# The Centennial History of Oregon, 1811–1912/Volume 1/Chapter 5

CHAPTER V
1834—1845
THE ERA OF EVANGELISM—THE AGITATION OF HALL J. KELLEY—THE QUEST OF THE FLATHEADS FOR THE "BOOK OF HEAVEN"—THE COMING OF JASON LEE—THE MARCUS WHITMAN PARTY—THE CATHOLIC MISSIONARIES—DE SMET, THE GREAT APOSTLE TO THE INDIANS, ANSWERS THE CALL OF THE FLATHEADS—THE RIVALRIES AND WORKS OF THESE MEN—THEIR SERVICES TO OREGON AND THE NATION.
It is now seventy-eight years since Jason and Daniel Lee (Methodists), the first Christian missionaries to Oregon, entered the Oregon country to carry out their unselfish work of Christianizing the native Indians. The Lees were followed by Rev. Samuel Parker (Congregationalist) in 1835; by Dr. Marcus Whitman and wife, H. H. Spalding and wife, and W. H. Gray (all Presbyterians) in 1836; Rev. David Leslie and wife (Methodists) in 1837; Rev. Elkanah Walker and wife and Cushing Eells and wife (Congregationalists) in 1838; Rev. Francis Norbert Blanchet, vicar-general, and Rev. Modeste Demers (Catholic priests) in 1838; and Peter John De Smet in 1840. These were the pioneer missionaries. Others came after them. The Methodists were specially active, the Methodist general missionary board in the eastern states sending out in 1840 the ship Lausanne, with a large and well equipped force, consisting of Rev. J. H. Frost and wife; Rev. Gustavus Hines and wife; Rev. W. H. Kone and wife; Rev. A. F. Waller and wife; Rev. J. P. Richmond, M. D., and wife; Dr. T. L. Babcock, physician, and wife; George Abernethy (missionary steward 1 and wife; W. W. Raymond (farmer) and wife: L. H. Judson, cabinet maker, and wife; J. L. Parrish (blacksmith) and wife; James Olley (carpenter) and wife; Hamilton Campbell (carpenter) and wife; Miss C. A. Clark, teacher; Miss Elmira Phelps, teacher; Miss Orpha Lankton, stewardess; Miss A. Phillips, Thomas Adams, an Indian boy and seventeen little children. Along with this company of preachers, teachers, artisans and farmers were sent machinery for the erection of flouring mills, saw mills and all necessary implements for agriculture and house building in a new country, together with a large stock of miscellaneous merchandise. Of this missionary expedition the Catholic bishop of Oregon, who was here when the ship arrived, is said to have remarked: "No missionaries were ever dispatched to represent the various sects in any land under more favorable auspices than were the ladies and gentlemen of the Methodist Episcopal church in the wilds of Oregon." The total expense of the expedition cost the Methodist missionary board in New York the sum of $42,000; and the good ship sailed twenty thousand miles—nearly around the globe—to land its unexampled cargo at its appointed destination. Nothing equal to it was ever witnessed before or since in the history of missions by any church. It is a fair illustration to say that the Lausanne was to the Pacific coast in 1840 what the Mayflower was to the Atlantic coast in 1620.
​It is an interesting proposition to review the elementary facts a]id influences which set on foot and on the high seas these expeditions to Oregon in the name and for the propagation of the Christian religion. The history of the church presents many remarkable examples of the lofty self-sacrifice of great men in both the Catholic and Protestant divisions of its membership from the time of Paul, the greatest of them all, down to this expedition to the wilderness of Oregon seventy-two years ago. But with these Oregon missionary expeditions, either by land or sea, no others can be compared. Paul did not go to preach to the barbarians of Scythia; to heathen in the wilderness two thousand miles distant from the men of his own blood and education, but to men of education like himself. The Puritans did not come to America to convert the heathen, but to get away from their persecutors in another branch of the church. And they had not been in America one year until Capt. Miles Standish was purging the evil from the unappreciative red skins in a most irreverent manner. So much so that the good pastor of the flock at Leyden on hearing of the slaughter of the Indians, wrote the militant captain a letter in which he expressed the pious wish: "Oh how happy a thing had it been, had you converted some, before you killed any."
We cannot for a moment compare the trials of the Oregon missionaries with the awful persecution the Christians were subjected to in Rome when they were enslaved and cast to the lions in circus arena to make a holiday for the worse than barbarian savages; but when we consider the courage, toil, dangers and sacrifices, such heroines as the wives of Whitman, Spalding, Leslie, Walker and Eells were compelled to endure in riding horseback through an Indian country over mountains, plains and desert for two thousand miles to make their homes among savage tribes in a wilderness to teach the gospel and show the untutored heathen a better way. plant the light of Christianity on the Pacific coast, and lay the foundations for great states, when all this is taken into account, a far greater feat of sacrifice and heroism, than the Lausanne voyage—where else in all the wide world can anything equal to it be found.
It is something for an Oregonian to be proud of, especially an Oregonian who takes an interest in the history of his state, that no matter what strife and bickerings the missionaries had between Protestant and Catholic, there is no instance where either side did not as occasion offered, always act the part of the Good Samaritan to the native red man. And it is furthermore something for every citizen to remember with .just pride in his state, that in every stage and phase of its existence from the date of an organized society, Oregon has led the procession in the unique, the original and the progressive in missions, education, politics and state building.
