"Immediately on taking over Fort Astoria [in present-day Oregon], and renaming it Fort George in honor of Britain's monarch, the North West [Fur Company] partners on the scene voted to send the first trading expedition to the Snake country."The year was 1813. The small party consisted of a Mr. Jno. Reed, four Canadians and two beaver hunters. The North West Company was competing American fur traders for control of the fur supply on the Columbia and Snake Rivers.
"It is evident that Reed's small party was a trading, not a trapping, brigade. It was to purchase fur as the Astorians had been doing along the Columbia and in New Caledonia [British Columbia], not hunt beaver...
"Reed's men had no chance of making an impact. All seven members of the party were killed, probably by Bannocks, on the Boise River [near present-day Caldwell, Idaho], which for years after would be called Reed's River by mountain men."
excerpts from:
Expeditions in the Snake River Country, 1809-1824
by John Phillip Reid
The Arthur H. Clark Company, 2011
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