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John Work of the Hudson's Bay Company - Leader of the California Brigade of 1832-33 (June 1943) (16 pages)
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Page: of 16
100, California Historical Society Quarterly
close friendship developed between Work and Ogden whose trails were to
cross and recross for twenty-five years as they journeyed from company
posts in the Columbia and New Caledonia districts. John Work, in his correspondence, always referred to “Mr. Ogden” and betrayed no warmth of
feeling as he did when he mentioned his particular friends, Edward Ermatinger, Archibald McDonald, John McLeod, Samuel Black, the irrepressible
Frank Ermatinger, and the devoted John Tod.
In the intervals between fur-gathering expeditions, Work took up residence at Fort Colville. In the course of a few years he “established there a
very productive farm, the first attempt at agriculture in British or American
possessions west of the Rocky Mountains and an achievement of no small
importance in those early days when the fur traders had to be dependent
mainly upon themselves for the cultivation of grain and the production of
other supplies necessary for their own subsistence and the support of outlying posts.”** John Work also spent some time at Flathead House in what is
now Montana during his earlier years in the Columbia District.
Several direct and indirect references appear in Work’s correspondence,
both from Red River and Fort Colville, regarding Indian housekeepers employed by him during his early years in Canada and in the Oregon Country.
They were an indispensible adjunct to life in the fur trade in which care for
shelter, food and clothing was essential to maintain existence. It was at Fort
Colville (in what is now northern Washington), however, that John Work
met his life’s companion. She was Josette Legace, daughter of Pierre Legace“ who had crossed the Rocky Mountains with Finan McDonald about
1807. Legace and McDonald took up residence with an Indian chief near the
site of Spokane, Washington, where they resided over the winter season.®
This chief is sometimes referred to as a Spokane, but Josette herself told a
grandson that he was a Nez Perce. Legace (as did Finan McDonald) took a
daughter of this chief as mate, and Josette was the child of this union. She
became a young woman of great beauty and outstanding character. The historian, Hubert Howe Bancroft, meeting-her.in.1884,,.was.impressed,with-he
Nerus and harasninps of a tur trader's lite of this pneriod. She hore eleven chi!
were, O who died ancy. e main the children arrived when the
couple was temporarily domiciled in a trading post or fort, but one, at least,
arrived in an Indian lodge. This was Letitia who was born in Idaho in 1831,
and tradition claims that her birth occurred while the Snake brigade was
under siege by Blackfoot Indians.
One small glimpse of John Work’s life at this period comes from a letter
written by John Tod to Edward Ermatinger: “New Caledonia, 18 Feb. 1830,
I have got a letter from our worthy friend Work which has pierced me to
the soul—he has given Kittson a sound beating.”** References to his friend
were not always punctuated by the sly humor which marked Tod’s letter of
1830. In 1831 he again wrote Ermatinger, then residing in eastern Canada:
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