How were these wonderful movements by land and sea to plant Christianity on the Oregon country brought about? What was the exciting cause? Why should these noble men and women, willing to sacrifice life and everything dear to mankind go to far distant Oregon:
   And pierce the Barean Wilderness
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There were two moving influences or causes which set in motion the great scheme of planting the gospel in the hearts of the Oregon Indians. The first was a purely colonizing business proposition: but it furnished the knowledge on which sentiment could found action. The second was an appeal for light which far exceeded the Macedonian cry, "Come over and help us." It caught the attention of Christian men and women as nothing had ever done before. It excited their imagination, aroused the dormant sympathies of their hearts and inspired them to the most noble deeds of self-sacrifice the world has ever beheld.
The chief character in the first of these moving influences was Hall Jackson Kelley, who was born at Orono, Maine, February 24, 1790. At the age of sixteen he left the public sehools and taught school for a time at Hallowell, Me. He attended college at Middlebury, Vermont, and was given the degree of A. M. in 1814. and by Harvard College in 1820. As early as 1817 he became interested in the Oregon country from reading of the expeditions of Lewis and Clark, Wilson Price Hunt and the founding of Astoria, and conceived the idea of himself leading a colony for the exploration and settlement of Oregon.
And so fully and completely had this idea taken possession of all his thoughts and ambition that he commenced writing and publishing letters to newspapers, circulars, pamphlets and maps about Oregon and kept up the agitation of his Oregon scheme in the New England states for sixteen years, when he started to Oregon alone. A list of all of Kelley's printed publications about Oregon would fill a page in this book. Some of the Oregon historians have been disposed to belittle Kelley 's work for Oregon; but they only expose their own want of knowledge of the subject. The following indisputable evidence copied from the history of Palmer. Mass., where Kelley is buried, establishes the claim of Hall J. Kelley to have been one of the prime movers of the missionary expeditions to Oregon.
"Boston, Januarv 30. 1843.
"In the year 1831 I was editor of Zion's Herald, a religious paper sustaining the faith of the Methodist Episcopal church. In the above year I published for Hall J. Kelley a series of letters addressed to a member of Congress, developing his plans for the settlement of the Oregon territory. At other times Mr. Kelley made appeals through our paper, with a view to excite the minds of the Christian community to the importance of founding religious institutions in that territory. He was one of the first explorers of that region. and to his zeal and efforts is largely due the establishment of missionary operations in that country.
"Wm. C. Brown."
"The welfare and improvement of the Indians of the territory (Oregon) and the introduction there of the blessings of civilization and the useful arts, with education and Christian knowledge, seemed to be his (Kelley's) leading object. Much of the early interest felt in the Oregon country by New England people was probably the result of Mr. Kelley's labors."
Here is the testimony of two men holding very important positions in the church, one the secretary of the great missionary board, and the other editor of the then leading Methodist journal of the United States, both of whom personally knew Hall Kelley, and knew his work, and both certify to his good work done three years before the first missionary started for Oregon. And yet there is not a church history or a church document that has ever been printed that had the justice to give Kelley what was due to him.
Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutored mind Sees God in Clouds, or hears him in the Wind."
General Clark himself explained to the Indian messengers the history of man-his creation, the advent of Christ, the moral precepts of the Bible, the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the doctrine of his mediatorial service. But the poor Indians could get no teachers to return with them. Two of them died and were buried in St. Louis. One of the surviving messengers is reported to having made a farewell speech to General Clark of which the following is given as a version:
"Our people sent us to get the white man's Book of Heaven. made our feet heavy with the burden of gifts, and our moccasins will grow old carrying them, but the Book is not among them. We are going back over the long, sad trail to our people. When we tell them in our great council after one more snow that we did not bring the Book, no word will be spoken by our old men, nor by our young braves. One by one they will rise up and go out in silence. Our people will die in darkness, and they will go on the long trail to other hunting grounds. to make the way plain. We have no more words farewell."
This speech of the unlettered Indian caught the attention of the United States and stirred the hearts of Christian men as nothing else had ever before. On March 22, 1833, Wilbur Fisk, president of the Wesleyan University. published in the Methodist church paper an address from which the following extract is You have No white man will go with them, and no Book of Heaven taken:
"The appeal of the Flathead Indians to General Clark has excited intense interest. We are for having a mission established among them at once. Let two suitable men possessing the spirit of martyrs, throw themselves into that nation, live with them, learn their language. preach Christ to them and as the way opens, introduce schools. agriculture and the arts of civilized life. Money shall be forthcoming. I will be bondsman for the church. All we want is the men. Who will go?"
From that Indian address, and from the appeal of Dr. Fisk, interest and action was aroused far and wide. Meetings were held everywhere through New York and New England by the Methodists. Congregationalists and Presbyterians. and organizations formed to raise money and equip missionaries: and from that beginning the missionaries were sent to far distant Oregon. The information about Oregon dinned into the ears of the Christian community by Hall Kelley for years had laid the foundation for thoughtful men to act upon; and the appeal of the benighted Indian furnished the impulse, aroused men to action and fired the train.
Not all the missionaries came to Oregon from this cause. Blanchet and Demers came in answer to a petition from the Catholic employees of the Hudson ​Bay Company in Oregon. They did not come specially to teach or preach to Indians; but they did both teaching and preaching to the natives as occasion offered, with great success, and baptized large numbers into the Catholic church. The ceremonials, vestments and ordinances of the Catholic services appealed to the eye and imagination of the Indian far more effectively than the plain preaching and singing of the Protestant ministers.
