Thomas McKay

The board calls his father a victim of the Tonquin massacre; the killing ran both ways, and one man lived to tell it. In June 1811 Astor's ship lay in Clayoquot Sound, and her captain, Jonathan Thorn, angry at a price, struck the Tla-o-qui-aht elder Nookamis in the face with a pelt. Alexander McKay urged him to sail; Thorn would not. When the Tla-o-qui-aht came back aboard they killed most of the crew, McKay among them, and the ship's magazine was then fired, killing many of them in turn. Joseachal, the Quinault interpreter, carried the story to Astoria.

What the plaque says

Oregon History Thomas McKay "One of the Oregon Country's most picturesque fur-traders, Thomas McKay, is buried near Scappoose. He was a daring leader, famous storyteller and could drive a nail with a rifle ball. A Canadian, he arrived with the Astorians as a teen-age boy; served with the North West Company, became a clerk with the Hudson's Bay Company, established a grist mill at Champoeg. Alexander McKay, a victim of the Tonquin massacre, was his father and Dr. John McLoughlin was his stepfather. He ranged widely, built Fort Boise, Idaho, guided gold-seekers to California. He died on his farm near this point in the winter of 1849-1850."

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Vanport — 14 mi
  Briefly Oregon's second-largest city, built in about 110 days for Kaiser's shipyard workers, washed away in an afternoon in 1948, and later renamed out of existence.

More markers nearby

• Joseph L. Meek — 13 mi
• Vanport — 14 mi
• The Willamette Stone — 17 mi