Ewing Young

Ewing Young (1799 – February 9, 1841) was an American fur trapper and trader from Tennessee who traveled in what was then the northern Mexico frontier territories of Santa Fe de Nuevo México and Alta California before settling in the Oregon Country. Young traded along the Santa Fe Trail, followed parts of the Old Spanish Trail west, and established new trails. He later moved north to the Willamette Valley. As a prominent and wealthy citizen in Oregon, his death was the impetus for the assemblies that several years later established the Provisional Government of Oregon.

Early life

Ewing Young was born in Tennessee to a farming family in 1799. In May 1822, this party departed, becoming the first overland wagon train to traverse the Santa Fe Trail. When they returned to Nuevo Mexico, they sold the American goods for gold and silver coin.

California In spring 1830, Young led the first American trapping expedition to reach the Pacific Coast from Santa Fe, traveling via the Salt River, Gila and Verde rivers, then cross-country to the Colorado River and on across the Mojave Desert following the trail marked three years before by Jedediah Smith, eventually arriving at Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, where they recuperated. The group then visited Mission San Fernando Rey de España on their way north into California's great Central Valley via its southern San Joaquin Valley section.

Over the next few years, Young and his group continued traveling to Alta California to trap and trade. In 1834, in San Diego, Young encountered Hall J. Kelley, the great promoter of the Oregon Country from Boston. Kelley invited Ewing Young to accompany him north to Oregon, but Young at first declined. After re-thinking, Young agreed to travel with Kelley and they set out in July 1834, with a group including Webley John Hauxhurst and Joseph Gale, both prominent figures in the Willamette Valley, accompanying them.

Oregon Country Young and Kelley arrived at the Hudson's Bay Company post Fort Vancouver on October 17, 1834, center of the Columbia District. The HBC was the preeminent economic force in the region's fur trade. Dr. John McLoughlin of the HBC tried to discourage American settlers in the region. The Mexican government of Alta California accused Young and his group of having stolen 200 horses when they left.

In 1836, Young secured a vat from Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth's failed post on Wapato Island and began a distillery to produce alcohol. The Methodist Mission superintendent Jason Lee organized the Oregon Temperance Society and, along with McLoughlin, tried to get Young to stop his efforts. Accompanying Young on the cattle drive were Philip Leget Edwards, Calvin Tibbets, John Turner, William J. Bailey, George Gay, Lawrence Carmichael, Pierre De Puis, Benjamin Williams, and Emert Ergnette. During the drive Gay and Bailey murdered a native man, rationalizing it as justice for the attack two years earlier by the Rogue River Indians on Young’s group. By the late 1820s and early 1830s, the Mexican authorities were growing concerned about American settlers and their influences in Nuevo México. They began to impose increasingly severe restrictions on trade and trapping. Perhaps in part to avoid these restrictions, Young was baptized a Catholic in 1830 (perhaps he also became a Mexican citizen and formalized his marriage to Maria Tafoya; if he did so, no record of these two events survives).

Legacy In February 1841, Young died without any known heir and without a will. The activities that followed his death eventually led to the creation of a provisional government in the Oregon Country.

Ewing Young Elementary School in Newberg, Oregon, is named in his honor. In 1942 the Liberty ship Ewing Young (hull #631 from Calships in Terminal Island, California) was named in his honor. The Ewing Young served in the Pacific theater during World War II and was scrapped in 1959.

Ewing Young Heritage Oak Tree On May 6, 1846, an acorn was planted on Young’s grave near his cabin site by Miranda Bayley and Sidney Smith. The oak still survives as of 2018 and was listed among Oregon's Heritage Trees on April 7, 1999. It is located west of Newberg, Oregon on private property but can be seen from Highway 240. In 2011, the tree had a trunk circumference and a crown measuring .