The work of Father De Smet among the Oregon Indians is entitled to be specially mentioned. He did not even come to the Oregon country' through any connection with the church or Catholic teachers in Oregon. Whatever influences operated to bring De Smet into the Oregon country were such as were set in motion by the Iroquois Indians. These Indians were the most intelligent of their race. They were great travelers; most of the men could speak the French language, and in this way they were able to make their way easily enough from tribe to tribe from the St. Lawrence entirely across the continent wherever they could find French trappers or Indians friendly to such trappers. During the Revolutionary war, the entire tribe to about ten thousand warriors fought with the British, for the British, and were whipped and overthrown as an organized tribe when the British were driven out of the American colonies. On this account they inherited and maintained a hostile disposition to all American people. There were a large number of these roving Iroquois in Oregon at the time the Protestant missionaries came here, most of them in the employ of the Hudson's Bay Company as trappers or fighters of the native Indians. One of them by the name of Oskononton, while in the employ of the company on the Cowlitz, got into trouble for some outrage on a Cowlitz woman, and was killed by her friends. His boon companions reporting this to Fort George as an unprovoked murder, Peter Skene Ogden was sent out with thirty Iroquois to investigate the trouble, and on arriving at the Cowlitz camp the Iroquois mercenaries opened fire on the Cowlitz Indians without orders from Ogden, and twelve innocent men, women and children were wantonly murdered in cold blood. Other instances of the cruel, reckless and worthless character of these Iroquois could be given in Oregon history. And when they went hunting religious teachers as they did for a tribe they did not belong to and had no right to represent, they were only carrying out their character as busy-bodies; and went to St. Louis because they knew of the existence of French priests at that place with whom they could readily explain the object of their visit. They knew all about the "Black Robes" from the St. Lawrence to Oregon, and could on occasion preach and pray, and like the devil "cite Scripture for his purpose." The Iroquois were troublemakers wherever they went; and there is nd doubt that it was these old-time enemies of the Americans, to gratify their ancient grudge, fomented and incited the bloody conspiracy that ended in the murder of Dr. Whitman and all the other victims of the Whitman massacre.
them escorted back to tlirir dwii cuuiitrN inrrj;iiii. lie was received l)y the Fiatiicads with jicniiinc rririidsliip. hearty gocni I'rrlin^-, it not great rejoicing; and within two weeks t'linii his advent among Ihnii, it tiie account of his work is Id he rrcilitt'd, he had taii^'ht two thousand Indians some of tin; ])rayers of tlie Church, and achiiilled six hundred to the riti' ol' hajitism. Vvoui the Flatlieads l)e Sinel went to the Coeur .CAhMies. the I'end d'Oreiiles. tile Kalispclls, the Kootenais, an<l tiie Colvides. With all these trihes l)e Siiu't had wonderful success in securing their conlitlenee and nominal acceptance of Christianity. Ilis converts numliered many thousands, aud his influence over them for mauy years was the wonder and admiration of all good citizens. Twenty years ago the autlioi- of this hook met a numher of aged Indians on the Kootenai river in Idaho who were proutl to rel'er to their hai)tisin l>y l-^ithei- De Smet and spoke of him in the most affectionate terms.
Returning now to the work of sending missionaries ovcrlaml to Oregon, it is seen that as a consequence ol' all this agitation, the Missionary Board of the Methodist lOpiscopa! church was imi)ortuned to establish a mission among the Fhithead Indians at once. A call was issued for volunteer missionaries for this work in distant Oregon. In answer to that call. Jason Lee, formerly of Stan- stead, (anada. and his ne|iliew, Daniel Lee, appeared and oft'ered themselves for this work, dason Lee had formerly been engaged in this line of work in the Rritisli i)i'ovinces. He had all the qualifications for the labors, trials and dan- cers for such ;i field of missionary effort. In fact, no man could have been found probably who was as well j)repared for such a trying and responsible trust. Lee was accepted l).v the Methodist board and later on made a member of the con- ference in 1838. He was now thirty years of age, tall, powerfully built, rather slow and awkward in his movements, prominent nose, strong jaws, pure blue eyes, with a vast store of reliable common sense. Such was the fii'st man sent out to old Oregon to preach the gospel to the heathen.
By October 10, 1833, three thousand dollars had been provided for an outfit, and in March, 1834, Lee left New York for the west, lecturing on his way, and taking with him his nephew, Daniel, together with two laymen, Cyrus Shepard, I if Lynn. Mass., and Philip L. Edwards, and adding Courtney M. Walker, of Richmond. Mo. At Independence, Mo., the missionary party fell in with Nathaniel J. Wyeth, then starting on his second trading expedition to' the Columbia rivei', and were afterwards joined by the fur trader, Sublette, going to Cali- fornia, and his party; and as they filed out westward on the 28th day of April, 1834, the party numbered all told seventy men and two hundred and fifty horses. Such was the first missionary expedition to old Oregon.
The missionar.v party reached old Fort Hall, which was .some forty miles north of the present town of Pocatello, Idaho, on the 26th da.y of July, and held there the ni'xt day, lieing Sunday, the first public service of the Protestant churelies ever held west of the state of ^Missouri and Missouri river. Jason Lee conducted this service and preached to a congregation made up of Wyeth's men, Hudson Bay fur hunters, half breeds and Indians, all of whom conducted them- sehcs in a most respectful and devotional manner. It was a wonderful sight, a graiul and solemn sight; the rough and reckless children of the forest, of vari- ois tongues and customs, gathered from the four quarters of the globe, a thou​thousand miles distant from any civilized habitation, in the heart of the great American wilderness, listening to the message of Christ from this young man, and reverentially bowing their heads in prayer to the Almighty Maker and Preserver of all men and things.
