# Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 23/The First Indian School of the Pacific Northwest

THE FIRST INDIAN SCHOOL OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST.
By Robert Moulton Gatke
The first Indian School of the Pacific Northwest was the child of the Oregon Mission of the Methodist Episcopal Church. It was conducted at their original station on the banks of the Willamette River, about ten miles north of the present city of Salem.
No portion of the Mission work was more important than its schools. While the work of daily instruction was not begun until the Fall of 1835, one year after the station was established, the actual work of teaching had been in progress for some time. In a letter written on September 24th, 1835, Cyrus Shepard speaks of his plan to teach every day and also mentions the fact that for some time he had been teaching the halfbreed children every other day, while their Sabbath School, which had been opened almost as soon as the mission was established, had taught reading as well as religious subjects. Even tho the missionaries had not planned to take up the teaching work it would have been forced upon them by the conditions they faced. They had scarcely erected their first shelter when Christian love and charity demanded that they receive under their care Indian children who had no one to care for them, or who were brought to the Mission by their parents that they might be instructed in matters relating to the white man's religion and life. Daniel Lee tells us that the first Indian lads were left in their care during the Spring when they were busy planting their first crop upon the Mission farm, but he must have had in mind the work on the field during the winter, for a letter from Cyrus Shepard, dated Dec. 20, 1834, tells of the mission having the care of three orphan children. By the fall of that year, (1835) the mission wards had increased to five, one having died during August, and Shepard writing to his brother tells him that they are expecting seven more soon. ​These seven were the three orphan children and four Indian slaves of one of the French Canadians, who had died a few days before, and whose estate Jason Lee took charge of when urged to do so by Dr. McLoughlin. As the one stipulation insisted upon by Lee was that the slaves should be freed, Lee and McLoughlin united in a very practical way to try to overcome the somewhat common condition of Indian slavery. A taste of freedom proved so pleasing to two of these young Indian slaves that they did not wish to live even under the kindly control of the Mission home and school and so left after the proverbial French manner.
Indeed, from the first, the Mission partook of the nature of an orphanage. The condition of the orphans among the Indian tribes was very pitiful. Turning to one of the interesting letters of Shepard, we find an account of the first Indian children received at the Mission. In a letter to his brother dated December 20, 1834, and written just after a preliminary visit to the mission, he says: "We have already three poor Flatheads, orphan children, and as soon as circumstances will permit, shall have a great many more. One of these is a lad of fourteen or fifteen years of age. After he had been with us for a short time, news came that his mother was dead; and his little sister, about seven years of age (these being the only children) was left without a friend to take care of her. Brother Lee, therefore, sent for her and she has since been one of the mission family. When she arrived she was almost entirely naked, as were the other children. My first business was to make her a gown of some tow cloth, which had been used to cover our goods while on the journey. Though it was piece upon piece, I finally succeeded in making a considerably good dress, but not with 'Bishop Sleeves' as my present means were only adequate to make them about the size of the arms. Having completed this garment, we cast off her former covering, which was only a small piece of deer-skin, tied over her shoulders, and another, in strips, tied around the waist, and clothed her in the dress above described. A day or two after this, a poor little orphan, with a very flat head, who had neither ​
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These seven were the three orphan children and four Indian slaves of one of the French Canadians, who had died a few days before, and whose estate Jason Lee took charge of when urged to do so by Dr. McLoughlin. As the one stipulation insisted upon by Lee was that the slaves should be freed, Lee and McLoughlin united in a very practical way to try to over- come the somewhat common condition of Indian slavery. A taste of freedom proved so pleasing to two of these young Indian slaves that they did not wish to live even under the kindly control of the Mission home and school and so left after the proverbial French manner. 3
