John Reed (??-1814) was an American clerk employed by several

fur trade The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the mos ...

companies until his death in 1814.

Pacific Fur Company

Of his final employers, Reed's final one was the Pacific Fur Company (PFC). He was hired at

Mackinac Island Mackinac Island ( ; french: Île Mackinac; oj, Mishimikinaak ᒥᔑᒥᑭᓈᒃ; otw, Michilimackinac) is an island and resort area, covering in land area, in the U.S. state of Michigan. The name of the island in Odawa is Michilimackinac an ...

as a clerk in August 1810. From there he joined

Wilson Price Hunt Wilson Price Hunt (March 20, 1783 – April 13, 1842) was an early pioneer and explorer of the Oregon Country in the Pacific Northwest of North America. Employed as an agent in the fur trade under John Jacob Astor, Hunt organized and led the gre ...

and the other members of an expedition bound for the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...

. An advanced party of PFC administrators and laborers was planned to arrive on board the '' Tonquin'', leaving New York City in September 1810. This second group was to begin a company headquarters prior Hunt's arrival from the United States. The party Reed joined was largely composed of

French-Canadian French Canadians (referred to as Canadiens mainly before the twentieth century; french: Canadiens français, ; feminine form: , ), or Franco-Canadians (french: Franco-Canadiens), refers to either an ethnic group who trace their ancestry to Fr ...

and

Métis The Métis ( ; Canadian ) are Indigenous peoples who inhabit Canada's three Prairie Provinces, as well as parts of British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the Northern United States. They have a shared history and culture which derives ...

subjects of the United Kingdom, in addition to a number of Americans. The group arrived at the newly established Fort Astoria in January 1812. He was given important documents by the management of the PFC in March, with orders to return overland and deliver them directly to John Jacob Astor. He and the few men with him were attacked in the interior by a group of natives prior to crossing the

Continental Divide A continental divide is a drainage divide on a continent such that the drainage basin on one side of the divide feeds into one ocean or sea, and the basin on the other side either feeds into a different ocean or sea, or else is endorheic, not ...

.Wounded in the engagement, he was about to get medical attention at Fort Okanogan. Reed later returned to Fort Astoria in May 1812. Reed opened a dwelling in 1813 along the Malheur River in the vicinity of modern Vale, Oregon. He later relocated to the junction of the Boise and Snake Rivers. In the first month of 1814, an attack on the post by a group of Bannock natives and killed Reed and two men there. An outpost some distance away maintained by the trappers was also attacked. Four PFC employees were killed there, including

Pierre Dorion Jr. Pierre Dorion Jr. (1782Royot, Daniel''Divided Loyalties in a Doomed Empire.''Newark: University of Delaware Press. 2007, p. 137.–1814) was a Métis fur trapper and interpreter who worked across the modern Midwestern United States and later the Pa ...

, though his wife

Marie Aioe Dorion "Madame" Marie Aioe Dorion Venier Toupin (ca. 1786 – September 5, 1850) was the only female member of an overland expedition sent by Pacific Fur Company to the Pacific Northwest in 1810. Like her first husband, Pierre Dorion Jr., she was Métis p ...

and two infant children survived. Marie survived the winter alone and took care of the two children until she reached Fort Okanogan in the spring.

Legacy

The general area of the Reed's second post was found to be valuable by later trappers. In 1819 Donald McKenzie opened a new station there, though it was later abandoned. Thomas McKay later established

Fort Boise Fort Boise is either of two different locations in the western United States, both in southwestern Idaho. The first was a Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) trading post near the Snake River on what is now the Oregon border (in present-day Canyon Co ...

in 1835, within the coral of McKenzie's old station.

Citations

Bibliography

* * * 1814 deaths American fur traders Fur traders North West Company people Oregon Country Oregon pioneers Year of birth missing {{Oregon-bio-stub