From Fort Hall (then only in process of construction by Capt. Wyeth) the party proceeded on to the Columbia river, being assisted by the Indians sent along with them by Thomas McKay, a fur trading captain in the employ of the Hudson 's Bay Company. On coming down the river in boats and canoes, most of which were wrecked, the missionary party lost nearly all of their personal effects. Rev. Lee reached Fort Vancouver in September in a bedraggled condition, and was very kindly received by Chief Factor McLoughlin, who promptly supplied all his personal wants. The Lees had carefully noted all the conditions of the upper Columbia river country as they passed through it, and having heard much of the beauty of the Willamette valley, came on west to see it as probably the best location for a mission. After resting a few days with Dr. McLoughlin, the mission party proceeded down the river in boats furnished by McLoughlin to the ship May Dacre, which had arrived from New York with the household goods of the party, and was then tied up at the bank of Sauvie's island (then called Wappato island), about twelve miles below the city of Portland. From Wappato island, and with horses and men to assist them, the Lees proceeded to hunt a location in the Willamette valley, and taking the trail made by the fur hunters, crossed the hills back of the city of Portland, into what is now Washington county, passing out into Tualatin plains by the point where Hillsboro is now located, and on by where the town of Cornelius is located, crossing over the Tualatin river at Rocky Point where the first flouring mill in Washington county was constructed; from thence ascending the northwest end of the Chehalem mountain ridge and following the ridge five miles eastwardly, they found themselves on Bald Peak from which point they could see the great Willamette valley spread out before them for sixty miles south. Oregon was then all a wild wilderness country. Elk and deer were everywhere as tame almost as sheep.
JASON LEE PREACHING TO INDIANS, AND TRADERS BUYING THEIR FURS ON WILLAMETTE, 1834
moved wholly by sentimental consideration he would have gone to the Flatheads. But while Jason Lee was first, last, and all the tiin.' an evangelist and servant of his God, he was at the same time eminently a man ol safe practical common sense. With nothing but his own light and resources to guide him. he must shoulder all the responsibility of his position, and take that course which would secure success in this great experiment, or be blamed for a failure. He had noted care- lully the conditions of an experiment with the Flatheads. si.x hundred miles from .sea coast transportation, surrounded by unfriendly Indians, aud exhausted by <'ontinuous wars with vengeful Blaekfeet. The outlook was not inviting. And the very fact that he had become the friend of the Flatheads, if he had decided 1o locate there, would have aroused the enmity of the Blaekfeet and other tribes, and not only cut off from him the friendship and access to other tribes, but might have resulted in the destruction of himself, supporters and innocent victims he had sought to help. More than that, the Willamette was the wider field, with the greater outlook to the future. Lee saw, then, as we see now, that the Willamette valley was more important to the future than all the valleys of the Rocky moun- tains. His decision was based upon practical common sense, and the great in- terests he had come to serve, and has been a thousand times over vindicated by the development of the country, and by the vast results of his work. Let us now look in on this young missionary to the Oregon Indians as he builds his first log cabin, three thousand miles distant from the comfortable and luxuri- ous homes of the people who sent him out here from the state of New York. As he stood there on the virgin prairie alongside the beautiful Willamette the hills, the waving grass, and silent woods, with native men, all innocent of the great work of civilization ahead, he was facing the great responsibility, and he must commence his work with the humblest means. Before a sheltering house could be raised, he must sharpen his axes, his saws, and break his half wild oxen to the services of the yoke and the discipline of a driver. Napoleon might easily win the greatest battles, but he would have failed utterly to make a wild ox pull in a yoke, as Jason Lee did. But the great work had to be done ; and these men reso- lutely went at it and built a house in thirty days from the standing trees. Logs were cut, squared and laid up, a puncheon floor from split logs put in, doors were hewn from fir logs, and hung on wooden hinges, window sashes whittled out of split pieces with a pocket knife, a chimney built of sticks, claj'^ and wild grass mixed ; two rooms, four little windows, and tables, stools and chairs added little by little from the work of patient hands. And thus was started the first Christian mission west of the Rocky Mountains. While the jMethodists were first in the Oregon missionary field, the officers of the American Board were not idle spectators of the movement. On the con- trary, they were deeply moved by the stoiy of the four Flatheads; but having no funds in hand at the time to send out any number of missionaries, and in order to proceed wisely, they decided to send two men to "spy out the land." Accordingly Rev. Samuel Parker, of Ithaca, N. Y., fifty-six years old, formerly a pastor in Congregational churches, of that State and Massachusetts, the latter of which was his native state, and Marcus Whitman, M. D., a native of Rush- ville. N. Y., thirty-three years old, a graduate of the Berkshire Jledical School at Pittsfield, Mass., were chosen. The object of the Board in appointing them ​was "to ascertain by personal observation the condition of the country, the character of the Indian nations and tribes, and the facilities for introducing the gospel and civilization among them." Parker proposed to go to Oregon in 1834 and left Ithaca in May. On arriving at St. Louis he found that he was too late to join the annual caravan of fur traders, hence he returned home and spent the remainder of the year in going through the country and arousing increased interest in the proposed enterprise. He finally started on March 14, 1835, and arrived at St. Louis on April 4th, and found Dr. Whitman already there. They proceeded at once by steamboat from St. Louis to Liberty which was then the frontier town of Missouri from which the Rocky mountain fur trading expeditions then started. The caravan made up of the trappers and hangers-on of Fontenelle, the captain, and capitalist of the expedition, got off on the 15th of May, and reached Laramie in the Black Hills on the 1st of August.
And here at Laramie, Dr. Whitman, made a showing of the reserve force and ready ability which great exigencies might bring out. Hearing that he was a doctor and near to a man of God, both natives and trappers flocked to see him and secure his favor and services. From the back of Captain Jim Bridger. who afterward discovered Salt Lake, and built Fort Bridger, Dr. Whitman cut out an iron arrow head three inches in length which a Blackfeet Indian had planted there; and from the shoulder of another hunter he extracted an arrow imbedded in the flesh which the man had carried there for two years. This exhibition of his skill excited the wonder of the Flatheads and Nez Perces gathered there. and all joined in clamorous pleadings that Whitman or other men like him be sent to their tribes to teach and preach.
