John McLoughlin was one of the most influential figures of the fur trade and
settlement periods of Pacific Northwest history. Chief Factor of the Columbia
District of the British Hudson's Bay Company, he reigned as a benevolent
autocrat, befriended Americans, and eventually became an American citizen at
Oregon City.
He was born in Quebec in 1784 and trained as a physician near Montreal.
He became a physician and traveled to the Northwest region in 1824 as a
representative of the Hudson Bay Company. Here he occupied the position of Chief
Factor from 1825, when the regional headquarters of the company was moved from
old Fort Astoria to Fort Vancouver, until his retirement in 1845.
During his reign as Chief Factor, Dr. John McLoughlin directed the operations
of the fur trade in all the country west of the Rocky Mountains and north of the
California line, as well as the more localized activities of agriculture,
livestock raising, sawmilling, flour milling, dairying, and salmon fishing. From
1825 to 1843, when the provisional government was first established by the
settlers in the Willamette Valley, he was the undisputed governor of the vast
area bounded by the Rocky Mountains on the east, Mexican territory (California)
on the south, the Pacific Ocean on the west and the Russian settlements on the
north.
Dr. John McLoughlin exercised control over the Indians of the region,
welcomed and provisioned missionaries and settlers, encouraged schools and
church instruction and for a number of years was the only medical practitioner
in the region. His contributions to the development of the Northwest region in
general and the Oregon country in particular make him truly deserving of the
title by which he is often referred to, “Father of the Oregon” In 1857, the man
who had ruled an empire two and a half times the size of Texas, died broken and
bitter.
He was 75 at the time. Five years later, in an act of penitence, the
legislature of the new State of Oregon restored his land to his heirs. Time Line
1784 - John McLoughlin was born in Riviere du Loup, St. Lawrence, Canada.