Indeed, from the first, the Mission partook of the nature of an orphanage. The condition of the orphans among the Indian tribes was very pitiful. Turning to one of the interesting letters of Shepard, we find an account of the first Indian chil- dren received at the Mission. In a letter to his brother dated December 20, 1834, and written just after a preliminary visit to the mission, he says: "We have already three poor Flat- heads, orphan children, and as soon as circumstances will permit, shall have a great many more. One of these is a lad of fourteen or fifteen years of age. After he had been with us for a short time, news came that his mother was dead ; and his little sister, about seven years of age (these being the only children) was left without a friend to take care of her. Brother Lee, therefore, sent for her and she has since been one of the mission family. When she arrived she was almost entirely naked, as were the other children. My first business was to make her a gown of some tow cloth, which had been used to cover our goods while on the journey. Though it was piece upon piece, I finally succeeded in making a considerably good dress, but not with 'Bishop Sleeves' as my present means were only adequate to make them about the size of the arms. Having completed this garment, we cast off her former cover- ing, which was only a small piece of deer-skin, tied over her shoulders, and another, in strips, tied around the waist, and clothed her in the dress above described. A day or two after this, a poor little orphan, with a very flat head, who had neither
3 Lee & Frost, pp. 132-3. ​
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undoubtedly the death rate increased. It was certainly un- fortunate that the mission faced the necessity of receiving more of these poor unfortunate children than it could properly care for, but any suggestion, even of the most remote kind, from which it might be inferred that these children would have been better off if they had not passed into the care of the mission is too absurd for serious comment. The children came to the mission diseased. There they were cleansed of their filth, clothed, and given simple but healthful food. If they had been untouched by the mission influence, they would have remained under conditions of filth, exposure, and lack of proper food, constituting a perfect medium for the develop- ment of their diseases. Until May of 1837, no medical care could be given to the children of the mission family other than the simple remedies known to the average household of that day or such as the doctor at Vancouver might suggest; but after that date the mission had its own physician, Dr. Elijah White being the first to serve in that important work.
No intimate picture of the life of the school will ever be written, for the sources are lost. The best we have is a few letters of Cyrus Shepard and his co-laborers. 5
Perhaps the first thing for us to keep in mind is that the school was more than a mere educational institution teaching the ordinary branches of elementary knowledge. Most of the pupils lived at the mission and constituted part of the "mission family." The life with its new elements of order, its common obligations and duties, its emphasis upon the necessity of per- sonal cleanliness, and other things which are inherent in the Christian home were elements of education to the Indian and half-breed children which even surpassed in value those more formal elements taught in the class room. The Rev. H. K. W. Perkins, a member of the mission stationed at The Dalles, frequently visited the Willamette station, and gives us a de- scription of the home and school. In speaking of the mis- sionaries' care of these children, he says : "They housed them, fed them, clothed them, instructed them, prayed over them, and made them as their own children, when they had scarcely food, and shelter, and clothing for themselves. 6
5 "The Missionary teacher: A Memoir of Cyrus Shepard," by the Rev. Z A. Mudge.
6 Quoted by Mudge, pp. 177-8. ​
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"I wish I could make you acquainted with brother Shepard's school," says Mr. Perkins, "as it was when I first visited the country. I wish I could make you see the very log house, the school-room, the chambers where the children slept, the little clapboard bedsteads, if bedsteads they could be called, the loose straw in which they nestled, the dining-room, the table, the bits of coarse bread, and basins of soup, as they used to be placed regularly along from one end of it to the other, and last, though not least interesting, to see the good man quietly seated at the board, sharing the fare with them. I wish I could introduce you to them, as he knelt with them and offered up evening and morning prayers, that you might hear them while they sing, and listen to the simple, artless instruction which they receive. The scene would impress upon your mind a vivid idea of the beauty of goodness." 7
The effectiveness of the home training was greatly increased at the time of the first and second reinforcements of the mis- sion in the year 1837, through the helpful presence of Chris- tian women. This touch was needed not only to make the home influence ideal but also to relieve Shepard and the others of work, which even with all of their great effort, they could do but poorly as compared with those fitted by nature and training for such work. The marriage of Jason Lee to the cultured and beautiful Anna Pitman, and of Cyrus Shepard to the devoted and inspiring Susan Downing caused two Chris- tian homes to be added to those just established by Alanson Beers and his wife, and Dr. and Mrs. White. Miss Margaret J. Smith became the assistant teacher for the mission school and took charge of the girls of the mission home.
