone downhill since McLoughlin’s retirement and most of the trade was now conducted from Fort Victoria on Vancouver Island. The increasing numbers of settlers had roused up the Indians to resist them so there was a constant threat of Indian attack.
Sinclair spent several months in Oregon and then sailed from Fort Vancouver to San Francisco. He discovered there that Captain Colin Sinclair, said to be an Englishman with his own clipper ship, had been in port for more than a year. He had been well-known in the city and had considerable influence at the height of the Gold Rush, representing the miners’ interests at Sutter’s camp. Sinclair was sure this was his brother, whom he had not seen since Oxford House, but “for unknown reasons fate did not allow a reunion.”[29] James sailed from San Francisco to Panama City in 1852 and crossed the Isthmus of Panama on Mule-back, then sailed to New York via Cuba. When he returned to Red River, he found his daughter Harriet had been betrothed to Dr. William Cowan who had arrived as surgeon to the Chelsea pensioners who were stationed at Fort Garry.
Second Oregon Expedition
During the summer of 1853 Governor Simpson offered James a timber limit and breeding stock if he conducted another party over the Rockies. The plans for the trip were more complicated this time because many of the emigrants were leaving good properties to try their luck in Oregon. They took much the same equipment, but the carts were pulled by oxen instead of ponies. The oxen would travel more slowly, but they had more endurance and could cope with poorer grazing. They could be used as pack animals or eaten if necessary and they were easier for the women to drive. Each leader of a group was told to only bring enough carts to carry their belongs and act as shelter. One influential settler insisted on bringing 300 sheep. Sinclair knew this was a bad idea, but to refuse would be to endanger the whole venture.
Simpson had set May 1, 1854 as the date of departure, but they were only ready to leave at the end of May. There were one hundred people in the party; most were from families well known to Sinclair – Gibsons, Birds, Sutherlands, and Whitfords. George Taylor was his right-hand man on the trip and afterwards. Sinclair travelled with his wife Mary, their two children and his daughter Maria and sons from his first marriage, two of Mary’s sisters and her brother John, who kept a log of the journey, also travelled with them. Harriet remained in Red River with her husband Dr. William Cowan, as did James’ mother Nahoway (she lived until 1863). Nahoway and Harriet would never see James again.
In return for undertaking this trip, Sinclair received the rank and salary of a chief trader and the right to raise his own stock near Walla Walla, of which he was to take charge. The party left on May 24, 1854. Mary’s sister Margaret Campbell drove the Sinclair family wagon, as she would all the way to the Rockies. Rules were laid down – Sinclair’s word was law, but he would consult on important matters with some reliable members of the party. No tardiness was to be tolerated and each day would start with the cry, “Every man to his ox!” The oxen were not all properly broken and caused problems in the morning. The sheep dawdled. On the first day the largest family group went first, then the next and so on. The next day the second family went first and so on, so that everyone had a turn at travelling dust-free. They aimed to travel 2.5 miles per hour, even with the sheep.
The trail between Fort Garry and Fort Carlton was better than previously, because it was more used. When crossing the Qu’Appelle River, the banks were long, steep, and slippery with rain. There were no brakes on the carts, so ropes had to be tied round the ox’s horns to hold them back. A feud between the Cree and Blackfoot meant that guards had to be deployed against Blackfoot attack. Shortly after they left For Pitt, they were met by Chief Mackipitoon, who offered to accompany them to Edmonton. The hundred Cree he had with him helped to guard the party. They also helped to make and break camp, herd stock, hunt game and build bridges. Sometimes these bridges had to be strong enough to bear the weight of carts and oxen over deep ravines. It was estimated that they had to build eight bridges like these after leaving Fort Pitt, the shortest forty feet long and the longest 1,000 feet long.
As they crossed the plains, young John Campbell described an astonishing sight:
“We were travelling along as usual, and we could see a black mass moving toward us. These were the buffalo travelling toward the north and we had to stop to let them by. When they came up to us, they separated; some going ahead of our carts and the others behind. We had to stop and let them by and go around our loose cattle and horses as they wanted to follow the band of buffalo. We were obliged to remain at that place for over two hours to let them go by us. Just as far as the eye could see there was nothing but a black mass of them and they were going on a small lope. It was difficult to understand how they had come to be gathered together, as it were, into one band and started travelling north.”[30]
Mackipitoon assured Sinclair that the carts could cross the mountains, but he was unconvinced. He was willing to take them as far as possible, but while at Edmonton, he made sure that they could convert into a pack train if necessary. The most able men learned the most efficient way to pack the animals. Convincing the oxen was another matter, but they were finally won over. Several of the men also learned how to make ox saddles in case women and children had to ride on them if not enough horses were found. With difficulty, he persuaded the party to travel as lightly as possible over the mountains. He urged them to get anything suitable credited to their accounts, to be redeemed at Fort Vancouver.
