By Francis Wolff

Only a handful of accounts of the McLaughlin Canyon ambush have come to light. One of the least known is Francis Wolff's.

The McLaughlin party consisting of one hundred and sixty seven men miners, traders, and packers started from Walla Walla in the year 1858 about the 20th day of July for the new discovered gold fields on the Thompson and Fraser River. The elected (David McLaughlin) as Commander (Son of Dr. McLauglin of Oregon City). The discovery was made by William Peon and a Indian Chief of the Fraser River Indians on a small creek running in Thompson River about 10 miles above its mouth called the Necoman Creek. In the year 1857 Peon brought some five hundred dollars worth of dust in the Colville Valley of which he disposed, to F. Wolff and J.T. Demers whom were doing mercantile business at said place. He gave such flattering account of the richness and the great quaintys of gold amongst the Indians that the firm concluded to fit out a (indecipherable).

In the fall of 1857 with train of twenty pack animals and appointed there clerk Capt. Fravallim of Oregon fame, there super cargo with Wm. Peon as guide and interpreter. The firm of Wolff and Demers sent down the dust from the fields to the Dalles to U.S. (mint) which created the great Fraser River excitement coming back to our McLaughlin outfit. The party took up the line of there travels unmolested to the Columbia River opposite the mouth of the Okanogan and Fort Okanogan, a trading post of the Hudson Bay Company In charge of a half-blood by the name of Francois Dusecette.

On that side of the river we saw bands of Indians we called for canoes to them to cross us but they paid no attention to our demand. After waiting for half a day Francois came across with a Chief called Pieere. They told us that the Indians objected for us to going any further and would fight before they would permit us to do so. After consultation I was selected to go over the river with Geo. Montune as interpreter and after talking all night they agreed for a given a consideration to cross, with the assurance that if we did so, they would fight us.

When we were going from the river to the Hudson Bay Company fort we noticed an Indian with a horse of our party. He was dressed in the owner's clothes that we suppose had returned to Walla Walla by the name M. Hillburn who had been killed without our knowledge before we had reached the river. He with others had been warned that not to straggle behind but to keep closely up for the country was not safe. This was the first casualty and put us on our guard.

After crossing the river the Indians assisting us with canoes, we appointed our advanced and rearguard of 25 men each. We made three days march up the river without seeing an Indian but on the sandy bars of the Okanogan River, near the mouth of McLouglin Canyon we noticed a great many foot prints coming and going. We became satisfied that the Indians were near, to make their word good. We halted the advance guard until all the party had come up. Then we started through the canyon, which is a narrow defile 40 to 100 feet wide with vertical walls hundreds of feet high on each side, which widened at the mouth to some 200 yards.

We entered the mouth the guard in advance and had proceeded about 100 yards when one of the men noticed some wilted bushes and thinking strange of it went to examine them when the Indians behind it suspecting that we had noticed their ambush fired. Then shots came from the sides and in the rear of us, evidently trying to drive us into the canyon. Men threw themselves from their horses and those not killed or wounded returned the fire.

My horse on which I had my canteens with $2000 gold dust in the saddle bags got away from me and ran up the canyon about 75 yards toward the Indians. I went for him and got him and returned with him to our line. Three of our party was killed and three wounded. If the wilted bushes behind which the Indians were lying on either side of the canyon had not attracted our attention and our party had gotten well into the canyon, I question if any of us would have gotten out alive. For in that pocket with only about 50 guns in our party, we would have been at their mercy.

We returned to the bank of the Okanogan River and while the guard was shooting at the Indians at the mouth of the canyon the men without guns were making rafts to cross the river. When the rafts were finished we first sent a guard which covered our crossing the next day. A day or two afterward the chief under a flag of truce proposed a treaty, which we readily assented to, but after making giving them presents they continued among us up the Okanogan and Similkameen River.

More About David McLoughlin
The Man in Charge

He was the youngest son of the Hudson's Bay Company's northwest manager, John McLoughlin, and his part Indian wife Marguerite.

David McLoughlin was born in 1821 at Fort William on Lake Superior. He received further education in Montreal, Paris, and London, where his father enrolled him in the East India Company Military Seminary.

Hudson's Bay from 1840 to 1849 employed McLoughlin. His experiences included a fur trapping expedition to California in 1844-45. But he became interested in mining. Having resigned from the Hudson's Bay Company, McLoughlin reportedly recovered $20,000 in gold dust over five months. This led him, at 37, toward the Fraser River mines and into the ambush. Following these adventures, Mcloughlin spent most of his remaining years farming near Porthill, in northern Idaho. He married Annie Grizzly, daughter of a Kootenay Indian chief. In a large house, they raised nine children.

Better educated than his neighbors, McLoughlin taught school as a volunteer and kept the first weather records at Porthill. He died at 82 in 1903.