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United States: Fort Colville, Washington

December 17, 1890, Daily Alta California, San Francisco, California, U.S.A.

An Uncrowned Indian King.
His Dominion a Greater Region Than Any European Kingdom.

Fort Colville, Washington, Letter in the New York Sun.

There lives here in a rude cabin, fast by the great river of the West and surrounded by pine fringed hills, a gray-haired man, who, alternately plying the business of miner, farmer and caravaneer, is nevertheless a King an uncrowned King, it is true, but none the less a King. His life is a wonderful story.

st parts of the Rocky Mountains.

Log Hut, Boundary Commission,
Hudson Bay, Colville

He is Raymond Macdonald, born at Astoria (then Fort George) in 1824.

His father was Archibald Macdonald of the American and Hudson Bay Companies, and his grandfather was the powerful native King, Kumkumly, and whose empire extended from the mouth of the Columbia to the territory of the Blackfeet, beyond the Bitter Root mountains, in what is now Montana. Macdonald is the only lineal descendant and heir to this King. He came to Fort Colville in 1826 as an infant, his mother, who was a Princess, having just died. His father was at that time commander of the post, as he was one of the founders of the town. In this rude outpost at so early a day the young King passed the first few years of his life. When seven years of age his father concluded to begin his education, and in the dead of winter he was started afoot on snowshoes for Winnipeg, where he was to enter St. John's College. The distance was 1500 miles and the route led over some of the wilde

On the other side he was met by horses, which had been ordered around by his grandfather, King Kumkumly. Thence he and his escorts proceeded down the Saskatchewan River. Enroute route they saw vast quantities of wild game, including buffalo, bear and caribou, and scarcely a night passed that they did not hear the howling of the wolves. After receiving as thorough an education as he could get at Winnipeg, the youth returned to his boyhood home on the Upper Columbia. He had by this time grown ambitious and desirous of seeing the world and perfecting his knowledge, so he set out upon travels which lasted many years. In one way or another, sometimes by traveling on foot and again on horseback and by cars, he visited almost every State and large city in the Union.

Later he took passage on a whaling ship bound for the North Pacific, expressly stipulating that he was to be set down in his own pinnace, which he had aboard, when off the coast of Japan. This was in 1848, at a time when Japanese ports were virtually closed to Americans and Europeans. He represented himself as a castaway, having, as he told the Japanese authorities, been shipwrecked. He had only his small box, with his Bible, Euclid and histories with him. He was closely questioned, and was convinced his adventure must cost him his head. He was taken from Yesso, in the north, to Nagasaki, in the south, and remained in Japan in all eleven months, teaching the children of the nobility.

After that he was a ship-captain, sailing in his own ship. He carried merchandise to Australia and Hongkong. While abroad in Japan he did all he could to open reciprocal relations between the sealed empire and other countries, especially America, the dignity of which he always took pains to uphold. In all his travels he never forgot his home on the Columbia, and in 1859 he returned and settled down, only being absent when he was employed as teller in a bank at St. Thomas, Canada.

Mr. Macdonald, while not rich, is nevertheless happy, and is contented to spend his declining years at Fort Colville. As the grandson and only heir of King Kumkumly it is his right to rule over a greater and naturally richer area than that on which any king ot Europe holds sway. All the chiefs of the various Indian tribes recognize him as their King and render him homage as such. They tell him that it is his land and that his place is usurped, but that they will recognize no other ruler. The King modestly tells them, however, that, while he has a better right to reign than any of the crowned heads of Europe, his crown must give way to republicanism. King Kumkumly was the only ruler in the wild Northwest treated as and considered the reigning potentate. There never was any doubt about his claim. It was everywhere recognized.

Washington Territory Survey. 1865.

Macdonald is a well-preserved man of more than medium height. His eyes and complexion are dark and his hair black and straight, betokening his Indian ancestry.

"I am content to end my days here in this little village," he said yesterday. "There is no place in the world so dear to me nowhere where the mountains are so high and the waters so clear. A man's native land is the best. This is the place for me."

He lives in a cabin, which is one of the buildings of the old fort, and is accompanied only by a distant relative, Donald Macdonald. Many books are in the cabin, and the elderly king, the only heir of King Kumkumly, finds in them much to interest and solace him when not engaged as a caravaneer or in looking after his ranch or mining prospects.

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Picturing the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition: 

The Photographs of Frank H. Nowell
Held during the summer of 1909, was the first world's fair held in Seattle. Capitalizing on the popularity of the booming gold rush, the exposition was designed to showcase the riches of the Pacific Northwest and highlight trade with the Pacific Rim nations and beyond.

Millions of visitors came to Seattle to experience the one-of-a-kind attractions, exhibits, and events held during the AY PE, which became the footprint for the modern University of Washington campus. Many of these visitors stayed to populate the growing metropolis. From the ornate European-style architecture to the fountains and gardens, the amusements of the Pay Streak, and the exotic Oriental exhibits, the AYPE entertained and educated while bringing needed business to Washington State.

Company Towns of the Pacific Northwest
Linda Carlson
University of Washington Press
"Company town" evoke images of rough-and-tumble loggers and gritty miners, of dreary shacks in isolated villages, of wages paid in scrip good only at price-gouging company stores, of paternalistic employers. But these stereotypes are out-dated, especially for those company towns that flourished well into the twentieth century. In "Company Towns of the Pacific Northwest, Linda Carlson provides a more balanced and realistic look at these "intentional communities." Many of the later towns attracted professionals as well as laborers; houses were likely to be clapboard Victorians or shingled bungalows; and the mercantile store carried work boots, baby diapers, and Buicks and extended credit even to striking workers. Company owners built schools, power plants, and movie theaters. Drawing from residents' reminiscences, contemporary newspaper accounts, company newsletters and histories, census and school records, and site plans, the book looks at towns in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho, considering who planned the towns and designed the buildings. It examines how companies went about controlling housing, religion, taxes, liquor, prostitution, and union organizers. It tells what happened when people left--when they lost their jobs, when the family breadwinner died or was disabled, when mills closed.

The Mapmaker's Eye
David Thompson on the Columbia Plateau
Jack Nisbet
David Thompson was a fur trader, explorer, and meticulous geographic surveyor. He was, and is, the English and Canadian counterpart of Lewis and Clark. He visited the Mandan villages on the Missouri River in 1798. He crossed the Continental Divide in 1807 and spent five winters on the west side of the divide trading with the Indians. He explored the Columbia River from its origin to the Pacific Ocean. He kept complete journals. He was a better writer than Meriwether Lewis, although not Lewis' equal as a naturalist. He took astronomical readings and did his own computations of both latitude and longitude. Because of this, his maps were much more accurate than those of William Clark. Later in his life, Thompson helped survey the boundary between Canada and the United States.