The librarian of the Oregon Historical Society has recently been asked to furnish data as to the chronology and location of the trading post known as Fort Henry and located at the headwaters of the Snake River in Idaho. Mr. William Taylor, an attorney at Idaho Falls, has become interested in the subject and has picked up a bronze medallion in the vicinity in which this trading post is said to have been, and is pursuing inquiry to ascertain the accuracy of his information. Henry Lake, south of Yellowstone Park, is named in honor of Major Andrew Henry, who built and occupied this temporary trading post during the winter of 1810–11, after being driven by the Blackfeet away from an establishment at Three Forks, Montana. The deserted buildings of the post were occupied by free hunters, who remained in the mountains after the departure of Major Henry, and were used temporarily by the Wilson Price Hunt party of the Astorians in the late summer of 1811. The location has been established by previous inquiry as not on the Henry Fork of Snake River but on the branch running out of Jackson Hole and in the general vicinity of St. Anthony. This was the first trading post occupied by Americans west of the Rocky Mountains and within the boundaries of Old Oregon. Prior to this the NorthWest Company of Canada had erected trading posts on Clark Fork River in Montana and Idaho.
The library of the Oregon Historical Society has just received as an exchange forty-three bound volumes of Archives of the Maryland Historical Society. These volumes contain much documentary material of the colonial period in the form of letters of Washington and other prominent founders of the republic.