Some realization of the new elements introduced is forced upon us when we read the story of the life and death of one of the little Indian girls, Sally Soule (so named by the mis- sionaries in honor of the wife of one of the bishops of their church), who, like so many of the other Indian children en- tered the school afflicted with tuberculosis. Miss Smith tells us that the child was so neat and prim that her school mates termed her "the old maid," and yet she was so much loved
7 Ibid., pp. 196-7. ​
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by her rough and tumble friends, that even tho she did not care to hunt for wasp's nests (that she might enjoy the Indian delicacy, toasted wasp larvae) or the "gum" from the ever- green trees, they still sought her company and would even almost fight to secure her as partner in their games. Her delight in sewing for her beloved doll knew no bounds, and she treasured all of the scraps of cloth her teacher could fur- nish her. But this child had been rescued from the filth and neglect of the Indian camp too late, as a deadly disease had already griped her. The Christian love which ministered to her needs in her new home and cared for her during her last sickness stands in sharp contrast to the earlier neglect of the Indian encampment.
Another condition under which the mission was laboring in- troduced a feature of education which was perhaps more im- portant than the organized instruction of the school room. This was the necessity of producing most of the provisions used for the support of the large mission family. The work of the mission farm was very exacting upon the men who had ex- pected to devote most of their attention to religious teaching and ministry. It was necessary for all of the older boys to help with the farm work even as the girls gave their aid in the work of the household, and in both cases they were more benefited than by an equal amount of time spent in the class room. In the report of the government explorer, William A. Slacum, on the conditions he found in the Oregon country, pre- sented on December 18, 1837, he gives a brief, but highly favor- able, account of the mission as he found it. In regard to this feature of the work of the mission school, he says : "The larger boys work on the farm in fine weather. They can plow, reap, and do the ordinary farm work well. Several of them evince good mechanical genius. Mr. Lee assures me that most of the boys have earned their board, clothing and tuition, esti- mating their labor at the lowest rate of wages allowed by the Hudson Bay Company. Their school and family could be much increased, but they do not wish to add to their number until they receive further assistance, thinking it the wisest plan ​
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at present, for the sake of example, to attend strictly to the mental and physical instruction of these 'Neophytes'." 8
While it appears that this custom arose, in part at least, from the necessities of their situation, there can be no doubt but that the missionaries had a true appreciation of the im- portance of this type of training- for the Indians. In view of the Westward movement of the white man it was evident that the Indian would have to meet new conditions of living. Hence, a change from the hunting state if society to that of agricul- ture was very essential for the Indian if he was to have a chance to rise above the uncertainties of his mode of existence and to enjoy the greater security incidental to entering upon a higher plan of physical living and well being.
Their appreciation of the need caused this phase of the work to be given a very definite part of their attention. This fea- ture was observed by Jefferson Farnham during his visit in 1839. He says : "Every one [at the mission] appeared happy in his benevolent work: Mr. Daniel [David] Leslie, in preach- ing and superintending general matters [This was during the time Jason Lee was on a trip east seeking mission reinforce- ments] ; Mr. Cyrus Shepard, in teaching letters to about thirty half-breed and Indian children ; Mr. J. C. Whitecomb, in teach- ing them to cultivate the earth; and Mr. Alanson Beers, in blacksmithing for the mission and the Indians, and instructing a few young- men in his art." 9
These mission leaders did not work out the theories of industrial training from the view point of scientific educational theory, for such theories belong to a more recent generation, but they truly met the educational need of their field. Both the fact that the missionaries had come to regard the industrial teaching as part of their mission, and the effectiveness of their work, was shown in the impression made upon Mr. Slacum who expressed his feelings in a formal letter addressed to the members of the mission just before he left the Oregon country in January 1837. Part of his letter reads: "I shall not hesi- tate to express my humble opinion that you have already ef- fected a great public good by practically showing that the
