John Day Fossil Beds National Monument is named after the river and not the man. Still, how was the river named?
John Day was born in Culpeper County, Virginia, about 1770. It was said that John Day was well over six feet tall and an expert shot with a rifle. In 1810, at the age of 40,he joined an overland expedition to establish a fur trading post at the mouth of the Columbia River. The party became divided and widely separated. Experiencing hardships, John Day’s group dwindled to two people. He and Ramsey Crooks eventually reached the mouth of the Mah-hah River along the Columbia. There, a band of American Indians took everything they had, including their clothes. They were rescued and reached Astoria (Oregon) in 1812, where he settled nearby. Due to this incident, people traveling along the Columbia River would point out the mouth of the river where John Day was robbed. By the 1850’s, the Mah-hah River was referred to and renamed the John Day River. If you name the mouth of a river, you name every stretch of it upstream. It appears John Day never came within 100 miles of Sheep Rock.
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