Thomas Mc Kay (fur Trader) - Hudson's Bay Company

Hudson's Bay Company

After the North West Company was merged with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821 Thomas McKay became an HBC employee, despite having fought the company in the Red River Colony war. In 1824 John McLoughlin was appointed Chief Factor of the Columbia Department. He and his family moved that year to Fort George (Astoria) and then, once it was built, Fort Vancouver, the new headquarters of the HBC Columbia Department. In 1811 McLoughlin had married Marguerite Wadin, widow of Alexander MacKay and mother of Thomas McKay. Thus in 1824 Thomas's mother and stepfather moved across the continent to the very place Thomas was living.

In the 1820s the HBC sent trading, trapping, and exploring parties south into the Willamette Valley and beyond, eventually reaching California (Mexican Alta California at the time). In 1825 Thomas McKay and Finan McDonald led one of these exploring expeditions south of the Columbia River. He led or accompanied several others.

From 1826 to 1828 McKay took part repeatedly in the Snake Country brigades under Peter Skene Ogden. During this time Ogden explored not only the Snake River basin, but the Deschutes River and Blue Mountains of Oregon, as well as the Klamath Lake region, and the Great Salt Lake and its tributary the Weber River.

George Simpson, head of the HBC, had decided to try to over-exploit the Snake Country and create a "fur desert", for the political purpose of keeping American trappers and traders away. McKay, along with other former NWC trappers such as Peter Ogden, Finan McDonald, Francois Payette, and others, "took up Simpson's orders with a fanatical zeal, declaring war on fur-bearing animals south of the Columbia," as historian Richard Mackie put it.

In 1829 Thomas McKay took part in Alexander McLeod's expedition to California. McLeod's party reached as far south as the San Joaquin River and was the first of what became an annual trapping expedition to California, known as the Southern Party. The route from Fort Vancouver to the lower Sacramento River became known as the Siskiyou Trail.

In 1836 McKay led a HBC Southern Party brigade to the Pit River region of California. In 1840-41 McKay and Michel Laframboise were brigade leaders of the Southern Party to California.

In 1832 McKay was given charge of an HBC farm at Scappoose. Within a year he had moved to and settled at Champoeg. He may have retired from the HBC at this time, although he continued to work for the company off and on for many years.

McKay lead a brigade to the Snake Country in 1834, reaching into the far southeast of today's state of Idaho. John Kirk Townsend, who was accompanying an American expedition to establish Fort Hall, described Thomas Mckay's party at the future site of Fort Hall in 1834 as consisting of 17 French Canadians and "half-breeds", and 13 Indians (Nez Perce, Chinook, and Cayuse). Townsend also noted that McKay enforced the HBC policies brigade order, decorum, and strict subordination, as well as the prohibition of trading whiskey to the Indians. All these things, Townsend noted, were in stark contrast to the behavior of American fur traders in the region. Fort Hall was part of an effort by Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth to break into the Columbia region and compete with the HBC. Politically the entire Oregon Country was free and open to British and American ventures, but the HBC was able to maintain its dominance in the region through various barriers to entry tactics such as dumping and predatory pricing. Wyeth's attempt to compete in the early 1830s was quickly made untenable by the HBC. In the case of Fort Hall, Thomas McKay built the rival post of Fort Boise, which supported an increased HBC effort to turn the Snake Country into a "fur desert" and drive the Americans out. The strategy worked and by 1837 Wyeth had abandoned the region and sold his company's assets, including Fort Hall, to the Hudson's Bay Company.

In 1834 McKay met the American missionary Jason Lee at Fort Hall. McKay guided Lee from Fort Hall to Fort Vancouver, then helped Lee select the site of Willamette Mission.

Thomas McKay remained active in the Snake Country until 1838. He spent most of 1839 at Champoeg.