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On October 28, 1823, Guy Hughes, in charge of the Hudson's Bay Company operations at Fort St. John, sent five men to the new Rocky Mountain Portage House. Four days later, while walking alone on the banks of the river, Hughes was ambushed and killed by local First Peoples. Hughes' men returned from upstream and met a similar fate as they pulled their canoes on shore. Many different reasons have been given as to why the violence occurred, but the immediate result was that the Hudson's Bay Company ended trading operations on the upper Peace. All posts in the area were closed until 1860. Independent traders, such as Revillon Frères, and independent trappers, including John Beattie, challenged the Hudson's Bay Company on its return after 1860.
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John and Elizabeth Beattie moved to the Peace River country (near Hudson's Hope) in 1914. Initially Beattie hoped to mine coal, but instead established a farm. He supplied local trappers and hunters, and supplemented his income with trapping.
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Frank Beatton, Jack McDougall and Johnny Beatton, Fort St. John, 1920s. BC Archives D-04305.
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In 1923 the Hudson's Bay Company moved away from the banks of the Peace to be closer to the growing settler community of Fort St. John. The company changed to a retail merchandise business and supplied goods to the new farming families. In the early 1980s, after almost two centuries, the Hudson's Bay Company discontinued operations in Fort St. John, closing an important chapter of the Peace River history. Trapping, however, continues to be part of the Peace River economy.
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