John McLoughlin was born in 1784 in Quebec, Canada, to a poor Catholic father and upper class Protestant mother. Apprenticing with a physician, he became a doctor in 1803. McLoughlin fled Quebec that year after a scuffle with a British Army officer. He headed to the Canadian West to join the fur trade with the North West Company (NWC).
McLoughlin rose through the ranks of the NWC and later the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC). In 1824 he moved his family west and took control of HBC’s Columbia district operations, establishing Fort Vancouver just north of Portland. In his years at Vancouver, McLoughlin maintained friendly relations with the local Chinook and Cowlitz Indian federations as well as the Nez Perce and Cayuse tribes farther east. Trading European goods for beaver pelts, McLoughlin turned a profit for the company and gradually built his own personal wealth. The company expanded its operations into various industries including farms, dairies, and lumber to become Britain’s major foothold in the Oregon Country.
With the opening of the Oregon Trail in the 1840s and the influx of Americans in the Northwest, McLoughlin assisted the hungry and exhausted settlers with provisions. READ MORE on The Oregon History Project