The settlers finally left Edmonton House in mid-August, travelling southwest and fording the Red Deer River, where they got their first sight of the Rockies. Instead of heading for Devil’s Gap, they entered the Bow River valley between the present towns of Cochrane and Morley, further to the east than the previous trip. Mackipitoon led them up the Kananaskis River to two passes close together, Upper and Lower Pass. They camped where the Kananaskis River joined the Bow and were delayed for two weeks as Mrs. Robert Flett gave birth to a baby that only lived for a few days.
While they waited, Sinclair and some of the other men reconnoitered and were disturbed at the roughness of the ground. Mackipictoon insisted it would be a better way, but they would have to travel by pack train. Many wanted to take the carts further, but Sinclair was adamant. Women carried babies on their back and small children rode behind them. The carts were broken down and saddles were made.
The way was heavily timbered, causing problems when the oxen reacted to their packs being knocked. The trail became hard, over mountain shoulders and swamps, on a mountain shelf between a rock wall and an abyss. None were hurt but Sinclair could see the strain and regretted taking this new path. They often had to slash their way through burnt-out remnants of forest. A party of men had to travel ahead to scout the best way and the stock suffered from insufficient feed. There was very little game. Finally, their Cree guide admitted he was lost, and the party had to wander to and fro to find a route. Sinclair had to guide the party by compass.
John Campbell wrote that “At one place we came to a place that had to be bridged: a most fearful spot. Small trees were thrown across a narrow chasm that seemed almost bottomless. Mr. Sinclair said – ‘That is the Crow’s Nest!’ One of the people replied, ‘The Devil’s ridge would be a better name for it!’ Over such gorges we had to construct bridges even stronger for cattle and horses, women and children, to cross these terrifying abysses.” Sinclair had to urge his dispirited party on step by step, assuring them that the worst must be past.
The scenery was magnificent, but oxen had to be killed for meat, leaving fewer pack animals. A decision had to be made as to which pass to take and from the descriptions it is presumed, they took the Upper, more difficult pass. The terrain was so rough that everyone had to walk, leading the animals, stumbling over the shale, boulders, and snow. Campbell wrote, “We crossed the height-of-land walking through snow three feet deep in October 1854.” This was the first crossing by white men over the Kananaskis Pass, but it had taken them thirty days.
They made their way down the other side, following the Beatty Creek and the Palliser River down to the Kootenay Valley. Travel was easy in the broad valley down to the Canal Flat. At Tobacco Plains they met John Linklater, the HBC man in charge of Fort Kootenay. He was the only white man for three or four hundred miles. He forded the river, having been so glad to hear other white men were near that he did not stop to saddle his horse. Linklater warned Sinclair to be careful near Walla Walla as the Cayuse tribe were warming up for trouble.
Events in Walla Walla and James’ death
The settlers reached Walla Walla in December and Sinclair’s family and some others stayed there while the remainder of the party carried on to Fort Vancouver. Sinclair reported at Fort Vancouver and then returned to Walla Walla. The Sinclair family settled down there, building houses, barns, and a sawmill. During the following May, Governor Stevens, administrator for the new Washington Territory arrived with fifty men, wanting to hold an Indian council. Sinclair and Stevens got on well and Stevens sent messengers to the seventeen tribes to come before early June. Twenty-five bands gathered and then more and more – a large party of Nez Perces, then three hundred Cayuse bent on trouble, led by “Five Crows.” Two days later two thousand more of the Yakima, Umatilla and Walla Walla arrived, led by Kamiakin and Peu-peu-mox-mox. This was considered to be one of the greatest Indian enclaves ever held. Plans were put forward for reservations and the Indians held a pow-wow. The Indians split between those wanting peace and those unwilling to accept the restrictions being imposed upon them. “Looking Glass” of the Nez Perces tried to incite war but did not succeed. Three reservations were to be set up, one on the Umatilla River, one in the Yakima Valley and one on the Clearwater and Snake rivers. The Indians left and life carried on, irrigation canals were reopened, gardens planted, and the orchard pruned. A gold rush to Colville took almost all the men away.
