At that time the Skokomish Agency was assigned to the American Missionary Association, a society supported by the Congregationalists. In 1871 they nominated Mr. Edwin Eells as agent for this place, who was confirmed by the Senate, and in May of that year he took charge of these Indians. Mr. Eells was the oldest son of Rev. C. Eells, D.D., who came to the coast in 1838 as a missionary to the Spokane Indians, where he remained about ten years, until the Whitman Massacre and Cayuse War rendered it unsafe for him to remain there any longer. The agent was born among these Indians in July, 1841. Like most young men on this coast, he had been engaged in various callings. He had been a farmer, school-teacher, clerk in a store, teamster, had served as enrolling officer for government at Walla-Walla during the war, and had studied law. At the age of fifteen he had united with a Congregational church, and had maintained a consistent Christian character. All of these things proved to be of good service to him in his new position, where education, farm-work, purchase of goods, law business, intercourse with government, the ideas which he had received from his parents about the Indians and Christianity, were all needed. In 1871, soon after he assumed his new duties, he began a Sabbath-school and prayer-meeting. He selected Christian men as employees. These consisted of a physician, school-teacher, and matron, carpenter, farmer, and blacksmith. He also selected men with families as being those who would be likely to have the best influence on the Indians. In 1872 Rev. J. Casto, M.D., was engaged as government physician, and Rev. C. Eells, the father of the agent, went to live with his son, and both during the winter preached at the agency and in the camps of the Indians. During 1874 a council-house was built, with the consent of government, at a money-cost to the government of five hundred dollars--besides the work which was done by the government carpenter. This has since been used as a church, and sometimes as a school-house. During that spring it was thought best to organize a church, for although at first it would be composed chiefly of whites, yet it was hoped that it would have a salutary influence on the Indians, and be a nucleus around which some of the Indians would gather. This was done June 23, 1874, the day after the writer arrived at the place. It was organized with eleven members, ten of whom were whites, and one, John F. Palmer, was an Indian. He was at that time government interpreter. The sermon was by Rev. G. H. Atkinson, D.D., of Portland, superintendent of Home Missions for Oregon and Washington, and one of the vice-presidents of the American Missionary Association; the prayer of consecration by Rev. E. Walker, who had been the missionary associate of Rev. C. Eells during his work among the Spokane Indians; the right hand of fellowship by Rev. A. H. Bradford, a visitor on this coast from Montclair, New Jersey; and the charge to the