Two years before he reported to the Oregon Military Department at Fort Vancouver to become the first commander of a new post, later named Vancouver Barracks, John S. Hatheway (1813-1853) led troops in the Mexican War.
A decade earlier, he had fought in the Seminole War in Florida. For his heroic action in Mexico, the U.S. Army promoted him to brevet major (a boost in rank without one in pay). In his unit, five officers suffered wounds, and 15 more died. He was among the wounded.
Insecure about its borders, the United States sought to expand them starting in 1812, invoking Manifest Destiny. Overlapping claims on the Pacific Northwest were part of the expansionist policy. In 1846, when the British signed the Oregon Treaty, it drew the border between Oregon Country and Canada at the 49th parallel. In addition, it allowed joint occupation, creating tensions between Americans and the British until they left Fort Vancouver in 1860.
Maj. Hatheway was the first of the post commanders involved in that transition and felt the friction between the two nations. His orders were to protect the settlers pouring into the area from attacks by Indigenous tribes. Based on his Seminole War experience, he likely believed the tribes would frustrate the Army until an uneasy peace settled in.
In October 1848, while readying to head west, Hatheway wrote to his brother about preparing his men to sail on the USS Massachusetts around Cape Horn, Chile, to Fort Vancouver. A second detachment, he wrote, would be recruited and travel overland. This group, the Mounted Rifles, would leave a year later and travel by land.
Writing to his sisters in 1849 from a “camp near Fort Vancouver, Oregon,” he detailed his trip up the Columbia River and the danger of its bar and told them of the beauty of the Willamette Valley. However, he found the area almost abandoned.
“The inhabitants have left off the tilling their farms for gold,” he told them, adding that he found prices “enormously high” and flour selling for a dollar a pound.
Col. William Wing Loring relieved Hatheway of Oregon’s military department responsibility in November 1849, while the rifleman stayed at The Dalles until the spring.
In a January 1850 letter from Fort Vancouver, again to his sisters, Hatheway mentioned improving the camp by building officers’ quarters 100 feet long. He noted that the Regiment of the Mounted Rifles had arrived in October, and he would move “farther down towards the sea board” (Astoria). In October 1850 from Astoria, he told his sisters that he’d spent his time building quarters for men again.
1852 found Hatheway back in charge of the fort, now called Columbia Barracks, as the fifth commander. He mentioned to his brother in February that his right leg was broken for the second time when his horse fell on him, yet he was healing well. In 1853, he was ordered back to New York when Lt. Col. B.L.E. Bonneville relieved him.
In May that year, The Oregonian reported Hatheway’s March death by his own hand in New York, shortly after his February letter to his brother.
Martin Middlewood is editor of the Clark County Historical Society Annual. Reach him at ClarkCoHist@gmail.com.
