STAR VALLEY HISTORICAL SOCIETY HISTORICAL BOOKS INVENTORY DETAILS 1. Overview Title: Searching for John Gray Author: Jermy Wight Subject: Mountain Men Publisher: Publishing Date: January 31,1998 Number of Pages: 15 ID#: 263 Location: Website 2. Evaluation Evaluator's Name(s): Kent and Polly Erickson Date of Evaluation: November 2014 Key Words: Iroquois, Gray's Lake, Grey's River, Rocky Mountain Fur Company, Jesuit missionaries Included Names: John Hatchiorauquasha, John Grey, Osbourne Russell, Alexander Mackenzie, Alexander Ross, Peter Skene Ogden, Mary Ann Charles Grey 3. Synopsis In the preface, the author refers to his purpose. He maintains that Greys River was named after John Grey, not John Day nor the John Gray for whom Gray's Lake is named. He gives the ancestral background ofJohn Grey as well as his connection to the fur industry and to the spread ofChristianity among some Indians. He was active in the fur industry longer than most men. 4. Other *Map of the Fur Country drawn by Ferris in 1836 ^Footnotes SEARCHING FOR JOHN GREY INTRODUCTION One of the most scenic and accessible rivers in America is Greys river. I have always had an innate fascination with place names and so I inquired locally as to the origin of the name. No one for sure really knew. My first clue came from a highway sign at Wayan, Idaho that in essence said John Gray or Grey was an Iroquois Indian that trapped this area 1816-18 and Grays lake was named after him. This piqued my senses since this was not Iroquois country, so I had to learn more. That is the purpose of this paper to share the knowledge I found with others. I encountered one obstacle in that some historians believe the Greys river was originally named Day's river after a sharpshooter named John Day of the Astorian fame. Mae Urbanek makes this mistake in "Wyoming Place Names" and Candy Moulton repeats it in "Road Side History of Wyoming." There is a John Day's river, a major tributary of the Columbia river in Oregon and there is a John Day's creek in Idaho. So the man did exist. However Warren Angus Ferris, a clerk for the American Fur Company, in his book, "Life In the Rocky Mountains, A Diary of Wanderings on the Sources of the Rivers Missouri, Columbia, and Colorado from February 1830, to November, 1835," He presented a detailed map of the fur country which he had drawn in 1836. Included here in is a copy of Ferris' map for your perusal. This map specifically included Grey's river and Gray's lake in their proper places. Ferris was a contemporary of John Grey and actually served on expeditions with Grey. Osborne Russell in his "Journal of a Trapper, during the period 1834 to 1843." also places Greys River and Grays lake in their proper geographic locations. These two early reference clarify, least in my mind, the Greys river was not originally called John Day's river. With that matter disposed of I believe the reader will enjoy a different prospective on the early mountain men from the following paper on John Grey aka Ignace Hatchiorauquasha. F/dThe dsheJl ^ao 'ovi^sfone tuca. pterres Hole Jodcseta R.^mer/cati ic Faffs South OMi flpQ Cache ' VQIIw A detailed map of the fur country drawn byFerris in 1836 SEARCHING FOR JOHN GREY It would be easy to dismiss this subject by saying John Grey was a half breed Iroquois Indian who found Grays Lake in Idaho and Greys River in Wyoming. This would do an injustice to the man and his era and would not tell the true history. Technically there is no tribe of Iroquois Indians. The Iroquoian family is a linguistic stock of North American Indians consisting of several different tribes along the Appalachian Mountain Range from the Mohawks in the north in Canada to the Cherokee Nation in the south. Five of the northern tribes formed a confederation in the 1600's to protect themselves against their common enemy the Algonquin Indians. This confederation was known as the Five Nations and given the name of Iroquois League by the French settlers. They called themselves Ongwanonsionni, the people of the long house. The five nations were the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, Seneccas. In 1715 they took in the Tuscaroras tribe when they were driven from their homes in North Carolina. Thus they became the Six Nations.1 John Grey was from a Caughnawagan village located opposite Cornwall, Ontario, Canada on the south side of the St Lawrence River and south of the international boundry. He would have been from the Cayugas Tribe. By accident of birth he was a U.S. Citizen. John Grey's Indian name was Ignace Hatchiorauquasha. John or Ignace was half white and