In October 1855 Sinclair’s young interpreter John McBain brought word that an Indian War was about to break out in Oregon. Scattered attacks had already been made. Sinclair set about defending the fort and sent word for aid on October 12 to the United States Army commander at the Dalles and to Chief Factor Dugald MacTavish at Fort Vancouver. The Indian agent, Nathan Olney, ordered the evacuation of the area and ordered Sinclair to throw all the fort’s powder and balls into the Columbia River. They left that night, only taking what they could carry.
Sinclair met McTavish at the Cascades, who had responded to his appeal for help. MacTavish wrote to London that “Mr. Sinclair has acted in this matter with much prudence and discretion and has evinced sound judgment in the management of the Company’s business committed to his charge through a very trying period.”[31] Sinclair was ordered to attempt to reclaim the fort so set out with a party of Oregon volunteers and American troops.
They left in mid-November knowing that Chief Peu-peu-mox-mox (“Yellow Serpent”) had taken the fort with more than 800 men. A base camp was set up at Wells Springs on the Umatilla River, forty miles from the fort. Sinclair accompanied the hundred and fifty mounted troops and volunteers who intended to occupy the fort, but they met a messenger with the news that the fort was occupied by about a thousand Indian. They halted twenty-five miles from the fort to await reinforcements.
“In the meantime we fortified our position and soon built a stockade fort. Here we were cooped up for fifteen days surrounded by a large body of Indians. After receiving reinforcements, we made a night march to the fort which was found deserted and a mass of ruins….We had a pretty hard fight for four days. We, however, drove the Indians from their position, and drove them before us for forty miles. I was with the party who made the first charge. I had no idea of getting into the fight, but the excitement was such there was no keeping out of it;….the country was in that state where there was no moving with safety a few miles from our camp. After waiting for better than a month, I got a chance of writing to Colville by the return of one hundred and fifty friendly Nez Perces who had escorted Governor Stevens to our camp. Our victory saved him and his party. I have sent instructions to McDonald in charge of Colville to stop the trade in arms and ammunition. This will bring the Indians down on him, but of the two evils it is better to have the Yankees as friends. Our position is a delicate one to avoid coming in conflict with either party. I am glad to say that the hostile feeling formerly entertained by the Yankee population against the Company is fast giving way, and that they now give us credit when we deserve it. There are, however, a few who would wish to saddle the Company with being the authors of the present Indian difficulties, but the fact that we were obliged to abandon our property to the mercies of the Indians has tended to remove the old feeling against the Company;…. I was within a yard or two from the great Walla Walla chief, Peu-peu-mox-mox, when he was shot. The whole scalp was taken from his head and cut into twenty pieces. His skull was divided equally for buttons. His ears preserved in a bottle of spirits, and large strips of his skin cut off along his back to be made into razor strops. Such is Indian warfare!”[32]
Indian attacks became increasingly vicious and atrocities occurred along the Columbia river, particularly from the Klickitats. Sinclair was concerned about his family, who were staying at the Dalles with Mrs. Moar, his wife’s sister. When things quieted a little, Sinclair returned to Fort Vancouver to report and estimate the loss to the company. Sinclair lost all but twelve of his two hundred cattle and all his horses.
In March 1856 James received orders from MacTavish to return to Walla Walla to salvage what he could and to restore the post ready to resume trading when the troubles ended. He set off on March 24, up the Columbia River and stopped at the Cascades to wait for the steamer to take him to Dalles to see his ailing daughter Maria, who was receiving treatment from an army doctor there. A tramway was being built around the rapids so there was a large force of men with their families living there. Cabins and warehouses had been built.
The steamer was preparing to leave the next day when gunfire was heard signaling an Indian attack. Cascade Indians came galloping in, attacking everyone. Sinclair had been near the door of a store and helped people in as it was the only place that might withstand a siege. The doors were shut and barred, and Sinclair took charge of the forty people inside.
Sinclair ordered a hole cut in the ceiling to reach the roof, as the Indians had taken possession of land above the store and were attacking from above. It happened that nine rifles and a quantity of ammunition had been left in the store about an hour before. Volunteers crawled onto the roof to fire from there and holes were cut in all four walls to cover all sides of the building. Just as he was effectively ordering the defense, two more people were seen running toward the store, with bullets striking the ground around them. Sinclair opened the door for them, only to be shot and die instantly.[33]
John McBain had been with Sinclair almost constantly since he came to Walla Walla. Although not yet twenty, he took charge and realized the greatest need was for water, to drink and to douse fires as the Indians were throwing balls of burning moss on the roof. He knew they would set fire to the other buildings, to prevent escape under cover of darkness. As darkness fell and before they could do this, he crawled to the water’s edge, returning with seven buckets before the firing became too intense. For the next two days no one could leave the store and the water had to be severely rationed. On the morning of the March 28 the Indians seemed to have run out of ammunition, so McBain brought enough water to fill two barrels and hid Sinclair’s body in a deep pool. When firing broke out again the next day, he held a meeting. It was agreed that when only four rounds were left, they should make a dash for an old large flat-bottomed boat, push off into the stream and go to their deaths over the Cascades.
