Introduction
The history of the region west of the Cascade mountains is often overshadowed by the larger cities to the North, Seattle and Tacoma, and too the south, Portland. But since this is Chehalis.Net we want to focus on our somewhat overlooked region in the middle, the region generally referred to today as the southwest Washington that includes the modern counties of Clark, Pacific, Cowlitz, Wahkiakum, Skamania and Lewis, where the town of Chehalis is located and the home of Chehalis.Net.

While there is not a natural border to the north of the southwest Washington region the Pacific Ocean forms the western border and the Columbia River forms the southern border. The Cascade Mountains generally mark the eastern border. The region has both Mount Rainier National Park and Mount Saint Helens National Monument along with three wildlife refuges, Willapa, Ridgefield and Julia Butler Hansen. There are also three wilderness areas, Goat Rocks, Trapper Creek and Indian Heaven and many National Forests. Down on the Columbia River is the Fort Vancouver National Historical site. There are many rivers in the region, including the Chehalis, Willapa, Cowlitz, Shookumchuck and the mighty Columbia, and countless creeks and streams.

Voyages of Discovery
A Spanish expedition under the command of Juan Francisco de la Bodega Y Quadra may have been the first Europeans to sail along the coast of what we now call southwest Washington. In 1775 the expedition came up the coast to fifty-eight degrees north and then turned back because the crew was week with scurvy. On the return trip Bruno de Heceta detected a strong current and wrote in his log “The Currents and the expanse of waters have made me believe it is the mouth of a large river or a passage to some other sea.” They were the first Europeans to detect the Columbia River but because of the sickness of the crew they did not investigate.

In March of 1788 Captain James Cook on his third and tragic great voyage of discovery arrived from the Sandwich Islands (now called the Hawaiian Islands) and sailed along the coast of southwest Washington in 1778 but because of bad weather he kept his two ships, Resolution and Discovery, well off shore and missed discovering both the Columbia River and the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Later in July of 1788 the ship Felice Adventurer reached the southwest Washington coast. The captain, John Meares, a British trader had no official sanction as he searched for furs and profit so he flew the Portuguese flag. As he sailed south along the southwest Washington coast he looked for “Heceta Entrance” as noted on his Spanish map. Sailing south along what is now called the Long Beach Peninsula he noted in his log that there was not “the least trace of habitable life.” Unable to find an entrance to the through the shoals to the waters beyond he noted in his log, “Disappointment continued to accompany us. Being almost certain to find no place of shelter we bore up for a distant headland. We can now safely assert that no River San Roque exits.” He departed the region but not before making his feelings known by naming Cape Disappointment and Deception Bay.

Because John Meares turned away disappointed, the Spanish did not investigate and did not publish their findings and because Captain Cook kept his ships so far off shore the credit for discovery of the Columbia River goes to an American, Captain Robert Gray. In May of 1792 Captain Gray sailed a short distance up the river, confirming that it was in fact a river, and then named the river for his ship, the Columbia. He continued sailing up the coast and discovered the Harbor in southwest Washington that bears his name. Also in 1792 Captain George Vancouver reached the Columbia River and surveyed about 100 miles up the river to a site near the present day Vancouver, in southwest Washington. Later he sailed into the Strait of Juan de Fuca and spotted a mountain and named it Mount Rainer after a friend in the British admiralty.

Lewis and Clark
The first Euro-American to cross North America was Alexander Mackenzie. He was seeking to expand the fur trade into new regions and reached the Pacific Ocean in what would be modern British Columbia in 1793. The next Euro-American to cross North America reached the Pacific Ocean via the Columbia River and camped in southwest Washington. They were the Corp of Discovery and they were the first people to chronicle their journey across the continent and attempt to record their discoveries. The Corp of Discovery was lead by William Clark and Meriwether Lewis. The expedition left St. Louis on May 14, 1804. Eighteen months later, on November 4, 1805, William Clark made the journal entry below after they landed at a Chinookan village near modern day Vancouver, Washington;

“We land at a village of 25 houses: 24 of those houses were thatched with straw, and covered with bark, the other house is built of boards in the form of those above, except that it is above ground and about 50 feet in length and covered with broad spilt boards. This village contains about 200 Men of the Skilloot nation. I counted 52 canoes on the bank in front of this village, maney of them verry large and raised in bow.”

