This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: McGillivray, Greenwood, Wren, McClaughlin, Bird, Brown, Dye, Otchin, Chambreau Classification: Biography Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/ok.2ADE/1713.1.4 Message Board Post: Napoleon Bonaparte McGillivray of Capt. John Sears Company, Col. Fremont's Battalion. 1846: He was born at Lake of the Woods, Canada, on April 28, 1825. Nicholas G. Bird went to school with him....Christian Wren, 76 years old in 1906, of Centerville, Washington county, Oregon, was present at their wedding in 1853 and had known McGillivray since 1841.... "I came to the Pacific Coast as clerk for Dr. McClaughlin, Chief factor of the Hudson Bay Company, in 1839 when there were only about 300 people living west of the Missouri River. (Edward Chambreau, born in France on Jan. 12, 1821, knew him when he was with the Hudson Bay Company.)" Napoleon McGillivray was the son of Simon McGillivray of Manitoba, Canada. After service in the Mexican War, he crossed the plains from California to Fremont county, Iowa, in 1847 with John Greenwood. By 1887, he had resided in Missouri, California, Oregon (in 1902, he lived at 166 Park Street, Portland, Oregon)and Washington (in 1887, he lived in Vancouver, Clark county, Washington Territory). On May 26, 1853, in Washington county, Oregon, he married Sarah Flett, born Nov. 1, 1836 in the Red River Country, Canada. In 1906, ninety two year old Thomas Otchins of Hillsboro, Washington Co., Oregon, said the Flett family had come to that country in 1841 from the Red River Country. The James Barston family where they were married had come with the Flett's. Otchin said Napoleon McGillivray came across the Rocky Mountains to Oregon with him in 1839, as did Napoleon's brother MJontrose McGillivray. As soon as they were married they left that country and bought a farm near Ft. Van Couver, Washington. During the Indian troubles there in 1855, he went on the Yakima expedition as a civilian. "When we reached the Dalles the Massacre of the Cascades stopped this expedition." Later in life, however, the Society of Indian War Veterans recognized him as a veteran and granted him a pension. Simon McGillivray, a son, born Sept. 28, 1855, lived with his father as did Dimon's children. A son Edmond was born jUne 7, 1857; Katie McGillivray Kennedy was born Oct. 10, 1868, and another daughter Susie McGillivray Elmore was born March 20, 1873. Besides farming, acquaintances knew him as a hunter. Napoleon Bonaparte McGillivray died at Portland, Oregon on July 13, 1906, and was buried in the Greenwood Cemetery, Portland, Oregon. N.B.: Eva Emery Dye, a high school instructor at Sidney, and wife of the superintendent from 1881 to 1885, moved to Oregon where she wrote "McLoughlin and Old Oregon". This book went to press in 1900 and it is, in 2002, being cited as the first historical novel ever written. The Dye's lived next door to Delos Brown, a noted Sidney story teller, who undoubtedly knew of John Greenwood (his sister -in-law, Mrs. David Hiatt, lived just north of Sidney.) I have often wondered what connection existed between these facts and her interest in western history...W.F.