Metal buttons bearing the Phoenix bird, a motto in French, and a number are found in quantity in historic sites along the lower Columbia River, and less commonly throughout western North America. Phoenix buttons were not made for Napoleon, as often claimed, but were manufactured by an English firm in the early 1800's for King Christophe of Haiti. The Phoenix bird and the motto come from his coat of arms; the numbers refer to regiments. These military uniform buttons were brought to the Northwest before 1835 by an independent trader, most likely Nathaniel Wyeth, who probably used uniform coats, which he may have obtained earlier when shipping ice to the West Indies, to trade for fish for his salmon packing plant on the Columbia River.