Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress with the Annual Message of the President, December 2, 1872, Part II, Volume V

Affidavit of Adam Benson.

United States of America, Territory of Washington, ss:

I, Adam Benson, of Pierce County, Washington Territory, do solemnly declare upon oath that I am a citizen of the United States, of the age of fifty-six years, and a native of the North of Scotland. I came to this Territory, then Oregon, in the service of the Hudson Bay Company in 1836, and stopped at Fort Nisqually, in what is now Pierce County. I was a shepherd and herder of the Company’s sheep, after Fort Victoria was established in 1842. I made a trip in charge of the company’s sheep from Fort Nisqually to Fort Victoria, in the spring of 1845, just before potato planting. From thence the Steamer Beaver towed the ship Columbia to the mouth of Fraser’s River. We went through the Channel between Vancouver’s Island and San Juan Island. Captain Dodd was the master of the Steamer Beaver. I fix the year 1845, because it was the year that Colonel Simmons came and settled at New Market. I remember that Fort Victoria had only been established two or three years, and all the buildings were not up when I was there.The steamer Beaver towed the ship Columbia through Haro channel in 1845.

ADAM BENSON.

Territory of Washington, County of Thurston, ss:

Before me, Joseph H. Houghton, Clerk of the Supreme Court of said Territory, came Adam Benson, who, being first duly sworn, did depose and say that he had carefully read the foregoing *statement, and knew the contents thereof; that the same had been dictated by him and was true.[88]Affidavits on the canal de Haro.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand, and affixed the seal of said Court this twenty-seventh, day of March, A. D. 1872.

[seal.]

JOSEPH H. HOUGHTON, Cleric Supreme Court, Washington Territory.