USA > Oregon > Pioneer days of Oregon history, Vol. I > Part 25
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In the merry month of May, 1841, Daniel Lee had tired of The Dalles and was anticipating the arrival on the Lau- sanne of Maria T. Ware, his promised bride, so he went down to the sea to wait her coming. Elsewhere we tell that Sol Smith and his Clatsop wife also went, as they wished to make their home there with the people, where malaria did not prevail. Both of them had been under religious con- viction, had joined the church and she hoped to do some good with her own people. It was such occasional intelligent ones as she was, who had some education, as well as associa- tion with whites, who might hope to accomplish something for religious conversion of the Indians.
There was a romantic coincidence, that after they had reached Chinook Point, and Lee had held service the next morning, a sail was seen in the offing. A ship was watched as she came through the breakers, and from the lookout of Scarborough Head they saw the Lausanne! It may be imagined with what interest they watched as the good ship came sailing into Baker's Bay. There had been deep sym- pathy felt for Jason Lee when, during his absence, the death of his beautiful young wife occurred. So greatly had Dr. McLoughlin felt it that he sent an express across the mountains, the long road to the Missouri, to convey his sympathy with the sad announcement. It is claimed that when the list of passengers was found to contain the name of another Mrs. Jason Lee, in place of the one who had died in his absence, his associates were disgusted. It may look as if true sorrow needed a twelvemonth of confirmation ; but the first courtship and acquaintance had been brief ; his married life had but a twelvemonth of happiness with a kindred spirit that must have taught him the beauty and
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loveliness of a home ; when he should return to the lovely wilderness of the Willamette, there would be no opportunity to select another life partner. We can condone his fault while we respect the conditions that called for criticism.
The Lausanne went up the Columbia ; her passengers were hospitably entertained by Dr. McLoughlin, at Vancouver, for weeks, until their work could be assigned, while Jason Lee laid off the programme. In the end Revs. Frost and Kane were stationed on Clatsop Plains, south of the Columbia and near the ocean, to be later reinforced by Calvin Tibbetts and a negro named Wallace, who had deserted some vessel on which he was a sailor. Sol Smith settled with them, on a favorable location, selected with care. Thus the settlement of Clatsop commenced in 1840. Mr. Kane, his wife's health being poor, returned East in the fall of 1841.
In 1842, there was a reinforcement at Clatsop; Peter Brainard came, via the Grand Round Pass, with cattle that had been brought in the second cattle expedition, for in 1840 there was a second cattle drive overland from Cali- fornia, under charge of T. J. Hubbard, that increased the wealth and independence of the slowly growing colony. In 1843 Mr. Frost returned to the East, leaving J. L. Parrish in charge at Clatsop. It is only necessary to say that the Clatsop mission, like that of the Willamette, accomplished little; the natives were degraded, diseased, and gradually became few, yet the Clatsops originally were an important people.
In 1842, W. H. Wilson commenced operations at Nes- qually, 100 miles north of the Columbia, on Puget Sound ; the Richmonds and Miss Clark were also sent there. Wilson
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married Miss Clark, which made matters harmonize. Thus an American settlement was commenced on Puget Sound, and Jason Lee's policy was invading what the British fur company hoped would be British domain. It was not a lonesome situation, for Fort Nesqually was near by and the Steilacoom farm of the Puget Sound Agricultural Com- pany not far away. The sandy plains were grazed by thousands of sheep, and sheep pasture was all that land was good for. The Nesqually mission was finally abandoned and the Richmond sailed back to Newburyport in 1842.
Take the work of the Methodist mission as a whole, and the efforts of Jason Lee for what they were worth to the American cause, and we see that they laid the foundation for settlement of Western Oregon. Taken with regard to the effort to civilize and Christianize the Indians, and it was as lamentable a failure as was possible. As a race they died and made no sign. Incapable of improvement, they sunk deeper and deeper in degradation. It was simply true that it was impossible-with any available means-for the mission to accomplish its original design and improve the moral and physical condition of the race.