8 Report on Oregon, by Wm. A. Slacum, given to Congress December 18, 1837, (Reprinted by Ore. Hist. Quart.).
9 Farnham: Travels, Vol. II, p. 210. ​
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Indians west of the Rocky Mountains are capable of the union of mental and physical discipline, as taught in your establish- ment. For I have seen with my own eyes, children, who, two years ago, were roaming their own native wilds in a state of savage barbarism, now being brought within the knowledge of moral and religious instruction, becoming useful members of society, by being taught the most useful of all arts, agri- culture, and all of this without the slightest compulsion." 10 The total lack of discernment as to mission methods and aims is often shown in the Victor-Bancroft work on Oregon. Their comment on this phase of the mission work is as follows : "But from pupils the wards of the mission were likely to become servants, while so much labor was required to make their teach- ers comfortable, and as the savage is by nature adverse to labor, the demands made upon the children at the mission were sure to operate against the success of the school." 11
Until the year 1839 the school was conducted within the mission house, but during that year a special room was added which became the school room proper. The equipment con- sisted very largely of the slates and books furnished by the Eastern friends of the mission. Reading, writing, arithmetic, and geography constituted the formal studies of the class room. Mr. Shepard was a teacher of some years standing, having taught in various villages in New England. We have no detailed knowledge as to what his methods of teaching were, but considering that he actually accomplished a great deal with the untutored minds of his Indian children, who respected and loved him, we know that he must have had considerable nat- ural ability as a teacher, great patience and perseverance, and great affection for those he taught. Some things which Shep- ard wrote to one of his former pupils in his home state con- cerning the love of his Indian pupils for picture books and "pretty" stories, rather suggests that perhaps he had wisely departed from the rather stern and rigorous ways which almost universally prevailed in the schools of that day, a suggestion which is well sustained by all that we know of the man's great love, and affection which his pupils manifested towards him. 12
10 Quoted by G. Hines: Oregon, pp. 22-3.
11 Bancroft: Oregon, Vol. I, pp. 162-3.
12 Quoted by Mudge: p. 183. ​
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When we have spoken of the influence of the home, of the training in agriculture, and the formal instruction within the school room, we have touched only a part of the training offered in the mission and home. The religious and moral help given to the children far surpassed the other phases of their instruction. In all that they did, this was the chief aim of the mission workers. When we consider this major interest it does not appear strange that in the winter of 1837 six of the students were converted almost at the same time. Like- wise, since we know of the burning religious zeal of Shepard and others, it seems most natural that the expression of the newly experienced truth should have taken the high emo- tional form which was typical of the religious expression of that day, and which was expected by their teachers. Mrs. Shepard tells us that boys and girls who had been almost too timid to speak to their teachers, now spoke, prayed, and exhorted in meeting with great propriety." 13 The newly aroused religious feeling was so intense that its expression was in what some would today call an unnatural manner, per- haps even terming it morbid. At the close of school, Mr. Shepard observed that one of the lads was still at his bench and sobbing. He sought, in his usual kindly way to discover the reason. The lad replied that his "heart had become bad" ; that he "got angry with his enumeration table, and called it a dog." He wanted Mr. Shepard to pray with him, which he did.
The children sought their teacher, Cyrus Shepard, when they were perplexed and troubled. This we can readily understand when we consider his great love, and also recall his prayer life, of which Mrs. Shepard reminds us when she says : "The little grove on the Willamette River had witnessed Mr. Shepard's frequent supplications with and for his pupils. No parent could manifest more interest for his child than he did for these poor Indian youth." 14
It is fitting that we should know something about the teach- ers of the mission school. Because the school constituted such
13 Ibid., p. 184.
14 Quoted by Mudgc: p. 185. ​
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an essential part of the mission work, and involved so many phases other than merely formal class instruction, we might well count all of the first missionaries as teachers. But the one who was especially chosen for that work, and the one who devoted all of his time to it, was Cyrus Shepard.
