*Includes pictures
*Includes contemporary accounts of the company
*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading
From the early 19th century, the image of an American empire extending to both coasts became a rallying cry. The Pacific Ocean represented, in Jefferson's mind, the most effective western border. His view was in part inaccurate, as he expected the Rocky Mountains to resemble the gentler Appalachians, not a range of American Alps.
Governing from the eastern seaboard, the two most effective methods of procuring wilderness lands in the west necessitated a campaign of exploration and the establishment of permanent trade entities located in strategic locations to discourage invasion and enhance internationalism. The first was accomplished by a two-year expedition from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean under the leadership of Captain Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. From 1804 to 1806, the expedition gathered information on land and river routes to the western coast, with an eye toward trade and settlement. The party wintered at the mouth of the Columbia River, at what is now known as Fort Clatsop. The Corps of Discovery's report to Jefferson enumerated the difficulties in reaching the Pacific, but spoke glowingly of the land as a resource. Although the waterway to the west was not an unbroken route as hoped, Lewis and Clark suggested that furs and other non-fragile items could be transported across the continent at minimal cost, crossing the Rocky Mountains by pack horse, and continuing east on the Missouri River system. Through interaction with various indigenous tribes and by direct evidence, they further claimed that the western continent was an unowned country "richer in beaver than any other country on earth."
The idea of interior trade to the east coast soon expanded to regular transactions with Asian countries, primarily China. Such a plan meant an exchange of foreign products as well, with exotic items finding their way back to New York markets. Dealing with China represented both a lower cost and a lower likelihood of conflict than the U.S. risked in trade with Britain and France. Jefferson's imagination was, to that point, preoccupied with the seagoing aspect of global relations. Two years prior to the Lewis and Clark expedition, he read James Cook's A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean and was tantalized by Alexander MacKenzie's Voyages from Montreal. MacKenzie had completed a successful voyage throughout much of the Pacific Ocean in the last decade of the 18th century and survived two epic voyages to the Arctic region four years later. One historical account characterizes MacKenzie as a man "filled with passion for making discoveries," adding that he had attempted for years to coax Britain into ventures along the western American coast. Jefferson was, in particular, struck by MacKenzie's zeal for potential commerce along the Columbia River, an enormous stream discovered near the end of the 18th century by Boston sailing master Robert Gray. Many historians believe that, through increased knowledge of western voyages and potential trade establishments, Jefferson was "jolted" into a sense of geography more attuned to the perspective of hemispheres than to small land regions. Along with MacKenzie's accounts, it was Meriwether Lewis who most earnestly proposed a trading fort on the Columbia. Jefferson, however, clung to his distaste for federal financing until it became ultimately impractical to resist such an investment.
The second push, to establish trade with the numerous western tribes and to found a fort only a few miles from Clatsop, followed soon after as a precursor to the indigenous American and Asian connection. The U.S. was fortunate to possess a premier talent in John Jacob Astor, a man already experienced in trade with overseas clients.