James Birnie was born in Scotland in 1800. He arrived in Canada in 1816 where he studied the French language. In 1818, he was employed by the Northwest Company and was sent to Fort Spokane. After the consolidation of the Northwest Company with the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821, Birnie was sent to Fort George, near present-day Astoria, Oregon, where he performed the tasks of Indian trader and bookkeeper until 1831. He then went to Fort Simpson in British Columbia to help in the completion of the Fort, remaining there for two years. His name was given to an island outside a harbor in British Columbia. He was then sent back to Fort George, where he was put in charge of the trading post until 1845. In that year he left the Hudson Bay Company and settled in Cathlamet, Washington Territory, where he opened a store. Birnie was the first European-American to settle in the area. He had a native wife from the Red River Indians in the east, and the couple had thirteen children – eight boys and five girls. He died in Cathlamet on December 31, 1864.
In 1852, on the death of James A. Scarborough, James Birnie was appointed the legal guardian of Scarborough's two young sons, Edwin and Robert. Scarborough had been a ship captain and long time employee of the Hudson's Bay Company in the Pacific Northwest. He had taken a donaton land claim on Chinook Point on the north shore of the Columbia River, an area now called Scarboro [sic] hill. After Scarborough's death in 1852, Birnie administered his holdings until 1856, when he sold the property to another Hudson's Bay Company employee, Rocque Ducheney.
From the guide to the James Birnie papers, 1845-1916, 1845-1864, (Oregon Historical Society Research Library)
