An advanced party of PFC administrators and laborers was planned to arrive on board the Tonquin, leaving New York City in September 1810.
The party Reed joined was largely composed of French-Canadian and Métis subjects of the United Kingdom, in addition to a number of Americans.
He was given important documents by the management of the PFC in March, with orders to return overland and deliver them directly to John Jacob Astor.
He and the few men with him were attacked in the interior by a group of natives prior to crossing the Continental Divide.
Reed opened a dwelling in 1813 along the Malheur River in the vicinity of modern Vale, Oregon.