Étienne Lucier, né Lussier, (June 9, 1786 – March 8, 1853) was a

French-Canadian French Canadians, referred to as Canadiens mainly before the nineteenth century, are an ethnic group descended from French colonists first arriving in France's colony of Canada in 1608. The vast majority of French Canadians live in the prov ...

fur trader The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...

active primarily in the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...

. He was hired by John Jacob Astor's

Pacific Fur Company The Pacific Fur Company (PFC) was an American fur trade venture wholly owned and funded by John Jacob Astor that functioned from 1810 to 1813. It was based in the Pacific Northwest, an area contested over the decades among the United Kingdom of G ...

and sent to the region to help establish

Fort Astoria Fort Astoria (also named Fort George) was the primary Fur trade, fur trading post of John Jacob Astor's Pacific Fur Company (PFC). A maritime contingent of PFC staff was sent on board the ''Tonquin (1807 ship), Tonquin'', while another party tra ...

. Later he became a settler in the

Willamette Valley The Willamette Valley ( ) is a valley in Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The Willamette River flows the entire length of the valley and is surrounded by mountains on three sides: the Cascade Range to the east, the ...

. Lucier attended the

Champoeg Meetings The Champoeg Meetings were the first attempts at formal governance by European-American and French Canadian pioneers in the Oregon Country on the Pacific Northwest coast of North America. Between 1841 and 1843, a series of public councils was he ...

and was one of few French-Canadians or "Canadiens" to vote for the

Provisional Government of Oregon The Provisional Government of Oregon was a popularly elected settler government created in the Oregon Country (1818-1846), in the Pacific Northwest region of the western portion of the continent of North America. Its formation had been advanced ...

, an American and Canadian civil authority for the valley. He is credited with becoming the first European descendant farmer within the modern state of

Oregon Oregon ( , ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is a part of the Western U.S., with the Columbia River delineating much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while t ...

Early life

Étienne Lucier was born on June 9, 1786, at

Boucherville Boucherville () is a city in the Montérégie region in Quebec, Canada. It is a suburb of Montreal on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River. Boucherville is part of both the urban agglomeration of Longueuil and the Montreal Metropolitan ...

Chambly County, Quebec Chambly County was a county of Quebec that existed between 1855Acte des municipalités et des ...

. His parents were Michel Lussier and Marie Victoire Edeline Delisle. His god parents were Etienne Lasourde and Marie Anne Laubeil according to the entries in the register of the parish church. Other western explorers with ties to Boucherville include Jacques Denoyon, the family Gaultier de la Verendrye, and Toussaint Charbonneau.

Fur trade

Lucier joined the

in 1810, a newly established

fur trading The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...

venture that was funded largely by

German-American German Americans (, ) are Americans who have full or partial German ancestry. According to the United States Census Bureau's figures from 2022, German Americans make up roughly 41 million people in the US, which is approximately 12% of the pop ...

merchant

John Jacob Astor John Jacob Astor (born Johann Jakob Astor; July 17, 1763 – March 29, 1848) was a German-born American businessman, merchant, real estate mogul, and investor. Astor made his fortune mainly in a fur trade monopoly, by exporting History of opiu ...

. The PFC had a notably diverse workforce. The majority were British subjects of several different cultural backgrounds. The other company partners were either

Scottish Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

or American.

s typically served as

voyageurs Voyageurs (; ) were 18th- and 19th-century French and later French Canadians and others who transported furs by canoe at the peak of the North American fur trade. The emblematic meaning of the term applies to places (New France, including the ...

and trappers, with a number of

Iroquois The Iroquois ( ), also known as the Five Nations, and later as the Six Nations from 1722 onwards; alternatively referred to by the Endonym and exonym, endonym Haudenosaunee ( ; ) are an Iroquoian languages, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Ind ...

working in these vital roles as well. The remaining employees were Americans, Anglo-Canadian,

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

, or Hawaiian

Kanakas Kanakas were workers (a mix of voluntary and Blackbirding, involuntary) from various Pacific Islands employed in British Empire, British colonies, such as British Columbia (Canada), Fiji, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, and Queen ...