The Dalles mission lingered along until both Daniel Lee and Shepard returned to the East, then was placed in charge of Rev. A. F. Waller, to be eventually discontinued. The Willamette mission was removed to a beautiful site on the river, ten miles south, the present site of the capital city of Oregon, Salem, the town site being located under the land laws by Dr. W. H. Wilson, who divided the town lots with the mission, or with their educational enterprise, now called Willamette University. Brother A. F. Waller located on the east of the Wilson claim ; Father Leslie took
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the south, and J. L. Parrish the north, so that they reaped the rich harvest of the future.
The Indians had named the strip along the river, over- hung with willows, ash and cotton-woods, where they came to winter after the season of work was over, Chemeketa, meaning "Our Old Home." Here they brought the gatherings of all the year, making this their home from November until April. The prairie rose gradually from the river and was crowned in spots by majestic groves of white oak ; maples, clustered or alone, spread their wide branchies with broad-leaved, umbrageous density of shade and towering height that makes the Oregon maple most beautiful of its kind. It was an ideal spot ; the waters of two mill streams border the north and the south. Some one of the company came from Salem, Mass., so the spot was named after that old Puritan stronghold, and not after the witches who were burned there.
Jason Lee, with Gustavus Hines, made a journey to the Umpqua to locate a mission and settlement somewhere away from the contamination they had met on the Columbia and Willamette. Rev. Augustus Hines, writing of this journey in his work on Oregon, tells how they went through the Up- per Willamette, crossed the Calipooia divide to where Fort Umpqua of the Hudson's Bay Company was, were enter- tained there and advised by Gagnier, the agent in charge, to be careful how they should venture among wild coast tribes. He furnished them his Indian wife and brother for guides and to interpret, so Hines and Lee went down the Umpqua to the sea, while White returned to the Willa- mette. Fort Umpqua was situated where they commenced to know the beautiful Umpqua region, but most of the set-
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tled portions lie to the south and are wonderfully fertile and beautiful.
The Umpqua, with its beautiful hills and ranges, wind- ing valleys and prairie reaches, is one of the most romantically lovely districts of the Pacific, or of the world. But to go down the Umpqua to the ocean shows nothing of all this. Mr. Hines says : "We found but little land along the river which holds out inducement to emigrants, the country on both sides being more and more mountainous. Whatever the country may be back from the river, it is certain that along the streams it can never sustain much population." Which was true enough, but they were going away from the good land and rich valleys to follow the gorge the river had cut through the coast ranges, and had only mountain sides piled up all around them. He adds : "Hills upon hills, rocks upon rocks, characterize almost the whole distance from Fort Umpqua to the Pacific Ocean." What he saw was more like "Ossa piled on Pelion" than verdant vales and flowery reaches.
Along the river they held religious services, finding the natives imitative and easily impressed, as they always were with what they could not understand yet excited their su- perstition. They found three small villages at the coast, where Mrs. Gagnier gave their message and tried to explain the nature and purpose of the mission. They were im- pressed, were solemnly interested, the prayers impressed them and the singing; they no doubt thought, as it was Heber's missionary hymn, it was a little above the ordinary effort of their war songs or medicine performance. Lee promised them a teacher the following summer and returned to the fort, much to the satisfaction of Gagnier, who was
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solicitous as to their fate, and, perhaps, feared his spouse might fall victim to their missionary zeal.
When asked what their views were as to the proposition to accept Christian teachers and learn civilized ways, the chief made an address, with violent gestures and extra- ordinary postures, rising on tiptoe and stretching his hands- aloft, to then almost bend to the earth. He said: "Great Chief! We are much pleased with our lands ; we love this our world; we hope to live a great while, and desire to be- come old men before we die. It is true we have killed many people, but we have never killed any but bad men. Many lies have been told about us. We have been called bad peo- ple and are glad you have come to see for yourselves. We have seen white people before, but they came to get our beaver. None ever came here before to teach us good. We are glad to see you, for we want to learn. We wish to throw away bad things and become good."
When we take into consideration that this was where Jedediah Smith's party was partly murdered and he es- caped by fearful suffering a few years before; and that these were the bad people he so modestly confessed to having killed ; and that here, at this very spot, the first attempt to settle at the mouth of the Umpqua in later years induced similar murderous conduct, we can surmise what a hopeful community Jason Lee was trying to lead to life and light. They always, however, liked to expatiate on their love for their own country ; their native home spots were as dear to them as to the most civilized, and much dearer than most.
