Comcomly. A Chinook chief.
He received the Lewis and Clark expedition hospitably when it emerged at
the mouth of Columbia river in 1805, and when the Astor expedition arrived
to take possession of the country for the United States he cultivated
close friendship with the pioneers, giving his daughter as wife to Duncan
M'Dougal, the Canadian who was at their head. Yet he was probably an
accomplice in a plot to massacre the garrison and seize the stores. When a
British ship arrived in 1812 to capture the fort at Astoria, he offered to
fight the enemy, with 800 warriors at his back. The American agents,
however, had already made a peaceful transfer by bargain and sale, and
gifts and promises from the new owners immediately made him their friend
(Bancroft, N. W. Coast; Irving, Astoria). Writing in Aug., 1844, Father De
Smet (Chittenden and Richardson, De Sinet, i1, 443, 1905) states that in
the days of his glory Comcomly on his visits to Vancouver would be
preceded by 300 slaves, "and he used to carpet the ground that he had to
traverse, from the main entrance of the fort to the governor's door,
several hundred feet, with beaver and otter skins."