This missionary teacher was born at Acton, Massachusetts, August 14th, 1798, of sturdy American farmer parents. His father was a veteran of the Revolutionary War. Most of his youth was spent in the village of Philipston, where he sought to secure an education in the common district school under far from encouraging conditions. But his love of learning caused him to make the best of his circumstances to the extent that after fitting himself to teach, he took one of the small district schools near his home town. His friend and biographer, Z. A. Mudge, says of him: "Mr. Shepard's literary qualifications for teaching were not eminent, but sufficient for all that he engaged to do . . . for his extreme conscientiousness and great industry led him thoroughly to investigate whatever branch of education the good of those placed under his care required him to know; and what he himself knew, he toiled unsparingly to impart to others." 15 He was so conscious of the great weight of responsibility which rested upon him as a teacher who had power to influence young life as he would, that he spent much time in prayer, seeking divine guidance that his influence would mold worthy lives. No small part of his success as a teacher is due to those elements of his char- acter which caused one who knew him to say: "He was one of those few who retained in manhood the artlessness, the sympathy, and kind feelings of a child, combined with the maturity and energy of a man." 16
The journey to Oregon was not undertaken from any de- sire for adventure on the part of Cyrus Shepard. He literally tore himself away from, those that he loved because he felt that Christian duty called upon him to make that needful sacrifice. 17 At the time of his leaving for the Oregon country,
15 Mudge: p. 21.
1 6 Mudge: p. 23.
1 7 Most of these details are drawn from the book written by Mudge, which has been so often quoted in this work. While written primarily for children, its source value is large, for Mudge knew Shepard personally, knew his family and a number of his associates. He had the use of Shepard's diaries and letters.^and those of some of his co-workers. One of the original diaries is in the keeping of Willamette University. ​
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Shepard was thirty-six years of age, is described as a tall, handsome, pleasant appearing young man, who gave the im- pression of having plenty of strength of character, but not of physical health. The readings of his journal reveals a man who was a great lover of nature and keen to observe all of its changing phases. It also strengthens the impression that he was cast in the mold of a religious mystic. His aspirations impressed themselves upon almost every page of the record of his daily life. Its expression was that of his day, for we find that despite the hardships of the journey across the plains, and despite his physical weakness, he continued to observe regu- lar days of fasting. His great periods of uplift were times when he was able to withdraw from the camp to some quiet nook and alone spend hours in prayer and meditation. Re- gardless of the excessive weariness due to his hard life and ill health, he always found time for Bible study. He even added the reading of the life of Mrs. Judson, the missionary, and one or more books on philosophy. Nature had endowed him with the tastes of a scholar, even if his circumstances had prevented their full exercise.
In the work of the mission school no small amount of the labor fell upon him, and yet in spite of all the wearying drudg- ery and the abiding condition of ill health he kept cheerful, and if perchance the strain occasionally proved too much and he yielded to the feeling of irritation, none could be more quick than he to seek humbly to make amends.
The brightest hours of Shepard's life in Oregon are con- nected with the little home that he established at the mission at the time of his marriage to Susan Downing who came to Oregon with the first reinforcement of the mission in 1837. She had been one of his co-laborers in the work of the Sab- bath school at Lynn, and they were engaged to be married before he left for Oregon. She was a noble and sympathetic helpmate, and the few years spent together were happy ones. Beside his interests in the school and its home, and in the In- dians of the valley, he found enjoyment in his garden, which produced the vegetables needed for the table of the mission family beside the loved old-fashioned flowers of New England. ​
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Near the close of the year 1839 Shepard was overcome by the scrofulous disease with which he had long been afflicted. Drs. White and Bailey of the mission gave what treatment they could, and fiinally decided that amputation of a leg was necessary. He lingered for a number of weeks, suffering in- tensely, but keeping cheerful in spite of the pain. Even a sense of the humorous, tho rather grim , appeared above the agony of the sick bed, as evinced by a postscript added to a letter his wife was writing for him to Daniel Lee, which was signed, "A part of Cyrus." The spirit left his afflicted body on the first of January, 1840. He lived and died the most beloved member of the mission group. We may be proud that the first real teacher of the Oregon country was one of such noble and self sacrificing character. We say first, for while both John Ball and Solomon Smith taught for a short time before Shepard opened his work at the mission school, it was with them merely a chance to obtain employment during a period when they were not engaged at their regular occupa- tions. Shepard was a teacher by profession who came to the Oregon country for the purpose of teaching. As Oregon's first real teacher, his name should be given a highly honored place in the list of educators of the State.