Mr. Hines estimated that they were not over three hun- dred and seventy-five in number; Gagnier's wife and brother overheard some of those near the fort express the
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opinion that the shot pouch Lee wore was bad medicine that was to be let loose to kill them all; so they had devotedly kept guard at night to prevent any attempt to murder their party. They knew that disease had swept away the tribes of the north and believed it was due to magic, for to magic they charged most of the ills of life.
There was disagreement between Jason Lee and White, for the latter was presuming and Lee resented his assump- tions. So White resigned-rather under a cloud, as he had made enemies. Unhappily, there was difference and division. White returned in the summer of 1840, on the Lausanne's home trip, resumed his old practice and made the Board of Missions satisfied to pay his expenses. Dissen- sions arose because some had pleasanter assignments than others. Those who were favored sided with Jason Lee; others had not self-sacrifice to go to less pleasant stations and work in harmony with the more favored. Some were hastened from Vancouver to the wilderness who thought they should, at least, see the beautiful Willamette station. Lee knew they had no time to waste to get ready for winter, so they were hurried off. Leslie took sides with Dr. White; as result, he was left out at the next annual meeting, which left him in this farthest and wildest west without any in- come or support. It is not easy to excuse this treatment of a man who had brought a young family to the ends of the earth in earnest hope to serve the Lord. The Lausanne took back letters from Kone, Richmond, and others, reflecting on Lee's course, that nerved the arm of Elijah White as he made war at the East on Lee, and White was no long-suf- fering brother who endured with patience and grew strong with suffering. He keenly resented his wrongs.
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In the absence of Dr. White, Dr. Babcock came from The Dalles to the Willamette, where chills and fever and low typhoid prevailed and whites suffered while Indians died. J. L. Parrish said that five hundred of them died in the Willamette in 1840; his own eldest son died. It was a fearful condition; the need of mission work among the natives of Western Oregon grew less and less.
One of the tragic sequels to romantic incident occurred in connection with the fate of Cornelius Rogers, who came from the mission work of the Presbyterians, east of the mountains, to live in the Willamette. He saw the Leslie family about to leave for the Sandwich Islands, as Jason Lee would assign him to no work ; they were on board the brig Chenamus, September, 1842, when Rogers proposed to marry the oldest daughter, Satira. He was accepted and they were married on board the ship; then the Leslie family sailed away. Rogers was intending to remove to Oregon City. The two younger girls of the Leslies remained with the sister. In the winter he, the wife and younger sister took passage in a large canoe that carried supplies for the Clatsop mission. There were also Dr. White-by this re- turned to Oregon-Nathaniel Crocker, lately arrived from New York, and Raymond, who came from Clatsop for the supplies. Winter rains had raised the river to flood stage, but they reached the head of the rapids in safety. While Raymond and three Indians were letting the boat down by a rope to the landing, as they reached there White stepped out, and in so doing gave the canoe a slight momentum that threw it a little out, where the strong current seized it ; catching the bow, it swept the canoe broadside into the swift
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current. The river was so fierce that it drew the five men on the shore into the water and they were forced to let go or share the others' fate. There was hardly time to give a shriek of human despair when they were hurled over the falls and no hope of rescue was possible.
This occurred February 3, 1843, and was a sad blow to the little American colony. During five years there were thirteen deaths by sickness and accident in that mission circle ; ten in the prime of life and three children. Besides this, the mortality among the Indians had been frightful. But it was not strange, children of superstition as they were, they believed it to be the effect of magic. The news of the fate of these tribes spread far and wide and im- pressed all other regions. That there was wide intercourse between tribes we can know from the fact that when Daniel Lee drove cattle to The Dalles he had Indians from Walla Walla, an hundred miles east, and from Chinook, two hun- dred miles west, to assist him. Whatever concerned one tribe was soon known far away. What was singular in that old- time contagion was, that the climate of Oregon has proved to be very healthy ; unusually free from such fevers. If they prevail at all, it is occasionally a light attack of chills and fever.