half Indian blood. In the matriarchial Indian society it would have been common to follow his mother's lineage. It is not written that his father's name was Grey. But, in the patriarchial white society he would probably used his father's name. There is nothing unusual about this practice of having two names. Under the French Canadian regime the Jesuit Missionaries were active early on with the tribes of the Iroquois League. The missionaries brought two values to the Indians along the St Lawrence river; Religion and Education. John Grey received an adequate education in a white man's school. He as very articulate and conversant in the English language. He possibly had a better education than most of his counterparts of the American mountain men with whom he later associated. He also understood and could deal with the white man's psyche much to the chagrin of the fur trade companies. This was probably one of his greater strengths. He received his religious strength through his wife Marianne Naketichon or as known by the British, Mary Ann Charles. She was only one-quarter Mohawk and three-quarter French. She was a devout Catholic and spoke fluent French which would indicate a French Canadian influence as well as that of the Jesuit Missionaries. Around 1816 the North West Company, a Canadian fur trading cpfi^ortium, recruited a group from among the Caughnawaga Indians to train the Flath^a^ tribe and the Nez Perce In the art of trapping beaver. Among them were John Grey ancj Mary Ann. There was possibly as many as twenty lodges of these new Indian peopjp. We don't currently have a full record. But among them was thought to pe Pierre Tev6(nitagon, after whom 1 Page 390, The Encyclopedia Americana. 1956 Edition, Volurrji^ ^5, Americana Corporation, N.Y. Pierre's Hole on the west side of the Teton Mountains near present Driggs, Idaho was named. And an Indian named LaMousse and another called Robert Fraiser a highly unlikely Indian name. The birth date of John Grey is unknown. Since he was married by 1816 and was hired for such an undertaking he must have been a young adult. There are two gems to be found in this last paragraph. The year 1816 is important. The peace treaty ending the War of 1812 was signed this year.This made interrelationships between the Americans and the British possible once again in the Columbia river basin. During this war the so-called Iroquois Indians fought on the British side against the Americans. John Grey's participation is not confirmed but highly likely. At least part of the group must have had service to the crown. After the war they were most vulnerable to be recruited into western service because of high unemployment. The other gem is the North West Company. Even before the North West Company there was the Hudson's Bay Company. In the year 1670 King Charles II granted an exclusive charter to Prince Rupert and seventeen other noble men and gentlemen to Incorporate themselves into the Hudson's Bay Company for the procurement of furs in all the drainage of Hudson Bay. At one time the Company had entire legislative, judicial and executive power over their vaguely defined territory. This made them a powerful controlling force in Canadian History. The North West Company was formed by a group of Montreal merchants in 1783 to challenge the Hudson's Bay Company who up to this time had a monopoly. The timing was right since this was the end of the American Revolution and the British were in no frame of mind to have difficulties in Canada. The North West Company Insisted the territory of the Northwest did not fall under the Hudson's Bay Charter and besides parliament never ratified the King's charter. The two companies were strong competitors until 1821 when they were merged together in to a single company.2 Alexander Mackenzie, an employe of the North West Company was the first white man to traverse the continent from east to west. (October 1792 to July 1793). From Lake Athabaska he travelled up the Peace river, across the continental divide and down the Blackwater river to the Pacific coast at Cape Menzies opposite Queen Charlotte Islands. As a scientist he published his findings and was knighted in 1801 for his work.3 Mackenzie's report had been known to Lewis and Clark before their trek westward. The Canadians were in the Northwest these twelve years before the Americans and claimed prior rights to the territory. Now to return to John Grey and the Iroquois he accompanied west. They were engaged by the North West Company to instruct the F|git|iead and Nez Perce Tribes in western Montana and northern Idaho to trap fpr fuf.