The other member of the mission who gave considerable time to teaching was Philip L. Edwards, whose work some writers have confused with that of Shepard. He rendered help at the main school, and during the late fall and winter of 1835-6 taught a small school near Champoeg, 18 but most of his time was necessarily taken up with the work about the mission farm. Teaching was largely an incidental part of his work. During his short stay in the country his part was a most honorable one, his trip to California as treasurer of the Wallamet Cattle company being of itself alone no mean service to the pioneer state. He returned east in the spring of 1838 in company with Jason Lee who was going to seek reinforce- ments for his work. He studied law and later served with the military forces against the Mormons, for which service he received the title of Colonel. In 1850 he emigrated to Cali-
18 Lee & Frost, pp. 139-40. ​
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fornia where he was prominent in political life. His death occurred in 1869. 19 While not primarily a missionary, his relations with the other members of the Oregon mission were most cordial. He served splendidly the cause with which he was temporarily connected, and even sacrificed his privilege of an early return to the States, in order that one of the mem- bers, Daniel Lee, might visit the Sandwich Islands in an effort to overcome a threatening disease of the throat. His place in the educational history of early Oregon is a worthy one.
Solomon Howard Smith was another teacher who helped for a short time with the work of the Mission school. Smith had come to Oregon as a member of Captain Wyeth's first party. After teaching the school at Vancouver for a short time, he opened a little school for the French Canadian half-breed chil- dren living at French prairie, in which work he was engaged at the time the missionaries arrived to establish their station. Smith was a pioneer of the enterprising Yankee type. To teach school, open a little farm, to aid in establishing one of the first grist mills of the valley, to develop a new farm at Clatsop plains, to take the work horses that he needed on his new farm for almost a hundred miles down the Columbia River on a raft made of boards fastened between two Indian canoes, all seemed a natural part of his enterprising life. In his work of teaching at the mission he was assisted by his wife, Helen Smith, a member of the Clapsop tribe of coast Indians. She had learned to read in an elementary way, and proved to be an able assistant in teaching the Indian children. 20
This paper can not give space to the others who taught in the school from time to time, some six or more faithful teach- ers who gave their best to try and elevate the Indian youth. Nor yet can we give time for an account of the removal of the school in the year 1842 to the present site of Salem, where in what was then the most pretentious structure in the Pacific Northwest a renewed effort was made to save the native chil- dren. Many unfavorable conditions, partly of a temporary nature, made its prospects appear so unpromising that in
19 Bancroft. Oregon, Vol. I, p. 109. 20 For account of Solomon Smith sec Clarke: Vol. I, p. 343, and Vol. II, pp. ​
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June 1844 it was closed. The change occurred during a period of mission discouragement and at the time of a change in mis- sion leadership. Well for Jason Lee that he did not live to see the work nearest his heart abandoned ! Its discontinuance came during dark days, and many writers of Oregon history have failed to appreciate what was involved in this heroic under- taking. They have not applied the acid test of fair criticism to Wilkes' report on conditions at the mission, and most of them have been willing to accept the careless account of the school given by Victor-Bancroft. This is a grave injustice to a truly heroic effort upon the part of a little band of mission- aries to bring elementary and agricultural education, moral uplift, and spiritual enlightenment to the Indian youth of the Pacific Northwest.
* ↑ Lee & Frost, p. 130.
* ↑ Letter from Cyrus Shepard dated September 24, 1835, quoted by Mudge, pp. 156-7.
* ↑ Lee & Frost, pp. 132-3.