Fort William was a fur trading outpost built in 1834 by the American Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth, a mountain man, backed by American investors. It was located on the Columbia River on Wappatoo Island in what is now part of Portland, Oregon. After a few years, in 1837 Wyeth leased the post to the British Hudson’s Bay Company, which had much more power in the region from its base at Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River near the ocean. In 1835 the fort settlement was the site of a murder and the first Euro-American trial to be held in what is now the state of Oregon.