"Fort Nisqually, 1843 site." The second location of Fort Nisqually, on the south bank of Sequalitchew Creek. Courtesy of the Provincial Archives of British Columbia, Victoria, B.C.

"Nisqually, A Village on Puget Sound." 1847 watercolor by Paul Kane. Kane reported after his visit to the post that "the land is inferior to that in some other parts of the same district, the soil being gravelly; the grass, however, grows luxuriantly, and the mildness of the climate adapts it well for grazing purposes..." Source: Eaton, Diane and Sheila Urbanek. Paul Kane's Great Nor-West. Vancouver: UBC Press, 1995. Image Courtesy of Stark Museum of Art, Orange, TX. Catalog # WWC47.

"Fort Nisqually. Puget's Sound North West coast of America." Drawing by E. T. Coleman, circa late 19th century. Washington State Historical Society Collections.

Fort Nisqually's original granary, the reconstructed trade store and the original William Tolmie house, now moved to Fort Nisqually Living History Museum in Point Defiance Park, Tacoma, Washington. Photo by Will McCabe, 2007.

The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) was formed in 1670; this London-based business swept across what is now Canada in search of furs and other goods to sell in the European market. After a merger with the rival Northwest Company in 1821, the HBC expanded into the Pacific Northwest.

In time the Hudson's Bay Company came to the southern Puget Sound region. A temporary HBC storehouse was established in 1832 near the Nisqually River at the mouth of the Sequalitchew Creek. During the following year a more permanent post was built inland east of the original site. It was this first Fort Nisqually that the sailors of the United States Exploring Expedition, led by Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, visited in 1841 as part of a journey around the world.

The fur trade that motivated the creation of Fort Nisqually declined by the late 1830s. What did the enterprising HBC do? The British company found other ways to make money. It created a subsidiary, called the Puget's Sound Agricultural Company (PSAC) , to raise crops and livestock for local use and export to Russian Alaska, Mexican California, and the Hawaiian Kingdom. Fort Nisqually became the headquarters of PSAC. The post was moved a mile inland in 1843 to a place on the south bank of Sequalitchew Creek. Dr. William Fraser Tolmie, new commander of the station, oversaw the construction of this second Fort Nisqually.

Fort Nisqually was never a military fort, but always a trading post - an economic community that participated in the nineteenth century global economy. Inside the core of the station, which was sometimes surrounded by a stockade to protect trading goods, there were key buildings. These were storehouses, sales shops, and housing for Company officers and other employees. Outside the core were numerous buildings including both work areas and residences. The post, with its employees and their families, formed a multi-ethnic community.

In 1869 the HBC/PSAC sold its rights to the United States Government and moved its operations north of the international border into British held territory. Fort Nisqually was closed. Eventually the Hudson's Bay Company transformed itself into a department store chain known as "The Bay". In 2006, this Canadian business was purchased by Jerry Zucker, an American billionaire.

Meanwhile, Edward Huggins (the last commander of Fort Nisqually) homesteaded the site of the old post for a time. In the 1930s the last two surviving HBC buildings from Fort Nisqually were moved to Point Defiance Park in Tacoma. A reconstructed fort was built and opened to the public. Today it is known as the Fort Nisqually Living History Museum.

SOURCES:
British and American Join Commission for the Settlement of the Claims of the Hudson's Bay and Puget Sound Agricultural Companies, Vol. 3 (Montreal, QC: J. Lovell, 1868).

Carpenter, Cecelia Svinth, Fort Nisqually: A Documented History of Indian and British Interaction (Tacoma, WA: Tahoma Research Service, 1986).

Crooks, Drew W., Past Reflections: Essays on the Hudson's Bay Company in the Southern Puget Sound Region (Olympia, WA: Fort Nisqually Foundation, 2001).

Eckrom, Jerry, "Hudson's Bay Company Passes to (Gasp, Swoon) An American Owner," Occurrences, Vol. XXIV, No. 2 (Spring 2006).

Troxel, Kathryn, Fort Nisqually and the Puget's Sound Agricultural Company, Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, 1950.