On November 7th Clark noted, “Great Joy in camp we are in View of the Ocian, this great Pacific Octean which we been so long anxious to see.” But they were not at the ocean; they were probably entering the bay where the river widens to more than fifteen miles across. A few days later the party reached the Pacific Ocean.

Fur Traders
Alexander Mackenzie had been working for a fur trading company called the North West Company headquartered in Montreal. The North West Company was a young upstart to the much older Hudson's Bay Company that had been established in 1670. The Hudson's Bay Company had a monopoly on fur trading in many areas so the North West Company was forced to search out other areas, such as the Pacific Northwest. The North West Company established several trading posts in the Pacific Northwest region including Fort Nez Perces, near present day Walla Walla and Spokane House, near present day Spokane. The British were not the only ones interested in natural wealth of the Pacific Northwest, John Jacob Astor, one of the wealthiest men in America, established the American Fur Company in 1808 to exploit the fur trade of the region. In 1810 Astor sent both an overland and seafaring expedition to the region. Astor's ship the Tonquin under the command of an erratic and antagonistic Captain Jonathan Thorn sailed from New York City and made its way around Cape Horn and to the Sandwich Islands to pick up supplies and additional seaman. The ship arrived off the mouth of the Columbia River on March 22, 1811. Captain Thorn ordered First Mate Ebenezer Fox and three unskilled seamen into a small boat to seek a route into the Columbia River through the pounding surf of the bar at the mouth. By one account the first mate asked for two-experienced seaman and was rebuffed by the captain with, “Mr. Fox, if you are afraid of water, you should have remained in Boston.” As he cast his small boat off he reportedly said, “I'm not afraid to die. My uncle was drowned here not many years ago and now I am going to lay my bones with his.” Perhaps his uncle was a fur trader, that is not known, but what is certain is that as the crew watched from the rail the little boat was tossed in the pounding surf. Fox hoisted a distress flag but the captain did nothing. The men in the boat were never seen again. But that was not the end of the misfortune. Thorn waited two days for calmer weather before trying again to find a way across the bar. Two small boats one in the morning and the other in the afternoon attempted to find a way into the Columbia without success but at least they both returned safely. Later when a gentle west wind comes up Thorn tries again this time with a small boat leading the Thorn into the river. In the small boat are three white seaman and two Sandwich Islanders. They found a way across the bar and the Tonquin skimmed the breakers into the Columbia River. The Tonquin signaled for the men in the small boat to return to the ship but the small boat was carried out to sea by the ebb tide. The crew of the small boat was unable to row back against the current and the river. The change of tide that pushed the small boat out to sea had stranded the Tonquin inside the bar. During the night the small boat capsized and only the two Sandwich Islanders and one seaman, Stephan Weeks survived. The three men righted the boat and the Sandwich Islanders retrieved the oars. But after the three were in the boat the Sandwich Islanders, unaccustomed to the cold water of the Pacific Northwest, were to numb to row. Later that night one of the two Sandwich Islanders died of exposure. Weeks more accustom to the temperature did his best to row through the night and did finally make shore. He carried the now unconscious, but living Sandwich Islander to shore and dragged the body of the other ashore. Seaman Weeks then went looking for help and was found by the crew of the Tonquin. Both he and the remaining Sandwich Islander lived. Part of the crew proceeded to establish a trading post that they named Fort Astoria after the founder of their company, John Jacob Astor. With the establishment of Fort Astoria America had a physical claim to the Pacific Northwest on the ground in the region. The remaining men of the Tonquin continued north to Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island were the irascible Captain Thorn so enraged the natives that they massacred the crew and the ship was destroyed.