At this juncture of affairs, it appears that there must have been some sort of friction between the Rev. Parker and the successful Doctor. For without any very good reason ever given to the public. Dr. Whitman left the missionary party and returned to the States for the purpose of obtaining other assistants and joining the overland train of fur traders in the spring of 1836. Mr. Gray in his history of Oregon (p. 108) states the reason for Whitman leaving Parker and returning to the states (to be) the fact that Parker could not abide the frontier ways and manners of Whitman who evidently believed in "doing in Rome as the Romans did;" while Rev. Parker carried the etiquette of his cultured home town to the rough ways of the Rocky mountaineers. And as Gray is something of a partisan for Whitman, there is doubtless a foundation for this explanation; that Whitman went back to New York to get rid of Parker and make a new start with more congenial associates.
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Whitman settled and iiii|>i-o\cd ; ami w liiTe lie lost his life and sacrificed liis nolile wife. Parker was in many i-espeets a level headed, sensible man. I>nt he like all the rest ei-red in their judgment of fhi' Indian ehaiMcler. I'ai'ker siniimed up his ol)Servatit)ns, declaring that the "■ unaliuseil. inicontaminated Indians wnuld not sufTer hy comparison with any other natiim that could he named, and that the only material difference hetween man and man, was that prciducrd hy the knowledge and i)ractice of the Christian religion." Ihit he thought there was a great differ- ence hetween the Indians along the Coluirdjia river, and those inhabiting the Rocky .Mountains. The former would load their visitors with presents, while the latter ivouhl beg the shirt otf a man's back. Parker returned to the states by sea voyage by the way of the Sandwich Islands, reaching Ithaca, New York, May 2:^, 18:37, ha\iug traveh^d twenty-eight thousand miles.
We let urn now to Dr. Whitman. His separation from Parker and return to the states must not only be explained to the satisfaction of the American board, but he must vindicate his course to his friends and maintain a reputation hy re- newed zeal and energ.v in the cause in which he had enlisted. And so we find him organizing forces to establish two missions beyond the Rocky Mountains; one among the long neglected Platheads who were the prime movers of the whole missionary movement to Oregon, and one to the Nez Perces, who it seems, were in all the investigations found to be a very interesting people for a missionary field. And the more effectually to arouse interest in the Indians, Whitman resorted to the expedients of Columbus and Pizarro, and carried back from the mountains two likely Indian boys to show the conservative American Missionary Board the inviting material he would haTe to begin work upon. And with what he had seen, and from common sense suggestions, he decided that it was families he must take to Oregon, and not single men; if he was to make a success of his missions. And so he set the example by taking a good woman for a wife, to accompany him to the wilderness, the fateful fortune as it turned out to be, fell to the lot of ^liss Xarcis.sa Prentiss, of Prattsburg, New York, whom he married in February, 1836. .Mrs. Whitman is described as a person of good figure, pleasant voice, blue eyes, and unusuall.v attractive in person, and manner, well educated and refined. Having .secured one attractive and engaging woman for the ]Mission to the wilderness, it was easier to secure another, and so Dr. Whitman speedil.v enlisted the Rev. II. II. Spalding, a .voung Presbyterian minister, who had then recentl.v married Mi.ss Eliza Hart, a farmer's daughter of Oneida County, New York. Jlrs. Spalding had accomplishments, too, if not so well educated, she could be emineutl.v useful as it was: for she had been taught to spin, weave cloth, make up clothing as well as an accomplished cook and housekeeper. Both of these ladies might have stood for models for all that was noble, good and of good report in any community, and were thoroughly imbued with that spirit of self-sacrifice which must come to any person who undertakes to teach and serve the ignorant anil benighted natives of any race. Spalding, the man and preacher, hesitated to connnit himself to the dangerous ent(>rprise, pleading the delicate health of his wife; but the wife, the greater hero of the twain, asked only for twenty-four hours of prayerful con- sideration, and then w^eut into the expedition with all her heart, without even leturning from Ohio to see her parents. To this party, Whitman, was able to eidist the services of William H. Gra.y of Utica, New York, a bright, active, ener​
getic young man of some education, and large natural abilities with great courage and forceful purposes in life. Mr. Gray wrote a history of Oregon after he had spent most of his life out here that must not be overlooked bj^ any student who wants to know the whole history of the prominent actors in the Northwest.
Dr. Whitman was furnished by the Missionarj^ Board with necessary tools, im- plements, seeds, grains, and clothing for two years. At Liberty, Missouri, he bought teams, wagons, some pack animals, riding horses and sixteen milk cows, and these were all under the charge of Gray, and the two Indian boys who were now goii:g back to their homes with AVhitman. By hard work and energetic push- ing the party got across the Missouri, and out on the plains in time to join the party of one Fitzpatrick for company and mutual protection.
Here then was the first attempt of white women to cross the gi-eat American desert, as the plains of Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming were then called; and sealed the Rocky mountains and penetrate the wilderness of old Oregon. It was, indeed, on the part of these two women an act of the greatest heroism, requiring more than ordinary courage and self-sacrifice. While thousands of women and children followed after them, it was these two women who pointed the way, set the pace, and showed the world that women could accomplish the great and haz- ardous trip. Presbj'terian writers and historians have seized upon these facts to show that these two young Presbyterian women from the state of New York, were the real pioneers of civilization in old Oregon ; and well they might so claim, for it may be set down as a fact that no country is ever civilized until it has re- ceived the humanizing touch and gracious benediction of the love and self-sacrifice of consecrated women.