. Lucier was assigned to travel overland in an expedition led by Wilson Price Hunt to the

. The group reached the mouth of the

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook language, Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin language, Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river headwater ...

in February 1812, where work on

was already begun. Despite the initial work of the company, the PFC folded due to the

War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...

and its assets were sold to the

North West Company The North West Company was a Fur trade in Canada, Canadian fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in the regions that later became Western Canada a ...

(NWC).Horner, John B. (1919). ''Oregon: Her History, Her Great Men, Her Literature''. The J.K. Gill Co.: Portland. pp. 56–57. In October 1813, Lucier joined the NWC and became a trader for them. He then married an Indigenous woman and moved to the

in the same year. After the merger of the NWC into the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), originally the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson’s Bay, is a Canadian holding company of department stores, and the oldest corporation in North America. It was the owner of the ...

(HBC) in 1821, he became an employee of the HBC. Lucier shortly afterwards made a land claim on what is now

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

French Prairie

Lucier established a permanent land claim next to the Willamette Fur Post near Champoeg on the

French Prairie French Prairie is located in Marion County, Oregon, United States, in the Willamette Valley between the Willamette River and the Pudding River, north of Salem. The prairie area roughly corresponds to the traditional land of the Kalapuya peopl ...

by 1829. Chief Factor

John McLoughlin John McLoughlin, baptized Jean-Baptiste McLoughlin, (October 19, 1784 – September 3, 1857) was a French-Canadian, later American, Chief Factor and Superintendent of the Columbia District of the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Vancouver from 1 ...

of the HBC at

Fort Vancouver Fort Vancouver was a 19th-century fur trading post built in the winter of 1824–1825. It was the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department, located in the Pacific Northwest. Named for Captain George Vancouver, the fort was ...

helped Lucier with farming supplies, including livestock that helped establish Lucier as Oregon's first Euro-Canadian farmer. On his farm he raised pigs and hogs, cattle, peaches, and wheat that were enclosed by a

split-rail fence A split-rail fence, log fence, or buck-and-rail fence (also historically known as a Virginia, zigzag, worm, snake or snake-rail fence due to its meandering layout) is a type of fence constructed in the United States and Canada, and is made out ...

. Lucier's farm had a -story double-hewn log home, a grist mill, a framed barn, and a warehouse used for wheat. His farm was adjacent to Pierre Belleque's farm. On March 22, 1836, he and 15 other French Canadian settlers on the prairie representing 77 settlers and their children signed a petition sent to Norbert Provencher, the titular Bishop of Juliopolis, requesting a priest for the settlement. At that time he had six children. In 1843, Lucier was a participant at the Champoeg Meetings that lead to the creation of the

. He was one of two French Canadian early settlers that joined with the American bloc to vote for the creation of the government on May 2, 1843. Then in 1851 Lucier became an American citizen in order to secure his land claim via the Donation Land Act.

Family

On the French Prairie, Étienne Lucier married for a second time as his first wife had died. He fathered eight children in total from both women. One of his daughters, Félicité Lucier, married to chief factor Donald Manson, and they became the parents of fur trader John D. Manson, who married to Aurelia Yale, daughter of chief trader

James Murray Yale James Murray Yale ( – 7 May 1871) was a clerk, and later, a Chief factor#Mercantile factors, Chief trader for the Hudson's Bay Company, during the late North American fur trade, as they were competing with the Montreal-based North West Company ...

.Kenneth L. Holmes, “MANSON, DONALD,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 10, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed February 6, 2024, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/manson_donald_10E.html.

Citations

Bibliography

* *

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lucier, Etienne 1786 births 1853 deaths Yale family American people of French-Canadian descent Emigrants from pre-Confederation Quebec to the United States Canadian fur traders Champoeg Meetings Hudson's Bay Company people Oregon pioneers