Fort Nisqually
Fort Nisqually Site | |
Location | NW of Dupont off I-5 |
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Nearest city | DuPont, Washington |
NRHP reference No. | 74001971 |
Added to NRHP | October 16, 1974 |
Fort Nisqually Granary | |
Location | Point Defiance Park Tacoma, Washington |
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Coordinates | 47°18′12.2256″N 122°31′58.9872″W / 47.303396000°N 122.533052000°W |
Area | 726 square feet[1] |
NRHP reference No. | 70000647 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | April 15, 1970 |
Designated NHL | April 15, 1970[2] |
Fort Nisqually was an important
Foundation
The
it was determined a fort located at a halfway point was needed for safety and security reasons.The new midway location was at Nisqually, chosen for its excellent ship anchorage, its convenience for overland travel, the friendliness of local tribes and its prairies for grazing animals and growing crops. Located near the mouth of Sequalitchew Creek on the plains north of the Nisqually River Delta, in the present town of DuPont, Washington, Nisqually House was built in April 1832. It was a 15 by 20 feet warehouse. The staff was only three men with a few supplies left behind to manage it. It was notably the first European trading post on the Puget Sound.[5]
Operations
One year later, in May 1833, Chief Trader
Fort Nisqually was operated and served by Scottish gentlemen, Native Americans,
Puget Sound Agricultural Company
Founded in 1840, the
Fort Nisqually started to export livestock and crops for local consumption and export to principally to
Tolmie was the manager of the PSAC from 1843 to 1857, overseeing the pastoral and agricultural projects from Fort Nisqually. His tenure covered the transition from British to American control beginning in 1846 as result of the Oregon Treaty and the Puget Sound War. He was well respected because of his experience with the region and maintained friendly relations with the British, Indigenous peoples and American settlers.
Description
Catholic missionary Jean Bolduc described the station in 1843 as having:
...an enclosure of fir logs, on an average eighteen feet high, enclosing a space one hundred fifty feet on each side and having a small unarmed bastion at the four corners. Inside is a house for the superintendent, a store for trading in furs and several small buildings for the lodging of servitors and voyageurs.[8]
Oregon Treaty
The 1846 treaty between the United States and Great Britain established the border between British North America and the United States at the 49th parallel, which left Fort Nisqually on American soil. Early American settlers around Puget Sound began arriving in numbers during the 1850s to claim land authorized by the Donation Land Claim Act. This group was dependent upon Fort Nisqually for provisions and supplies, unable to make the needed food themselves.[6] Bartering was the norm, with agricultural produce accepted as payment.[6] Squatters from the United States became a problem for Fort Nisqually. Twenty-eight separate attempts to take portions of the fort's land happened in 1851, jumping to 50 incidents two years later.[6] The herds of Fort Nisqually became targeted as well, an officer reporting in 1854 that "two or three bands of Americans [are] constantly about the plains killing our beef..."[6] With the fur trade in decline and increasing harassment from American settlers, tax collectors, and revenue agents, Fort Nisqually closed in 1869. A former employee of Fort Nisqually, Edward Huggins, became an American citizen and took over the site as his homestead.[9]
Management
Manager | Position | Tenure[10] |
---|---|---|
Francis Heron | Chief Trader | 1833-1834 |
William Kittson | clerk | 1834-1840 |
Alexander C. Anderson | clerk | 1840-1841 |
Joseph T. Heath | 1841 | |
William Henry McNeill | Chief Trader | 1841-1842 |
Angus McDonald | postmaster | 1842-1843 |
William Fraser Tolmie | clerk | 1843-1847 |
William Fraser Tolmie | Chief Trader | 1847-1855 |
William Fraser Tolmie | Chief Factor | 1855-1859 |
Edward Huggins | clerk | 1859-1870 |
Restoration
In the 1930s a decision was made to build a reconstruction of Fort Nisqually in a new location: Point Defiance Park in Tacoma, Washington, approximately 15 miles from the original fort. The restoration was part of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal program, which provided jobs to a nation stricken by the Great Depression. The effort was funded and backed by the WPA and the Tacoma Businessmen's Association. Only two buildings, the granary and the factor's house, were moved from their original locations. The remainder had fallen into decay and were not relocated to Point Defiance.
