The presence of families is indicated by the interior of the laborers' dwelling house reproduction at Fort Nisqually Living History Museum. By a window, a child's cattail sleeping mat awaits unrolling for the night, while on the dresser, a Salish style basket suggests the Native American descent of the laborer's wife. Photo by Will McCabe. CLICK TO ZOOM

The house of John and Betsy Edgar. Former HBC/PSAC employee John Edgar, an Englishman, took a land claim on Yelm prairie in 1847, where he lived with his Native American wife Betsy. Photo by Delbert McBride. Courtesy of Drew Crooks.

Most of the employees who worked at Fort Nisqually for the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) or the Puget's Sound Agricultural Company (PSAC) were married men with families. Frequently their wives had Métis (mixed Native American and Euro-American) or Indian ancestry.

In a place where clergymen were scarce, these marriages were often done a la facon du pays ("in the fashion of the country") without formal church blessing until a priest or minister chanced to travel through the area and formalized arrangements.

In any case, the HBC/PSAC encouraged intermarriage. It strengthened the ties between Company personal and Native Americans. Trading with Indians or working alongside them became easier with social relations created by marriages.

Also frontier life could be difficult and lonely for the company men, stationed a great distance away from their original homes. Family life improved living conditions, thus making for happier and more productive workers.

The union of John and Betsy Edgar is on example of intermarriage. An Englishman born in 1814, John Edgar joined the HBC in 1840 and came to the Northwest Coast. By the mid-1840s John was working for the PSAC near Fort Nisqually. In 1847 the Englishman left the employment of the British Companies, and moved to Yelm Prairie (in what is now Thurston County) where he took a land claim.

By then John Edgar had married Elizabeth (Betsy), a Native American born about 1825, Edward Huggins, last commander of Fort Nisqually recalled her as being "half Yakima and half Nisqually." Betsy first married John a la facon du pays, then on January 1, 1849 in an official Euro-American ceremony. The couple had five children: Jane(c 1846), John Jr. (c 1838), William (c. 1850), and Mary (c.1852).

Skilled as a scout, John Edgar assisted U.S. military forces during the Puget Sound Indian War. Sadly he was seriously wounded in a skirmish in Pierce County. Moved to Fort Steilacoom, John died at the American military post on November 1855. His remains were buried at Fort Nisqually.

In November 1856 Betsy Edgar helped her cousin Quiemuth surrender to American settlers. Quiemuth was an important Nisqually Indian leader during the Puget Sound Indian War. Coming to Olympia with Betsy and several settlers, Quiemuth was murdered in the office of Governor Isaac Stevens. No one was ever brought to justice for the crime.

The handling of John Edgar's estate turned into a complex legal affair. The land claim was finally divided among his children and wife in 1861. Betsy herself died in the early 1870s. Both John and Betsy should be remembered as brave people who lived the best they could on a challenging frontier.

SOURCES:
Case #52, Estate of Betsy Edgar Decease, 1872, Probate Court of Thurston County, Washington State Archives, Olympia, Washington.

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

Eckrom, J.A., Remembered Drums: A History of the Puget Sound Indian War (Walla Walla, WA: Pioneer Press Books, 1989).

Huggins, Edward, Reminiscences of Puget Sound, transcribed by Gary Fuller Reese (Tacoma, WA: Tacoma Public Library, 1984).

Moyer, Mrs. John B. Moyer, compiled and indexed, Statistics of the First Federal Census of Washington 1860 [also 1850] (n.p.: Daughters of the American Revolution, 1931-1932).