Dr. John McLoughlin was chief factor of Fort Vancouver, in present-day Oregon, from 1824 to 1846. During this time, the area was known as the Columbia Department. This Pacific Northwest territory operated by the Hudson’s Bay Company was bounded by Russian Alaska to the north, Spanish California to the south and the Continental Divide to the east. It was mostly populated by Indigenous Peoples (some 80,000 across more than 30 First Nations), along with the Company’s traders (a few hundred at most) and an ever-increasing population of American colonists. The territory’s location made it a site of contested claims by both Britain and the expanding United States, and Fort Vancouver was a relatively cosmopolitan nexus for weary settlers arriving from the East.

Here, vividly rendered by Charles Comfort, McLoughlin—six-foot-four, with a shock of white hair—strikes an imposing but benevolent figure, as he welcomes a ragged crew of Americans arriving aboard an HBC York boat. In reality, he ruled the remote fort, far from the oversight of the rest of the Company, with somewhat of a dictatorial air, and frequently assisted the newly arrived colonists in settling the area to the south, against the HBC’s orders. For his efforts, he was pushed out of the Company in 1846; that same year, the British and Americans agreed to set the border at the 49th parallel.

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