The Fort Nisqually Granary was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970.[1][2][11]
Modern use
Today, the restored Fort Nisqually is a living history museum run by employees and volunteers.[12] Two of the original buildings – the Factor's House and the Granary – remain. In addition, there is a trade store, working blacksmith shop, laborers' dwelling house, demonstration kitchen and kitchen garden. Fort Nisqually has seen recent changes designed to capture its original character. These changes include, most significantly, the restoration of the Factor's House, as well as the relocation and restoration of the two 1830s era bastions. In addition, a section of the palisades wall is designed to replicate the 1847 era wall.
Archeology was conducted in 1988–89 to determine the placement, orientation and size of the northeast bastion and palisades wall. Hundreds of artifacts were discovered and catalogued and have been added to the historical record. In addition, much research has been conducted using the original journals as well as hundreds of letters of Edward Huggins. Huggins was a clerk of the HBC who arrived in 1850. Huggins, originally a Londoner, eventually became an American citizen and homesteaded the land and buildings after it was abandoned by the HBC. He lived on the land until 1906, when he died of colon cancer. The restored fort is managed by Metro Parks Tacoma.
The 1833 location is on The Home Course golf course in DuPont. The 1843 location in DuPont, where the buildings now at Point Defiance were originally located, is owned by
See also
Citations
- ^ a b c David Maul (September 1993). "National Historic Landmark Nomination: Granary at Fort Nisqually / New Granary at Fort Nisqually" (pdf). National Park Service.
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires|journal=
(help) (text from pages 24 to 49 included within same scanned PDF file as other documents cited, additional accompanying pages include drawings, photographs, maps) - ^ a b "Fort Nisqually Granary". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on 2008-04-14. Retrieved 2008-06-26.
- ^ Buerge, David (2017). Chief Seattle and the Town That Took His Name.
- ^ Hunt & Kaylor 1917, p. 29.
- ^ a b Bagley 1915.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Galbraith 1950.
- ^ Beidleman 1958.
- ^ Gibson 1985, p. 60.
- ^ Sperlin 1917.
- ^ Watson 2010, p. 1073.
- ^ Charles W. Snell (February 16, 1967). "National Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings: The Granary and Factor's House, Fort Nisqually" (pdf). National Park Service.
{{cite journal}}
: Cite journal requires|journal=
(help) (includes also Fort Nisqually and Nisqually Farm, similar document by Charles W. Snell, Nisqually Farm document by Snell, and National Historic Landmark Nomination document by Maul, and other documents including maps, drawings, and photographs, 80 pages in total) - ^ "Fort Nisqually". Metro Parks Tacoma. Retrieved 2022-03-24.
Bibliography
- Bagley, Clarence B. (1915), "Journal of Occurrences at Nisqually House, 1833", The Washington Historical Quarterly, 6 (3), University of Washington: 179–197, JSTOR 40474397
- Beidleman, Richard G. (1958), "Early Fur Returns from the Pacific Northwest", Journal of Mammalogy, 39 (1), American Society of Mammalogists: 146–147, JSTOR 1376620
- Galbraith, John S. (1950), "The British and Americans at Fort Nisqually, 1846-1859", The Pacific Northwest Quarterly, 41 (2), University of Washington: 109–120
- Gibson, James R. (1985), Farming the Frontier, the Agricultural Opening of the Oregon Country 1786-1846., Vancouver, B.C.: University of British Columbia Press
- Hunt, Herbert; Kaylor, Floyd C. (1917), Washington, West of the Cascades: Historical and Descriptive; the Explorers, the Indians, the Pioneers, the Modern, vol. 1, Seattle: S. J. Clarke Publishing Co.
- Sperlin, O.B. (1917), "Washington Forts of the Fur Trade Regime", The Washington Historical Quarterly, 8 (2), University of Washington: 103–113
- Watson, Bruce M. (2010), Lives Lived West of the Divide: A Biographical Dictionary of Fur Traders Working West of the Rockies, 1793-1858, Okanagan: The Centre for Social, Spatial and Economic Justice of the University of British Columbia