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Gray’s name would go down in history during this second voyage. On May 11, 1792, he made the first documented exploration of the Columbia River, which he named after his ship. The expedition was a financial disappointment, but Gray’s exploration of the Columbia was of great geopolitical consequence.
In May 1792, American merchant sea captain Robert Gray sailed into the Columbia River, becoming the first recorded European to navigate into it. The voyage, conducted on the Columbia Rediviva, a privately owned ship, was eventually used as a basis for the United States' claim on the Pacific Northwest, although its relevance to the claim was disputed by the British.
1775-1780. First smallpox outbreak among Oregon’s indigenous people. 1778. Capt. James Cook makes landfall at Cape Foulweather and discovers fur wealth of Northwest Coast. 1788. Capt. Robert Gray trades with tribes in Tillamook Bay. Marius Lopius, African traveling with Gray, probably killed at Tillamook. 1792.
The Columbia–“a noble river,” as Gray described it–extended inland some 1,243 miles, and its vast watershed drained the Oregon Country. Gray’s expedition established the first substantial American claim to the Pacific Northwest, a claim strengthened and reaffirmed by Lewis and Clark in 1805 and then by fur trader John Jacob Astor in 1811.
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Jul 28, 2016 · In the spring of 1792, the Royal Navy Captain George Vancouver decided there was no Great River at latitude 46. The waves at the mouth of what we now know as the Columbia Bar were just too big. He couldn’t see it. Then Vancouver encountered the American fur trader Captain Robert Gray on April 29. The meeting was congenial but Gray insisted ...
