Thomas Jefferson Hubbard

Thomas Hubbard was born in Kinderhook, New York, in 1806.[1] By 1834 he had left New York and joined Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth's expedition to Oregon Country where Wyeth attempted to set up a fur trading network.[1]

In September 1834, the Wyeth party reached Fort Vancouver, the Hudson's Bay Company premier station in the Columbia Department. On Wapato Island, the Americans constructed Fort William,[2] where Hubbard served as the gunsmith. The next year Hubbard was accused of murdering the fort's tailor, Thornburgh.[3] Thornburgh had entered Hubbard's residence in the night with a rifle with the intention of murder, although Hubbard had been made aware of this.[4] Hubbard had two loaded pistols ready and shot Thornburgh in the chest, killing him.[4] In the subsequent trial overseen by Wyeth's friend, naturalist John Kirk Townsend, Hubbard was found not guilty as the death was ruled justifiable homicide.[1] The fight that lead to the death had been over a Native American woman named Mary St. Martin, whom Hubbard married on April 3, 1837, with the Reverend Jason Lee presiding.[1]

In 1841, Hubbard participated in a cattle venture where he and others built a ship and sailed it to California where they sold it and purchased cattle to drive back to Oregon.[5] In 1843, Hubbard participated in the Champoeg Meetings, where he served on several committees and voted for the creation of the Provisional Government of Oregon.[1] Hubbard sailed for the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1845 on the brig Chenamus. A fellow traveler aboard, Gustavus Hines, complained that Hubbard and other passengers were neither "wise nor virtuous" for spending their time playing backgammon and card games.[4]

When the Cayuse War began in 1847 after the Whitman massacre, Hubbard built and donated a rifle and pistol to the government.[1] Later he moved to Yamhill County where he built a sawmill. He died on April 24, 1877.[1]