In classic Western style, just before they were forced to make this suicidal choice, the cavalry arrived. A settler who had escaped when the attack began had just happened to meet a body of soldiers, led by Lieutenant, later General, Sheridan. Chief Factor MacTavish sent William ‘Credo’ Sinclair, then working at Fort Vancouver, to bring his brother’s body back for a full Masonic funeral. When Governor Simpson heard of the tragedy, he said, “We have lost a good man.”[34]
James’ wife Mary was left with a stepson, three daughters, and a son born posthumously. Maria died three months after her father.[35] MacTavish did what he could for them, but Sinclair had not left a will. Finally, as the dependent of a deceased American citizen who had suffered loss at the hands of the Indians, his widow was compensated for the $30,000 worth of cattle and possessions lost at Walla Walla. Sinclair’s old friend Ulysses S. Grant, by a special Act of Congress, granted her a land claim of six hundred and forty acres in the Walla Walla valley.[36]
[1] Picture from Lent, page 78.
[2] D. Geneva Lent, West of the Mountains – James Sinclair and the Hudson’s Bay Company, University of Washington Press, 1963. This chapter largely traces her work.
[3] Ibid, page 3.
[4] Sutherland, page 192, endnote 46, where the South Ronaldsay and Burray, and the 1832 Red River censuses both name 1809.
[5] South Ronaldsay and Burray 1821 Census Project at: www.southronaldsay.net/1821/ St. Margaret’s Hope Household #79 under James Allan family. See Sutherland, page 240, endnote 44.
[6] Lent, page 23. Lent is correct that William (Credo) went to Scotland in 1818, but incorrect that he took brothers John and James, since the ship’s log (Prince of Wales) only lists William, Sutherland 238.
[7] Sutherland, page 239 and endnote 43; page 254.
[8] Lent pages 40-42 errantly described James living with William’s siblings, but the Ronaldsay Census Project (endnote 4) is evidence that she was mistaken.
[9] Lent, page 45. Sutherland, page 263.
[10] Healy, W. J., Women of Red River, The Women’s Canadian Club 1923, Page 17.
[11] Lent, page 55.
[12] Ibid, page 85.
[13] Ross was a prolific writer and his published books include: Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River in 1849, The Fur Hunters of the Far West in 1855, and The Red River Settlement in 1856.
[14] Healy, page 18.
[15] Sutherland, 264 and 271. Lent calls this boy Alexander as christened on February 28, 1834 at St. John’s church, Lent 88 and endnote 2.
[16] Lent, page 88.
[17] Simpson, page 64.
[18] Ibid, page 62 and Lent, page 126.
[19] Healy, page 21.
[20] Ross, Red River Settlement, pages 347-8.
[21] Thomas, Lewis G., The Prairie West to 1905 – A Canadian Sourcebook, Oxford University Press, 1975, pages 56-57. Also, Lent, page 176-7
[22] Ibid, pages 58-59. Also, Lent 177-9.
[23] Daughter Harriet said 347 soldiers, Healy, page 25.
[24] Lent, page 206 and endnote 1. Lent’s evidence for this baptism is HBC Archives and Red River Register 156N. The authors have found no further evidence nor any report of this child in family records.
[25] Lent, page 205.
[26] Ross, Red River Settlement, pages 374-5. Lent, pages 208-214.
[27] Lent page 215, endnote 7 and reported in New Monthly Magazine (New York), Vol. XXI (August 1860), Vol. XXII (February 1861).
[28] Dictionary of Canadian Biography: Sinclair, James. We have found no evidence for this information.
[29] Sutherland, page 288.
[30] Lent, page 246.
[31] Lent, page 277 endnote 64, HBC Arch., file B.223/b/41.
[32] Ibid, pages 280-1, endnote 4, letter from James Sinclair to Dr. William Cowan, BC Prov. Arch.
[33] Sutherland, 278.
[34] Lent, page 291.
[35] Sutherland, page 278
[36] Lent, page 292, endnote 10, Bancroft, History of Washington, Idaho, and Montana, pages 144-7.
The Herdmanston Sinclairs 