High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Pacific Fur Company was founded June 23, 1810, in New York City. Half of the stock of the company was held by the American Fur Company, owned exclusively by John Jacob Astor, and Astor provided all of the capital for the enterprise. The other half of the stock was ascribed to working partners or kept in reserve. In 1811, the company established a trading post at present-day Astoria, Oregon. Astor`s grand plan included a permanent American settlement at the mouth of the Columbia River, and a trade ring that included New York, the old Oregon Country, Russian Alaska, Hawaii and China. Indian trade goods would be loaded at New York; produce, provisions (and some Hawaiians) would be taken on at the Hawaiian Islands for the Northwest Coast; furs and pelts would be acquired from the Columbia and Russian Alaska; Canton, China was the best market for furs in those years, and they would be exchanged for porcelain, silk and other cloth, spices, etc., which would then be transported, via Hawaii, back to New York. Two initial expeditions were sent to the Columbia River, one by sea and the other by land.