A History of Oregon, 1792-1849: Drawn From Personal Observation and Authentic InformationGray, W. H. (William Henry)
History
A History of Oregon, 1792-1849: Drawn From Personal Observation and Authentic Information
Gray, W. H. (William Henry)
Frontier and pioneer life -- Oregon; Oregon Territory -- History
On the first of June of this year, the _Lausanne_, Captain Spalding,
arrived in the Columbia River with a re-enforcement for the Methodist
Mission of eight clergymen, five laymen, and one physician, all with
wives, five single ladies, and fifteen children, belonging to the
different families, with a full supply of goods, such as were needed and
appropriate for the settlement, the various missions, and for Indian
trade. September following, Rev. Harvey Clark and wife, A. T. Smith and
wife, and P. B. Littlejohn and wife, arrived across the Rocky Mountains.
With this company came eleven mountain men, eight of them with native
wives. We now had twenty-one Protestant ministers, three Roman priests,
fifteen lay members of the Protestant Church, thirty-four white women,
thirty-five American settlers, and thirty-two white children--one
hundred and eight persons immediately under control of the missions.
Thirty-six settlers, twenty-five of them with native wives. These
thirty-six settlers are counted as outside the missions and Hudson's Bay
Company. There were about fifty Canadian-French under the control of the
company.
Thus we can begin to see the development of the three influences or
parties. The Hudson's Bay Company had in their religious element three
Romish priests, assisted actively by all the Canadian-French Catholics
and such clerks as Pambrun, Guinea, Grant, and McBean, with such
interpreters as old Toupin, of whom Mr. Parker, in his journal, says:
"The interpreter I had been expecting did not arrive, and consequently
much of what I wished to say to these hundreds of Indians could not be
communicated for want of a medium." On the preceding page, Mr. Parker
remarks: "But as I have little prospect of the arrival of my
interpreter, I shall probably be left to commiserate their anxiety,
while it will be out of my power to do them good."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account