USA > Oregon > History of Oregon, Vol. I, 1834-1848 > Part 19
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The first prejudice of the adult aboriginals against leaving their children at the Mission was not over- come, the school consisting chiefly of those who had no parents, which, if they were to be educated in any sense, was a favorable circumstance. But from pupils, the wards of the Mission were likely to become ser- vants, while so much labor was required to make their teachers comfortable ; and as the savage is by nature averse to labor, the demands made upon the children
10 Individual instances of savage intellect are often found which are far superior to the average civilized mind.
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at the Mission were sure to operate against the suc- cess of the school.
A meeting to organize a society for the benefit of the Calapooyas, held on Christmas-day, was well attended, as occasions for social intercourse among the settlers were rare. Moreover, the Mission being to the Willamette Valley in points of influence and pro- spective importance what Fort Vancouver was to the Oregon territory, great interest was felt in its pro- jects. It was proposed to form an organization among the missionaries and settlers to induce the natives to locate at a branch mission on a piece of ground which they should be taught to cultivate, and that they should receive encouragement in their work, and assistance to build comfortable homes. About four hundred dollars were subscribed; Frenchmen and Americans contributing from five to twenty dollars each-men who themselves used dried deerskin in place of glass for windows, and who possessed few comforts beyond the actual necessities of life, and yet had farms well stocked. Much more than this would the people have done for Lee and his associates, for the visit of Slacum, the petition to congress, and the successful formation of the cattle company had in- spired them with a respect and confidence in the judg- ment, energy, and enterprise of the Americans. The branch mission was a failure, as might have been fore- seen; for though assisted with their farming, the natives were so indolent and apathetic that the attempt had to be abandoned.11
It was decided in missionary councils during the winter that the Dalles of the Columbia offered supe- rior advantages for a mission station, and Daniel Lee and Perkins were assigned to that place. Gray states in his account of the Presbyterian missions, that he urged Whitman to establish a station at this point;
11 Lee and Frost's Or., 150.
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and perhaps the latter intended to do so when he should be sufficiently reenforced. But when Gray returned from the United States in the autumn of 1838, he found the place already occupied by the Methodists.
About the middle of March 1838, Perkins and Lee proceeded by canoe to the Dalles, and selected a site three miles below the narrows, and half a mile from the Columbia River on the south side, where there was good land, springs of excellent water, a plentiful supply of pine and oak timber, and a fine view of the Columbia for several miles. Back of the chosen site the ground rose rather abruptly, and was lightly wooded with lofty pines. Standing like a watch- tower in the south-west was Mount Hood, whose icy cliffs wrapped in the silent sky flung back the sun's rays defiantly.
Assisted by the natives, who at first labored with zeal, hoping now to realize the good which their interviews with Parker had taught them to expect, a house was built in which Mrs Perkins came to live in May. Unlike the natives of the Willamette, those at the Dalles showed a willingness to be taught reli- gion, assembling on Sundays, and listening with a sober demeanor to sermons preached through an interpreter, and this to the great encouragement of their teachers.
After several journeys by river to transport sup- plies, each of which took three weeks to perform, early in September Daniel Lee undertook the serious task of bringing cattle from the Willamette to the Dalles by an Indian trail over the Cascade Moun- tains,12 being assisted in this labor only by the natives.
Lee's description of his squad of savages might be compared with Falstaff's remarks in mustering his re- cruits. There was an old Chinook, blind in one eye;
12 Daniel Lee calls these mountains the President's Range, after Kelley; nor were they as a range ever otherwise formally named. It was from the circumstance that travellers so often said 'the Cascade Mountains,' to dis- tinguish them from other ranges in the country, that they obtained their present name.
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DANIEL LEE'S EXPEDITION.
a stout young Walla Walla, knight of the sorrowful countenance, whose name signified 'destitute,' because he had gambled away his patrimony; also another Chinook with a flattened head and wide mouth, a youth wearing the dignity of manhood; another was a Walla Walla, also a gamester and a rogue, though shrewd ; yet another was a cripple with short, crooked legs, who carried a crutch of great length on which he poised himself and swung his body forward three or four yards at a leap.13 The sixth was to have been the guide, but failed to keep his engagement, which led to much trouble.
