Wallace House (fur-trade post)

The Wallace House, Wallace Post or Calapooya Fort[1] was a station maintained by the Pacific Fur Company (PFC) that engaged in the North American fur trade. The building was located in the French Prairie of the Willamette Valley, in what is now Keizer, Oregon. Additional PFC posts were ordered to be established throughout the Pacific Northwest after work finished on Fort Astoria, the center of operations. At the time, the Willamette Valley had a sizable population of North American beaver, the fur of which was the primary product gathered by the company for sale in the Qing Empire. On November 23, 1812, William Wallace and John C. Halsley led fourteen men from Fort Astoria to the valley to find a suitable area for a trading post.[2] The party wintered there after completed the building, trapping beaver, hunting game and trading with the resident Kalapuyan nations.

During the winter, a fellow band of PFC employees under Donald Mackenzie returned to Fort Astoria. The returned trappers proved to be taxing on Astoria's small food supplies so some of the men were ordered to the Wallace House. Alfred Seton led the reappointed trappers, noting the region around Wallace Post had large populations of Elk, Columbian white-tailed deer and Black-tailed deer.[3] After hearing Seton's description of the area, Gabriel Franchère noted that "a dwelling and trading house, on a great prairie..." was functioning in the Willamette Valley.[3] Halsley, Wallace and their returned to Fort Astoria on May 25, 1813 with a sizable supply of venison, a critical food supply that was sorely needed.[4] More commercially important, however, was an inventory of 775 beaver furs captured over the previous winter.[5]

The War of 1812 led to the complete isolation of the Pacific Fur Company, and to avoid conflict against the Royal Navy, the company officers agreed to sell its assets to the North West Company in 1813. Wallace House was still utilized, though the nearby Willamette Trading Post would soon supplant the station. Throughout 1813 and 1814, trappers who operated out of the post included Thomas McKay, Étienne Lucier, Alexander Ross and Donald McKenzie.[1] Three American trappers stationed at the Willamette Trading Post relocated to Wallace House for the majority of January 1814. Despite only having six traps, the men were able to gather 80 beaver skins.[6] The post was abandoned after that season, with no record of it until 1832, when Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth depicted it on a map of the Willamette Valley.[5] In the early 1840s, the Methodist Mission began work on the Oregon Institute in vicinity of where Wallace House was located.[5]

References

  1. 1 2 Watson, Bruce M. Lives Lived West of the Divide: A Biographical Dictionary of Fur Traders Working West of the Rockies, 1793-1858. Okanagan: The Centre for Social, Spatial and Economic Justice of the University of British Columbia, 2010. p. 1064.
  2. ↑ Franchère, Gabriel. Narrative of a voyage to the Northwest coast of America, in the years 1811, 1812, 1813, and 1814, or, The first American settlement on the Pacific. Translated by J. V. Huntington. New York City: Redfield, 1854. p. 163.
  3. 1 2 Franchère (1854), pp. 167-168.
  4. ↑ Franchère (1854), p. 170.
  5. 1 2 3 Barry, J. Neilson. "Site of Wallace, 1812-1814 One Mile from Salem." Oregon Historical Quarterly 42, No. 3 (1941): 205-207.
  6. ↑ Henry, Alexander, and David Thompson. New Light on the Early History of the Greater Northwest: The Manuscript Journals of Alexander Henry, Fur Trader of the Northwest Company, and of David Thompson, Official Geographer and Explorer of the Same Company, 1799-1814 ; Exploration and Adventure among the Indians on the Red, Saskatchewan, Missouri, and Columbia Rivers. Edited by Elliott Coues. Vol. 2. New York City: Francis P. Harper, 1897. pp. 817-818.

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