Colonial Despatches

Astoria, now a port city in the state of Oregon, is located at the mouth of the Columbia River.1 It was named after John Jacob Astor, a German who immigrated to England, and then set to further his fortunes in the marine fur trade of the Pacific coast, and he did so with the Pacific Fur Company.2 The fort of Astoria, now a city, was a key location in the Oregon Territory land dispute. In 1813, the British captured and renamed it Fort George, but it regained its former mantle in 1818 when it was returned to the United States.3

• 1. Arthur S. Morton, A History of the Canadian West to 1870-71 (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1939), 489.
• 2. Ibid.
• 3. Lynn Middleton, Placenames of the Pacific Northwest Coast (Victoria: Elldee Publishing Company, 1969), 12.