While the seafaring expedition had met with misfortune and tragedy the overland expedition met with its own misfortune before they literally staggered into Fort Astoria in 1812. After recovering they along with those already at the fort fanned out in several directions including north into what we today call southwest Washington. They built the first American structure in what would be Washington State, Fort Okanogan, and they built Fort Spokane next to Spokane House operated by the North West Company.

It was also in 1812 that war broke out between Britain and America and in 1813 the British sent the Sloop Raccoon to enforce their claim to the river and the region. The Treaty of Ghent in 1814 ended the war and all territory taken during the war but did not settle the question of who actual owned the region. Subsequent conventions in 1818 and 1827 also failed to settle this question. The North West Company tried to discourage American settlers but there was already a trickle of settlers that forewarned of a flood.

Meanwhile it was not just the Americans who were having problems in the fur-trading companies; the British were having problems with their two companies, The North West Company and the Hudson's Bay Company. It seemed that whenever traders from one company came across traders for the other company there was all to often brawling, dueling, theft and other forms of mayhem. The British colonial secretary concluded that North America was just to small for two fur trading companies and in 1821 forced the merger of the North West Company into the older Hudson's Bay Company. Some of the directors of the new Hudson's Bay Company advised abandoning operations in the Pacific Northwest but the majority considered that to be premature. The directors name George Simpson, a thirty-four-year-old Scot as governor of the Northern Department of Rupert's Land to which the Columbia District was a subordinate part. Simpson undertook a field inspection in 1824 and afterwards order the regional headquarters moved from Fort George, in Canada, to a new fort on the Columbia River named Fort Vancouver. In 1825 when the new headquarters for the Columbia Department of the Hudson's Bay Company was established it coordinated operations for an area of 700,000 square miles area that stretched north to Russian Alaska and south to the Mexican province of California, and east to the Rocky Mountains and the then western border of the United States and to the Pacific Ocean. Simpson appointed Dr. John McLoughlin as chief factor for the Columbia District in 1824. Essential Dr. McLoughlin became the first government and law for this huge area that included southwest Washington. He held the position until 1846 by which time the fur trade was beginning to decline as agriculture began to grow in the region.

"54-40 or fight"
President Polk in his inaugural address of 1845 declared that American title to Oregon was “clear and unquestionable.” This made a nice speech but John McLoughlin estimated that between 1832 and 1838 there were no more than six hundred Americans in the Snake River region. The Snake River region was the area of greatest concentration of Americans. Even into the 1840s in what would become southwest Washington there were Hudson's Bay Company settlements but practically no Americans. In what we now call the state of Oregon Americans were concentrated in the Willamette Valley. The British had trading outposts and administration, under the Hudson's Bay Company, throughout the entire region. Ports on the west coast of North America are few. At this time Los Angles, San Diego and San Francisco are Mexican ports. Alaska is Russian and the British have a claim to all that is in between. The United States needed at least one port on the west coast if it was to ever develop Pacific trade. When the American survey ship Peacock ran aground on the Columbia River bar on the morning of July 17, 1841 it was clear that the Puget Sound was the best hope of a port on the west coast. Now President Polk's slogan was “54-40 or fight,” a reference to 54 degrees 40 minutes north latitude, a line well inside modern day Canada. The British had there own problems at the time and this region did not seem as vital as it had in earlier years. In 1846 the United States ratified a treaty with Britain extending the international boundary along the 49th Parallel to the Pacific Ocean. The region we now call the Pacific Northwest was finally and officially part of the United States. The treaty only ratified what people were determining by their actions. In 1842 eighteen wagons carried 100 people west over the Oregon trail into the Pacific Northwest. That was the beginning of a mass migration. In 1843 Marcus Whitman a missionary returned to his mission in what is today Washington State with 900 people and over 100 wagons. Between the years 1840 and 1860 some 53,000 people travel the Oregon Trail into what would become Oregon, Idaho and Washington.

History of Lewis County
On March 2, 1853 Washington became a territory, separate from the original Oregon territory. It is at this point we would like to narrow our focus to Lewis County.