With ten horses belonging to the Mission, and ten others owned by the natives, and provisions for six days, Lee set out on his undertaking. The trail proved worse than he had anticipated, passing through ravines and across rapid streams, and often obstructed by fallen trees. Sometimes it lay along the margins of dangerous cliffs, and at the best was everywhere over- grown with underbrush. On the west side of the summit it was lost altogether under many generations of leaves. The six days' provisions were exhausted, and two of their horses, starving like themselves, were eaten before they had reached the Willamette, at the end of two weeks.
On this expedition Lee was overtaken, soon after leaving the Dalles, by John A. Sutter, then on his way to California. With Sutter was a party of mountain men, who were unwilling to follow the cir- cuitous route taken by Lee's guides, and broke away from them, reaching the Mission in six days-a feat that was considered incredible but for the proof of letters sent by Perkins.14 Eight days more passed, and as Lee had not yet returned, a party was forming to go in search of him, when he made his appearance.
A good guide being procured, and the services of
13 Lee and Frost's Or., 155.
14 Sutter's Personal Reminiscences, MS., 7-8; Sutter Co. Hist., 23; Yuba Co. Hist., 34.
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COLONIZATION.
two white men engaged, the return journey was more easily accomplished. On the 5th of October, eight days from the Willamette, Lee arrived at the Dalles with fourteen head of cattle, to find that Perkins and his wife had gone to the old Mission to spend several months. Thus he was left during the greater part of the winter alone, with the exception of a man named Anderson, who had been hired some time previously to assist in roofing the house. As timber for fencing and for farming utensils was required before spring, and harness and implements had to be made, there was little time for mission work. Perkins returned to the Dalles with his wife and infant son in February, and farming was begun, part of the ground being held on shares with the natives, who helped to fence and plough it. But the soil, being newly stirred, did not yield abundantly ; and the crop, small as it was, was partly stolen by other Indians, which so discouraged the laboring savages that they abandoned work and took, without leave, the vegetables raised by the mis- sionaries. The latter, however, persevered, building another house in the summer of 1839, which was used for a church, and improving their home. And here for the present we will leave them, to return to the affairs of the parent Mission.
From this point we regard Jason Lee less as a missionary than as an American colonizer. When he first conceived the idea of appropriating the valley of the Willamette for the Methodist church under the protection of the United States is not very clear, for Kelley's account of Lee's intentions is open to the charge of prejudice, the former feeling himself un- justly treated. But there can be little doubt that the scheme took form on being encouraged by Slacum to look for the support of government in sustaining American supremacy south of the Columbia.
Lee had been long enough in Oregon when the first reënforcement arrived to have discovered that the tribes
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CHANGE OF BASE.
of the Willamette Valley, and of the Columbia River west of the Cascade Mountains, were hopelessly diseased and depraved; and that to sustain an asylum with a few sickly orphans did not require the services even of those persons already on the ground. Nor was the character of the Dalles savages unknown to him as the banditti of the Columbia River region, whom there was little hope of benefiting. With the exception of the Umpqua and Rogue River valleys, and a portion of the southern coast, regions avoided on account of the hostile character of the natives, he had traversed the whole country south of the Columbia without finding a single place where there was any prospect of success in missionary work. Slowly it dawned upon his mind that he and his associates would have long to wait for the spiritual sky to fall, that they might catch some larks.
What should he do? Clearly as special agent of the Lord, the Lord did not require his services here ? Should he then serve his fellow-man, or even himself ? Might not he serve God as well by ministering to civilized man, ministering in things material as well as in things spiritual, assisting in establishing a grand and virtuous commonwealth, as by waiting on sickly savages ? Would it not please his Maker as well if he became a little more a colonizer and a little less a missionary ? and would it not please himself better ? But how would the good people at home regard such a change of base, those earnest in sewing-societies, church sociables, and in gathering the Sunday-school pennies? Jason Lee felt that these would not ap- prove of such a course; that in their eyes the one sickly savage was more than the ninety and nine of civilization, and that to abandon the attempt of con- version would be apostasy. He knew well enough that it was not the abandonment of his trust, or of any trust worthy of his manhood; in fact, there was nothing to abandon. Nevertheless, for the sake of the cause, which was just now beginning to assume
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shape in his mind, he would deceive them a little; for the sake of progress and the God of progress, his God and theirs, he would not tell them all at once his whole heart.