Other men and their wives braved the terrors of the wilderness, the plains, mountains and Indians, and came to Oregon, to teach and uplift the Indian. Rev. H. H. Spalding and wife, together with Wm. H. Gray of Utica, New York, accom- panied Dr. Whitman and wife in 1836 ; Mrs. Whitman and Mrs. Spalding being the first American white women to cross the Continent to Oregon. (The first white woman to cross the Continent to Oregon was Eloisa McLoughlin, the daugh- ter of Dr. John McLoughlin, who was born at Fort William at the North end of Lake Superior, February 13, 1817, and came with her father to Oregon in 1824.) Rev. Elkanah Walker and wife, and the Rev. Gushing Eells and wife (Congre- gationalists) came out in 1838, and started a mission on the Spokane river or a branch thereof. Rev. John Smith Griffin and wife (Congregationalists) came out in 1839. Mr. Griffin made two unsuccessful attempts to establish a mission among the Snake Indians in Idaho, and then settled on the Tualatin Plains of Washington county, where Mrs. Griffin, the first white woman in the county, taught the first Indian school west of the Willamette river. Dr. Wm. Geiger, came out as a missionary in 1839 to teach the Indians, took charge of Dr. Whit- man's mission while Whitman made his memorable trip back to the States on horseback in the winter of 1842. Rev. Harvey Clarke and wife, Congregation- alists, came out as independent missionaries in 1840, taught school one year at the Methodist mission on French Prairie, then moved to Washington County, continued teaching as Independents, took up land and settled at Forest Grove. Mr. Clarke gave many years service to the building of Pacific University. The only ones of these families having children yet living is Rev. Walker, one of whose
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THE CENTENNIAL III8T0KV!•'RK(J.\ Il>:,
boru west of the Koeky Mountains, and now Grand (chaplain to llie >State Grange of Oregon. Another son is a missionary stationed in Cliiua. Dr. Geiger left a son now a jiraetieing physician in Forest Grove. Mr. Gray left a forceful family of children. One son was county jvidge of Clatsop county for many years. An- other son is prondnent in business and has had large transportation interests on the upper CoUunbia; while IVFrs. Jacob Kamm of Portland, Oregon, is known far and wide for her support of charitable and religious work both in and outside of the Presbytci-ian church.
It is not within the purview of this history, or the object of this chapter to follow out the movements and settlements of this little party of devoted mission- aries. It is enough to our purpose to say, that after a long toilsome and tedious journey, full of dangers and trials of every description, they reached their prom- ised land, that they founded a nnssiou at Wai-il-at-pu, near the city of Walla Walla, where Whitman college is now located, that they labored and toiled, taught and prayed for the Indians, as no others had ever done, before or since, and that they were rewarded in the end by the base treachery of those they sought to save and bless, and finally murdered by the infiiriated savages they had fed, clothed and taught the lessons of love and affection of the founder of Christianity. We give this picture of these devoted men and women to show by contrast and example, the characters of these teachers and the native inborn weakness and barbarism of those they sought to lift up in the human scale. We will let the characters of Lee and Whitman stand as substantial representatives of the whole Protestant mis- sionary effort to the Indians of this couutry ; and from their experience and good or ill success draw what conclusions seem to be reasonable as to the real char- acter of these Oregon Indians. And to throw fui-ther light upon the picture, and enable the reader to more perfectly understand the Indian character, we will give the experience of the Catholic Priest and missionaries in dealing with and teaching these same Indians, although they may have labored with other and different tribes.
The first efforts to introduce the services of the Catholic religion into the legions of old Oregon, were put forth by the French Canadians of the Wil- lamette Valley in July, 1834, just about the time Jason Lee was holding the first Protestant church services in the territory of old Oregon, at old Fort Hall. There is no evidence of any relation between these two competing, if not op- posing, religious movements. Nobody in all the Oregon region, so far as the his- torical record shows, knew that Jason Lee was on his way out here to preach the gospel and organize Protestant Episcopal institutions. The movement of the French Canadians seems to have been purely local, and originated from the natural desire of those people to have once more the religious services of the church in which they were born and reared in at distant Montreal. These Canadians at that time, sent a request to J. N. Provencher, Catholic Bishop of the Red River settlements, asking that leligious teachers be sent to Oregon. The arrival of Lee a few months afterward increased the anxiety of these faithful Catholics, and in February, 1835, a second letter was dis- patched to Bishop Provencher for religious instructors. To these letters, Pro- vencher replied sending the reply to Chief Factor McLoughlin. regretting that no priests could at that time be spared from the work in the east, but that an effort would be made to secure priests from Europe. And as early as the matter ​could be brought about, the Hudson's Bay Company was asked for passage for two Catholic priests from Montreal to Oregon. To this mission, the Archbishop of Quebec appointed Rev. Francis Norbet Blanchet, whose portrait appears on another page, and gave him as an assistant. Rev. Modeste Demers, from the Red River settlement. The trip to Oregon was uneventful, until the party reached the Little Falls of the Columbia, where in descending the rapids, one of the boats was wrecked and nearly half the company drowned. The priests were received at Fort Colville with the same friendliness as had greeted the Protestant missionaries in eastern Oregon; and during a stay of four days, nineteen natives were baptized, mass was said and much interest taken in the services. The appearance of the priests in their dark robes, the mythical signs of reverence, and unconcern for secular affairs, undoubtedly impressed the savages. Blanchet summed up his labors for the winter of 1838-9, at one hundred and thirty-four baptisms, nine funerals, and fort.y-nine marriages. He not only married the unmarried Indians, but he re-married those that the Protestant ministers had united, to the great disgust of the Methodists and withdrew many from the temperance society and prayer meetings, organized by the Methodists—and right there the religious war commenced. During the year 1840, the rivalry between the Catholics and Methodists was pushed with bitterness on both sides.
