Within the fur commerce, New 12 months’s Day, not Christmas, was the season’s extra beloved vacation. Earlier than Christmas and after New 12 months’s Day, Hudson’s Bay Firm Fort Vancouver workers and households loved an prolonged year-end celebration. The corporate launched workers from work, permitting them a raucous vacation interval crowded with occasions. We all know this due to an HBC clerk. Thomas Lowe saved a diary describing the fort group’s 1840s vacation proceedings. For New 12 months’s Eve 1845, he talked about, “Singing, dancing, and all kinds of fun carried on to a late — or rather early — hour in Bachellor’s Hall.”
The fort’s blended inhabitants loved extra New 12 months’s foods and drinks offered by the corporate. In 1844, Lowe talked about steak, wheat and a half-pint of rum on “the last day of the year.” For 1847, workers obtained “a pint of rum to make themselves merry.” These further rations doubtless saved employees’ households going attributable to meals shortages and alcohol restrictions.
Between the vacations, the fort’s officers and households attended numerous social events, together with dances, balls and card events, persevering with because the 12 months’s finish approached. Even the strict chief issue, Dr. John McLoughlin, hosted vacation card events in 1844.
With Individuals immigrating west, Oregon Metropolis, Ore., grew, and the U.S. Military Regiment of Mounted Riflemen got here. Joseph Lane, governor of Oregon Territory, hosted a ball within the metropolis in 1845 for a number of fort gents and their households. “A party of the regimental band performed during the evening,” Lowe wrote, noting that it “did not break up until between two and three o’clock in the morning.” Lowe and associates had breakfast with the mounted rifle leaders the next day and “heard their beautiful brass band perform.” Lowe and his companions “passed the day shopping and strolling” within the metropolis.