For the old affair he had more help than he needed; for his slowly evolving purpose he had not enough. Moreover, the fruits of the sewing-societies and the Sunday-schools would be none the less acceptable to civilization than to savagism at this juncture. There- fore he decided in the winter of 1837-8 to visit the states and obtain more men and means.
Preparatory to this, Lee made a hasty excursion in March 1838 to the Umpqua Valley, to inform him- self of its nature and advantages for the purposes now in contemplation. A convention was called in order to memorialize congress to extend jurisdiction over the Oregon colony. The memorial set forth that the settlement began in 1832, and had prospered beyond all expectation ; that the people of the United States were ignorant of the value of the country west of the Rocky Mountains, of the mildness of its climate, the wealth of its resources, and its commercial advantages in relation to China, India, the Islands of the Pacific, and the western coast of America; for all of which reasons the government was urged to take formal possession without loss of time; not only because of its general importance to the nation, but for the con- sequent benefits to the colony. Moreover, if this were not done, evil to the settlers would ensue. The inter- ests of the memorialists they declared were identical with those of the country of their adoption. They felt themselves the nucleus of a great state, and were anxious to give it at the beginning an elevated moral and intellectual tone. They were concerned, also, about the character of those who might emigrate to Oregon, and desired congress to say by whom the ter- ritory should be populated. Unprincipled adventurers, Botany Bay refugees, renegades from civilization now
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LEE'S VISIT EAST.
roaming the Rocky Mountains, deserting seamen from Polynesia, and banditti from Spanish America were not wanted.
Thus far, said the memorial, the colony had de- pended to a great extent on the influence of the Hud- son's Bay Company, which had preserved peace among both the settlers and the natives by its judicious management. But they could not hope, as the settle- ments became independent of the fur company, that this condition of harmony would remain unchanged, with a mixed population, and without a civil code. The memorial is dated March 16, 1838, and signed by the ten preachers and laymen, Ewing Young and ten other colonists, and nine French Canadians. 15
Toward the last of March, Lee left the Willamette Valley on his projected mission, and proceeded to Fort Vancouver, the Dalles, and Fort Walla Walla. Edwards accompanied Lee, having long contemplated leaving Oregon; yet although he had no disposition himself to remain, he gave favorable accounts of the country, during subsequent years, to the frequent inquiries for information on that subject.16 There were also with them F. Y. Ewing of Missouri, and two Chinook boys named W. M. Brooks and Thomas Adams, who had been in the mission school for some time.17 Possibly
15 25th Cong., 3d Sess., H. Rept. 101 ; Evans' Hist. Or., MS., 235-6. The signing of this memorial by Young and his associates indicates that their standing was very different at this time from what it was when they first entered the valley and were ostracized by McLoughlin; otherwise they were signing a petition to exclude just such adventurers as themselves. Jason Lee had marked ability in using others for his own advantage; Edwards was his instrument in drawing up this memorial, enabling Lee himself to keep in the background. Edwards' Sketch of Oregon, MS., 17.
16 Returning to Missouri, Edwards studied law, married, and during the Mormon troubles in that state in 1841 did military duty, receiving the title of colonel. In 1850 he emigrated to California, settling in Nevada County, where he engaged in politics as a whig and afterwards as a republican. In Shuck's Representative Men, 461-72, is a biography written by Robert E. Draper; and there is also his Diary of the Willamette Cattle Company, and Sketch of Oregon. He died May 1, 1869, leaving descendants in California.
17 Daniel Lee does not mention them in this connection, and Hines in his Hist. Or., 30, agrees with Lee. White states that Alexander, William, and John McKay accompanied Jason Lee, and that they returned in 1842 from the east; having gone there to be educated in the Wilbraham Academy, Massa- chusetts, where the Lees, years before, had completed their studies. Mrs
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the three sons of Thomas Mckay were also of the party, though there is a conflict on that point in the statements furnished.
