Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth - Oregon Country

Oregon Country

When Wyeth was 30, Hall J. Kelley convinced him that the Oregon Country had excellent commercial prospects. Wyeth believed that he could become wealthy in the Oregon fur industry, develop farms for growing crops (especially tobacco), and start a salmon fishing and processing industry to rival New England's cod industry.

When Kelley's plans for an expedition were long delayed, Wyeth formed one of his own, and as he wrote in his expedition journal:

"On the 10th of March 1832 I left Boston in a vessel with 20 men for Baltimore where I was joined by four more, and on the 27th left to Rail Road for Fredrick Md (Frederick, Maryland) from thence to Brownsville we marched on foot, and took passage from that place to Liberty Mo. on various steamboats, which place we left for the prairies on the 12th of May with 21 men, three having deserted, and on the 27th of May three more deserted."

From there the expedition's route proceeded along what would later become known as the Oregon Trail along the Platte River valley, through the Black Hills, the Grand Tetons, north of the Great Salt Lake, thence to Walla Walla, Washington, down the Columbia River, and ultimately to Fort Vancouver on October 29.

On November 6, Wyeth's journal notes, "...my men came forward and unanimously desired to be released from their engagement with a view of returning home as soon as possible.... I am now afloat on the great sea of life without stay or support but in good hands i.e. myself and providence".After spending the winter months at Fort Vancouver, Wyeth returned overland, reaching Liberty, Missouri by late September 1833, and then on to Boston. Although the expedition had not been a commercial success, he brought with him a collection of plants previously unknown to botany.

In 1834 Wyeth outfitted a new expedition, with plans for establishing fur-trading posts, a salmon fishery, a colony, and other developments. Included in the company were two noted naturalists, Professor Thomas Nuttall (1786–1859) of Harvard University, and John Kirk Townsend, plus the missionary Jason Lee. Wyeth's party crossed the Kansas River on May 5, founded Fort Hall (July 1834) in southeastern Idaho. They traveled on to the lower Columbia River, where they built Fort William on an island at present-day Portland, Oregon.

Wyeth reports in his journal that on September 15, 1834, he

"met the Bg May Dacre in full sail up the River boarded her and found all well she had put into Valparaíso having been struck by Lightning and much damaged. Capt Lambert was well and brot me 20 Sandwich Islanders and 2 Coopers 2 Smiths and a Clerk."

Despite some success in its trapping, Wyeth and his company could not compete against the British Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), whose Fort Vancouver operations in the West were led by Dr. John McLoughlin. In 1837, after selling Fort William and Fort Hall to the HBC, Wyeth returned to Boston.

The second expedition was scientifically useful. Nuttall collected and identified 113 species of western plants, including sagebrush, Artemisia tridentata and "mule's ear", a sunflower genus, which he named Wyethia in Wyeth's honor.