Payette County ID Archives News.....Interesting Historical Episodes—Payette County April 22, 1948 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/id/idfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Patty Theurer seymour784@yahoo.com December 20, 2005, 3:16 am Independent Enterprise April 22, 1948 Independent Enterprise Payette, Idaho Thursday, April 22, 1948 Interesting Historical Episodes—Payette County (By Mrs. May Gilmore) In this narrative of early days of the Payette Valley, telling of parts its citizens played in moulding the destiny of the Payette Valley. It is not my aim and purpose to give undue credit or notoriety to any particular individual or detract from any one just credit due. If I fail to mention any one entitled to such credit it is simply because I was not in possession of the facts concerning their achievements. I have very little data. Some of this is written from memory, but most of it either given to me by pioneers or their children. –May Gilmore. Payette County Historian In the very early history of the Hudson Bay Company they employed a Frenchman by the name of Francois Payette as storekeeper and trader. He was a natural leader of men, and as the Hudson Bay Company dealt with an iron hand, his influence was felt both by his employees and employer. Payette came with the Astorians to Columbia River on the “Beaver” in 1812. Of five Canadians in the party the only one known is Payette. When the Pacific Fur Company collapsed, Payette was engaged by the Northwest Company, and is mentioned by Alexander Henry as number 48 in his list of those at Fort (Astoria) in 1814. In May of that year he was sent with a group to report the arrival of the “Isaac Todd.” In the journals of P. S. Ogden, 1826 to 1829, there are 11 mentions of Francois Payette. It seems possible that originally Payette River and an Indian name which sound like Payette, may indicate Payette, had been with Donald McKenzie, 1817 to 1821. Ogden mentions Payette as a “steady man.” Son Learns English When N.J. Wyeth returned to the states after his first expedition he took Payette’s 13-year-old son, Baptiste Payette. When he returned from his 1834 voyage in the “bull boat,” Wheth wrote to Payette that his son had learned to speak English and to “read and cipher tolerably well.” Payette had two children. The boy and girl were raised at Fort Boise under about the same environment as Indian children of that section and time. They spoke both Indian and French and were of the Roman Catholic faith. The daughter married a Frenchman name Pattee. The boy was unable to find a white girl so he married a Bannock squaw. A daughter was born to each couple. When they were 13 they were sent by pack train, accompanied by a priest to Fort Benton on the upper Missouri, then by steamer to St. Louis, where they attended a church school for three years. Tragedy For Women In 1862 Lizzie Pattee was married to George Goodhart. She was killed while swimming a horse across a river. Later, Goodhart married Julia Payette. Indians shot her near the present city of Burley. Both girls were buried by Snake River. When Bonneville visited Fort Nez Perce (old Fort Fall Walla) in 1834 Payette was there and was expecting to return to Snake River. When the Whitman party reached “Snake Fort” in 1836, Francois Payette is mentioned as being there. In 1837 he went with W. H. Gray to the Whitman Mission to do some carpenter work. He went down the Columbia to Vancouver and to the Williamette Valley where his wife’s father, Joseph Portneuf, lived. While there his wife died. In 1841 orders were received to abandon Fort Boise, but two years later it was opened as a way station. Francois Payette was still in command as paymaster and clerk. The Rev. Daniel Lee wrote that the Grany part was “received with kind attention by Mr. Payette, the gentleman in charge of the fort. Mrs. Myra F. Ealls, wife of the Rev. Cushing Ealls, who was with Grany wrote in her journal that at Fort Boise they “feasted on milk, butter, turnips and salmon.” She took a ride in the boat with Mr. Payette, and Captain Sutter took tea with them. She also noted: “Mr. Payette sends another sturgeon to us.” “Merry, Fat Old Fellow” In September, Thomas F. Farnham arrived at the fort. “Mr. Payette, the person in charge of Fort Boise,” he wrote, “received us with every mark of kindness, gave our horses the care of his servants, and introduced as immediately to the chairs, tables, and edibles of his apartment. He is a French Canadian; has been in the service of the Hudson Bay Company for more than 20 years and holds the rank of clerk; is a merry fat old fellow of 50, who although in the wilderness all the best years of his life, has retained the manner of benevolence in trifles, in his mode of address, seating you at table and serving you, of directing your attention continually to some little matter of interest, of making your speech the French language whether you are able to do so or not, so strikingly agreeable. The fourteenth and fifteenth were spent very pleasantly with the gentleman. During the time he feasted us with excellent bread, and butter from an American cow, obtained from some missionaries. When we departed we received a “bon jour.” Buried at Washoe? After the Fort was abandoned by the fur company Payette maintained it several years. Captain Freemont noted that he made “some slight attempts at cultivation in which he succeeds tolerably well.” More mention is made of the dairy, “abundantly well supplied, stock appearing to thrive well.” Many other early travelers left records of visits with the genial factor. George Goodhart, in an interview while he was at Caldwell I. O. O. F. Home, declared Payette was buried in Washoe on the hill back of the old cemetery overlooking Snake River. He offered to show the location but died before he was able to make the trip. Where and when he died is not precisely recorded, but is was probably some time after remnants of the Fort where he was so well known washed away in the flood of 1983. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/id/payette/newspapers/interest74gnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/idfiles/ File size: 6.5 Kb