The first tidings of his family received by Jason Lee were of a most painful character. At Pawnee Mission, near Council Bluffs, an express arrived from Fort Vancouver, sent by McLoughlin, with the intel- ligence of the death of Mrs Lee on the 26th of June, three weeks after the birth and death of a son. 18 Mrs Lee was buried among the firs that had overshadowed her when her marriage vows were taken, and her burial was the first of any white woman in Oregon. 19
After crossing the Mississippi, Lee began a lecturing tour, drawing large audiences in the churches, where he presented the subject of Oregon with the ardor of an enthusiast, and stimulated his hearers to furnish funds and men for the settlement of that paradise of the west. The effect of his labors was to draw into his paradise "hundreds of immigrants," says White, "from the western frontier of the states, of a restless, aspiring disposition," who gave him subsequently no little uneasiness.20 The interest at Peoria, Illinois, was augmented by the illness of Adams, the young Chinook, and by his remaining there through the
Elizabeth Wilson of the Dalles says that Jason Lee persuaded McLoughlin to have William C. Mckay sent to Wilbraham instead of to Europe as was in- tended. There he remained two years, and then entered a medical college at Pleasanton, Vermont, and subsequently attended lectures at Albany. Or. Sketches, MS., 21-2; Ten Years in Or., 140.
18 Hines' Hist. Or., 31-2; Lee and Frost's Or., 153. Gray does not credit McLoughlin with sending the message the entire distance. Gray's Hist. Or., 182.
19 Later the remains were removed to Salem. 'In the mission graveyard at Salem, Oregon, is a grave, on the head-stone of which is recorded these words: "Beneath this sod, the first ever broken in Oregon for the reception of a white mother and child, lie buried the remains of Anne Maria Pitinan, wife of Rev. Jason Lee, and infant son. She sailed from New York in July 1836, landed in Oregon June 1837, was married in July 1837, and died June 26, 1838, in full enjoyment of that love which constrained her to leave all for Christ and heathen souls. So we have left all, and followed Thee; what shall we have therefore."' Portland P. C. Advocate, Jan. 2, 1879. It will be ob- served that the inscription is incorrect as to the date of Miss Pitman's arrival, which was in May.
20 Ten Years in Oregon, 91.
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LEE'S EFFORTS.
winter. In his imperfect English he told marvellous stories of the Columbia River, and the salmon it contained, which excited a desire among some of the young men to enter into business there, and to found a city at the mouth of that magnificent stream. Of this attempt details will be given in another chapter.
At New York Lee made his report to the mission- ary society of the Methodist Episcopal church, and upon his information a call was published in the Chris- tian Advocate and Journal for five missionaries, and for laymen, physicians, farmers, mechanics, and young women for teachers. This call was responded to by thirty-six persons, and sixteen children increased the number to fifty-two, all whom the missionary society was asked to employ in Oregon in addition to those already there. The ship Lausanne, owned by Farn- ham and Fry of New York, and commanded by Cap- tain Josiah Spaulding, was chartered, and laden with everything that an infant colony could require, at a cost to the society of $42,000. It was not without effort that this extraordinary sum was raised; and the talent of the Oregon superintendent is well illus- trated in his success.' Hines says that Lee met with warm opposition from some members of the board, who doubted the expediency of the measure; but the superintendent, who had just come from the field of operations, perseveringly and powerfully urged the claims of the Mission, and succeeded in obtaining more than he demanded, for in his opinion but two ministers were required, but in the estimation of a majority of the board, if there were to be as many laymen sent out as Lee called for, two ministers would not be sufficient.21
While the missionary board were considering the question of ways and means, the missionary colonizer
21 Hist. Or., 36-7. 'No missionaries,' says Blanchet, ' were ever despatched to represent the various sects in any land under more favorable auspices than were the ladies and gentlemen belonging to the Methodist Episcopal church ... amidst the "wilds" of Oregon.' Hist. Cath. Church in Or., 12. 'It was
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was not idle. The petition prepared in Oregon was forwarded by him to congress, whereupon Caleb Cush- ing of Mussachusetts wrote to Lee, desiring further information concerning the population of the country, the classes composing it, and the objects of the Mission. Lee replied from Middletown, Connecticut, January 17, 1839, that there were in Oregon belonging to the Methodist Mission 25 persons of all ages and both sexes, who would shortly be reënforced by 45 more, making 70. As a matter of fact, the number reached was 77. There were 16 persons belonging to the mis- sions of the American Board; and about 20 settlers, missionaries, and others, going out from the western states in the spring; in addition to which there were about 45 men settled in the country who had Indian wives and half-breed children. After declaring the objects of the Mission to be the benefit of the Indians west of the Rocky Mountains, by the establishment of manual-labor schools, making it necessary to erect dwelling and school houses, to farm, to build mills, and in fact to establish a colony, Lee proceeded to the main object as follows :
"It is believed that, if the government of the United States takes such measures in respect to this territory as will secure the rights of the settlers, most of those who are now attached to the Mission will remain as. permanent settlers in the country after the Mission may no longer need their services. Hence it may be safely assumed that ours, in connection with the other settlers already there, is the commencement of a per- manent settlement of the country. In view of this, it will be readily seen that we need two things at the hand of government, for our protection and prosperity.