Here now is the proposition. What permanent good did these men accomplish for the Indian? Two Protestants—Jason Lee and Marcus Whitman, and two Catholics, Francis N. Blanchet and Peter John De Smet. They each gave the entire influence of their respective creeds and churches. And each and all of them, were singularly and remarkably well qualified for the work they had undertaken; and each man, put his whole soul, mind and body into the work he had freely devoted his life to serve. And what effect has it had upon the mind and condition of the Indian? The Indian is here yet subsisting partly upon the bounty of the government, and partly by the shiftless, precarious labor of his hands. One in a hundred rises above his fellows in mental, moral and financial acquirements. But the general average of listless inactivity of mind and body is about the same. Religious teaching is still patiently pressed upon the Indian; but with the exception of Father Wilbur's work among the Yakimas, the results are insignificant. And yet very much the same might be said of religious teaching among the whites. But what has been the uplift to the Indian? We are presenting a question of evolution. This book is presenting that question in various ways.
When the missionaries came to Oregon, the Indian that could,
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the country, seized his lands and drove away the wihl animals that had fur- nished him food and raiment. He had gained a little knowledge, but had lost his freedom in the forest and his home on the eartii the (ireat Spii-it hail ■iiven him in common with all his children.
The reasoning power of the Indian was limited to what he saw or felt. The novelty of the sacred rites and mystical signs, the connnands of virtue and the teachings of the missionaries were good enough as long as there were no more white men coming ; no fears of being driven from the land, and no fears but that they would possess the country in the future as their fathers had' in the past. They had learned from the Iroquois and the Blackfeet how the white men had swarmed into the Mississippi river valley, and driven the Indians back from the beautiful Ohio and the rich lands of Illinois. And it took no reasoning power to satisfy them that if the white man was not stopped from coming over the moun- tains to Oregon, they, too, must give up their lands and homes, or die. They appealed directly to Whitman and other Protestant missionaries to stop the white man from coming, and were told that more and more white men would come with their wives and children, cattle and horses. They saw that the priests did not bring men to take up more farms, and for that reason were more friendly to the ("atholics. They had held their councils, and resolved to kill all the whites and drive back the human tide. And if they had possessed a leader like Pontiac or Teeumseh, or like Joseph who arose as a great leader after the country was settled, they could have exterminated the white settlers. and would have done so as mercilessly as they massaci-ed Whitman and his family.
And when they resolved to tight the white man they thi-ew away his ve- ligion, and all his teachings of morality. And now, today, seventy years after the great Indian revivals wTOUght by De Smet, there are fewer professed Christians among the Indians of old Oregon than ever before. But by com- parison with the white man this is not much to the discredit of the Indian. The number of professing Christians among the white people of Oregon todaj' are much less in proportion to population than seventy years ago. This was prac- tically a prohibition connnunity seventy years ago, but now Oregon has eighteen liundred retail licjuor shops, spends thousands of dollars on prize tights, and kills a man every few days with automobiles.
The substantial uplift of any community is a slow and tedious work; and of a race a still slower and more tedious task — a work of evolution in which a thousand seen and unseen elements of change must take part. The factors undermining the strength of the men, community or race, are innate and al- ways at work ; while the forces that demoralize, or openly oppose the develop- ment of man's faculties and the uplift of the social fabric, are always present in some form ready to be set in motion. The Rev. Elkanah Walker, who was one of the first Protestant missionaries among the Oregon Indians, and who faithfully labored for their improvement for many years, in the last sermon he preached in his life, in the little Union church at the towii of Gaston, dis- cussed this matter from his experience with both the white and red men ; and summed iip the whole matter in this sententious sentence: "It takes a very, very long time to make a white man out of an Indian, hut the descent of the white man into an Indian is short and s ​wift. ' '
In all the contentions between Protestants and Catholics in this Indian country, and between the partisans of American Colonization and the occu- pancy of the Hudson Bay Company, the Whitman massacre has ever been a subject of most bitter crimination. And no person of humane feeling can read the record of the horrible butchery of Whitman and his wife, children and others killed, without being -^^Tought up to an intense bitterness, not only against the savages, but against the white men who may have known of the possibility of murder, and took no step to prevent it. It seems clear that the chiefs of the Hudson's Bay Company did warn Whitman of his danger at the distant and unprotected station. Whitman was himself recklessly careless of the safety of himself and family. The Indians were permitted free access to all his prem- ises, and no preparation for protection or defense from harm was provided. The Hudson's Bay people did not trust the Indians. Thej^ had substantial bar- ricades and stockade forts well supplied with arms for defense; and at all times required the Indians to remain on the outside of protective defenses. McLoughlin never forgot the native ferocity of the savage when aroused. To the careless observer the Indians about the trading stations and missionary stations were peaceful and harmless; yet behind all this was the racial instinct of the savage, developed by ages of contention with wild beasts in the contest for existence. And with the first blow of the tomahawk on the head of the un- suspecting victim — Marcus Whitman — and the sight of blood, the savage gave tongue to demoniac yells that harked back a hundred thousand years when the naked savage man fought with clubs, the savage beast.
We here finally reach our bearings in the quest for the rightful ownership of the wilderness of Oregon. Whether it suits our wishes or our preconceived views or not, we are compelled to face the proposition that the white man, black man, red man and yellow man are all on this globe on equal land tenures. That they have all sprung from a single original pair and though now found in divers races, they have fought for and conquered their positions on the face of the globe, not only in competition Avith wild beasts, but also wild men. That this tremendous evolutionary program, so far as it has related to the posses- sion of land on which to live and grow, has never been settled in any other way than
"The good old rule, the simple plan,
That they should take who have the power,
And the}' should keep, who can. ' '
The coming of the white man was inevitable, and the subjection of the Indian equally so. Our pioneers but followed nature's impulse justified by the entire historj- of mankind. And if the inspiration of a higher humanity, and the precepts of Christianity can be used to enforce justice and inculcate charity to the poor benighted children of the forests that we fovmd in the possession of this beautiful land, it is our bounden duty to see that while we enjoy all the beauty and glory of these grand rivers and gorgeous mountains that the remnant of the native race be made as comfortable and enlightened as their mental and moral development will permit.
