Note 288 — OREGON MISSIONS AN OUTLINE SKETCH OF OREGON TERRITORY AND ITS MISSIONS (continued 3)

Donald Manson, born in Scotland in 1800, entered the Hudson’s Bay Company at the age of seventeen, and was sent out to York Factory. Three years later, at Winnipeg, he met Dr. McLoughlin and in 1823 accompanied him to the Pacific department. At first assigned to an exploring expedition under charge of Samuel Black, he reached Vancouver January 6, 1825, and aided in completing its works. Two years later he accompanied the expedition that founded Fort Langley, and was afterwards sent to restore the trading post of old Fort George, at the mouth of the Columbia. In 1829 Manson was placed in charge of Fort McLoughlin, on Millbank Sound, and there remained for ten years, after which a well-deserved furlough gave him the opportunity to revisit Scotland. Returning to the Pacific, he was sent (1841) to succeed Samuel Black at Kamloops, and to punish the latter’s murderers; the following year a like task was assigned him at Stikeen. In 1844 Manson was placed in command of New Caledonia, with headquarters at Fort St. James, a position ably filled for fourteen years, when he retired from the service and settled near Champoeg, in the Willamette valley, where he died January 7, 1880. He married (1828) the daughter of Etienne Lucier, first settler of French Prairie, and had a large family of children. See interview with his daughter in Oregon Historical Quarterly, iv, p. 263; also Oregon Pioneer Association Transactions, 1879, p. 56.—Ed.