the greatest Methodist exodus probobly ever sailing from an eastern port to any coast.' Wilson, in Or. Sketches, MS., 23. 'This particular mission involved an expenditure of $42,000 in a single year. .. At the end of 6 years there were 68 persons connected with this mission, men, women, and children, a11 sup- ported by this society. How a number of missionaries found employment in such a field it is not easy to conjecture, especially as the great body of the Indians never came under the influence of their labors.' Olin's Works, ii. 427-8; Marshall's Christian Missions, ii. 263-4.
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POLITICAL PROPOSALS.
" First. We need a guaranty from government that the possession of the land we take up, and the im- provements we make upon it, will be secured to us. These settlements will greatly increase the value of the government domain in that country, should the Indian title ever be extinguished. And we cannot but expect, therefore, that those who have been pioneers in this arduous work will be liberally dealt with in this matter.
" Secondly. We need the authority and protection of the government and laws of the United States, to regulate the intercourse of the settlers with each other, to protect them against the peculations and aggres- sions of the Indians, and to protect the Indians against the aggressions of the white settlers.
"To secure these objects, it is not supposed that much of a military force will be necessary. If a suit- able person should be sent out as a civil magistrate and governor of the territory, the settlers would sus- tain his authority. In proof of this, it is only necessary to say that almost all the settlers in the Willamette Valley have signed a memorial to congress, praying that body to extend the United States government over the territory. ... You are aware, sir, that there is no law in that country to protect or control Ameri- can citizens. And to whom shall we look, to whom can we look, for the establishment of wholesome laws to regulate our infant but rising settlements, but to the congress of our own beloved country ? The coun- try will be settled, and that speedily, from some quarter, and it depends very much upon the speedy action of congress what that population shall be, and what shall be the fate of the Indian tribes in that territory. It may be thought that Oregon is of little importance; but, rely upon it, there is the germ of a great state. We are resolved to do what we can to benefit the country; but we are constrained to throw ourselves upon you for protection." 22
22 25th Cong., 3d Sess., II. Rept. 101, 3, 4.
.
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COLONIZATION.
In the light of this correspondence with Mr Cushing, Jason Lee's object in demanding sc large a reënforce- ment of laymen is unmistakable. His declarations present him unequivocally as a missionary colonizer ; and though born a British subject, and with no evi- dence to show that he ever became a naturalized citizen of the United States, yet he talks glibly of appealing to 'our own beloved' country for the estab- lishment of laws.
In August 1838, at Lynn, Massachusetts, the old home of Cyrus Shepard and Miss Downing, a society called the Oregon Provisional Emigration Society was organized. The intention of this association was to send to Oregon at the outset not less than two hundred men with their families, to be followed by other divisions at intervals, until thousands should settle in the country. The constitution debarred all persons from becoming members who were not of good moral character and believers in the Christian religion, and the general expenses of the enterprise were to be paid out of a joint-stock fund, no member to be assessed more than three dollars a year. The society published a monthly paper devoted to the exposition of its ob- jects, called the Oregonian. The officers were Rev. Samuel Norris, president; Rev. Sanford Benton, vice- president; Rev. F. P. Tracy, secretary; Rev. Amos Walton, treasurer. The committee consisted of four- teen members, ten of whom were ministers.23
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