It would be a useless and unprofitable task to go into the rivalries and con​
THE CENTENNIAL IlISTOKV OK OKEGON 129
tentions that arose out of the Whitman massacre and the management of the Indians. It would have been far better for the Indians, and for the white peo- ple, and the cause for which both Protestants and Catholics claimed they were the champions, to have left the Indians wholly to one sect or the other.
But the evil that was wrought has long since passed, leaving nothing but the lesson that peace and harmony is more profitable than contention and discord. The cause of Christianity was not promoted. What services then, if any, can be discovered outside the cause of religion which these .sectarians may have rendered the country? Before the Protestant missionaries came, the white population was practically all males, and almost wholly subjects of Great Britain, and members of the Catholic church. If any action or influence was to be expected or might be exerted, it would have been in favor of delivering Oregon to the British monarchy. The record is made up, and there can be no successful denial of this proposition. What then were American citizens, if they were even men of God and disposed to peace, to do 1 It did not take Jason Lee long to decide. Although born in Canada under the British flag, he was United States American to the core. Marcus Whitman, born in the United States, was first of all things in his character as a citizen, a champion of Amer- ican ideas and laws. And the same was to be said of Gray, Griffin, Walker, Eells and all the i-est of the American missionaries. Were they to keep silence on political rights for fear public speech might offend Briton or Catholic? Self preservation being the iirst law of nature, they must act; and they did act.
The great fur company had an eye single to the coining of profits out of the skins of wild animals. Its interest was first to hold Oregon as a game preserve for the pelts it might produce. But if civil government must come, then let it be the government that gave the country over to the Fur Company, and the great monopoly would still control the country. To make good this scheme sub- jects of Great Britain alone must be encouraged to come to Oregon; and they must be such as would take orders from the Catholic Vicar General. Protestant Episcopal priests from England would not do, although their salaries were pro- vided by law, because they could not receive the confession of the Roman Catholic French trappers of the Hudson's Bay Company, and could not control such employees in any political movement instigated by the Protestant preach- ers. The line of cleavage was plainly discernible when the American indepeml- ent trappers and employees of the Protestant missions sought to unitr with themselves the Catholic Frenchmen on French Prairie, in a movement for civil government to protect life and property. Under the lead of the Vicar General, the H. B. Co., and every member of the Catholic church but two op- posed any organization whatever, and put their protest on record. And while waiting patiently for two years to persuade the Catholics to join in an organi- zation to protect the rights of all persons without distinction of creed or na- tionality, Jason Lee, Marcus W^hitman and their co-laborers, worked with might and main to bring the government of the United States to support and defend the infant colony. Letters, petitions and memorials were sent to Con- gress and Cabinet, and eastern journals were plied with facts and arguments to save Oregon. Jason Lee went in person ; and Marcus Whitman took his life in his hands and made a mid-winter ride across the continent to foresta ​ll the
action of a timid, if not cowardly, secretary of state in a possible agreement to give up all of Oregon north of the Columbia river. While there is no direct or record proof of this statement, the whole history of the diplomacy with Eng- land about Oregon during the Harrison-Tyler and Polk administrations, goes to show that the weakness and imbecility of our foreign policy was held back from giving Oregon away only by the appeals from Oregon and the threaten- ing speeches of Senators Benton and Linn in Congress. These appeals from Oregon were mainly from the Protestant missionaries, and in the main drafted and forwarded by them. But these brave men did not stop -v^dth appeals on paper. On October 3, 1842, accompanied only by A. L. Lovejoy, Marcus Whit- man bid good bye to his wife and all he held dear in life and made the most wonderful trip on record — a two thousand mile dash across the continent in the winter season, over trails traveled only by wild Indians on horseback, picking up food for horse and man as occasion offered in a wilderness, covered up and snowed in by storms for weeks, fording mountain torrents in icy water, and breaking ice, and ianally -wdnning the goal of his endeavors and rushing on to Washington city before congress could adjourn in 1843.
And what for?
There is nothing in all history so dramatic and forceful as this four months' winter storm ride of Marcus Whitman. And at the very time he was risking his life, his everything for Oregon, Daniel Webster, Secretary of State of President Tyler's administration, was writing to the American minister in London, that the Columbia river at its mouth was not navigable for nine months in the year, and that there were not more than seven hundred white people in the whole of the country, and that it had been suggested, "That the lime of boundary might begin at the sea, or the entrance of the straits of San Juan De Puca, follow up these straits, give us a harbor at the southwest corner of these inland waters and then continue south, striking the (Columbia) river below Vancouver, and then following the river to its intersection with the forty-ninth degree of latitude North."
What was that but giving up the Puget Sound and all of the State of Wash- ington except a narrow strip along the coast, and a triangle adjoining Idaho.
What influence Whitman exerted or representation he made to the Presi- dent or his Secretary was not known. He was not a boaster. It was not a mat- ter to be given to the press after the style of the modern politician. It is suffi- cient to say that Daniel Webster's map of Oregon was not adopted. And Jason Lee was as active, and as faithful in his labors to save Oregon as was Whitman. And in the historical light of that great contest for the possession of this country, the services of these two Protestant missionaries rise to the dignity of a great service to humanity and to their country.