In 1841 a location was selected for the Indian Labor School. The building cost $10,000, and school was kept nine months in the year, commencing the fall of 1842. An- other enterprise of an educational nature was an institute for white pupils, to be located three miles away, and in time grow to be an university. Jason Lee was looking forward and getting ready for the time when Oregon should be a civilized State. With this in view he had written Caleb
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Cushing, and for this led off with Ewing Young to me- morialize Congress in 1838.
The mission might not Christianize the Indians, as they were becoming extinct, and what were left were inert and worthless ; but he looked to a future that could recognize Jason Lee as the moving spirit that planned and com- menced an era that was to be permanent and great for na- tional events ; he wanted his name to go echoing down the aisles of time in connection therewith.
It is not necessary to dwell in extenso on events, but the mission era was drawing to a close. With a splendid force of men and women, who came to work for the regeneration of a savage race, nothing worth while had been accomplished. The various branches of the parent tree had withered; there would have been no importance to the Willamette station but for the presence of the Canadian settlers, and the few scattered Americans who clustered around it. Rev. J. L. Parrish, the blacksmith as well as preacher, asserted that he had seen as bright converts among the Indians as the whites. As a man of sturdy physique and used to active labor he could endure more than most. He also said that "half the men who came to Oregon ought to have stayed at home; they knew nothing of the hardship of a new country ; the hardships were such that they could not endure them;" which answers for a great deal of the failure that attended mission work. Those who came in the Lausanne found few or no civilized comforts awaiting them ; all had to be made out of the fir forest, for there was not a board, or table, chairs or other comforts.
Another fact as to the Lausanne's passengers was, that the mission fund was insufficient to charter the vessel for
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the voyage. In some way government aid was secured to the extent of $50, for each passenger.
Lee's journey East resulted in inducing the few who left Peoria in 1839 to make the first emigration across the plains, as will be noted elsewhere. Another party of eleven left Illinois the same year, some of whom reached Oregon in 1840, commencement of that tide destined to flood the Northwest of the Pacific. Jason Lee can be credited-as well as Hall J. Kelley and Marcus Whitman with patriotic zeal and devotion to the interests of Oregon.
On February 3, 1844, Jason Lee with Gustavus Hines and family left Vancouver on the Hudson's Bay Company bark Columbia, for the Sandwich Islands. Lee was deter- mined to go East again to try to secure a grant of all mis- sion tracts, which could be made to include the falls of the Willamette and Oregon City, as he could see that they must eventually be of immense value ; also, he was to act as finan- cial agent to collect means to properly equip the Institute with scientific apparatus. We will for the present pass over the contention for the Oregon City claim and accompany Messrs. Lee and Hines on their voyage to the Islands. As they reached Honolulu Dr. Babcock, who was there, met them with information that the Home Board of Missions had suspended Lee ; one George Gary was on the way to in- vestigate Lee's management and conduct since he arrived in Oregon, and was to close the mission-if deemed advisable. It was the intention for Lee and the Hines family to return by first vessel to Boston or New York, but he persuaded Hines to return to Oregon with Dr. Babcock, and that they should do all they could to protect his interest while he hur- ried to New York to face the situation. A Hawaiian
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schooner was leaving for Mazatlan; he took passage and crossed Mexico to Vera Cruz; his child was left with his friends, and this departure closed the story of his career in Oregon.
For ten years he had labored, and the schemes of the set- tler and colonizer had superseded in his mind the work of the missionary. His mission hopes were "like Dead Sea fruit, that tempts the eye but turns to ashes on the lip." Pestilence had followed his coming, and his touch seemed to cause pollution. Superintendent Gary arrived June, 1844, and called the missionaries together for consultation and in- vestigation. It was the next morning's daylight before that conference ended; its result was the dissolution of the mis- sion. All the mission property was sold; the manual labor farm and buildings were bought in by the trustees of the Institute ; the mission herds were disposed of ; all at The Dalles and Clatsop went in due time ; the Methodist Mission, that had disputed the palm for power with the great Hud- son's Bay Company, became only a memory of something that had been !
The families connected with the mission added seventy- five population to the settlers of Oregon, as the writer recognized when he arrived there a few years later. Their influence was healthy ; it was excusable if they were a little clannish.
They were all well to do when the broken-down emigrants of the later forties arrived; from their abundance they were able to organize churches and schools, and their presence here was in many ways a benefit to the New World that was rapidly growing up around them.
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