The Methodist Church was first to take up the work of sending forth missionaries to the Oregon Indians. To Wilbur Fiske of Wesleyan University seems due the credit of the first move. He enlisted the interest of Jason Lee, a former student at Wesleyan University, but then engaged in missionary work in the province of Quebec. Lee was a tall, athletic young man, full of zeal and consecration, not polished or graceful in manner, but powerful in spirit. He grasped at once the great possibilities in the proposition of Dr. Fiske, and, going to Boston, became appointed by the New England Conference as superintendent of a mission to Oregon. Daniel Lee, Cyrus Shepard, and P. L. Edwards were named his associates. In 1834, this mission band learned that Nathaniel Wyeth, famous as a fur-trader, was expecting to cross the continent, sending his goods by the brig _May Dacre_ to the Columbia River. Such an opportunity was too favourable to be lost, and the Methodist Board at once opened negotiations with Captain Wyeth, with the result that this first missionary company to Oregon went with him and arrived safely at Vancouver on the Columbia, the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company. The _May Dacre_ reached her destination soon after, and thus Mr. Lee and his comrades found themselves at the threshold of their labours. The first intention had been to locate among the Nez Perces and Flatheads, the ones from whom the Macedonian cry had gone up. But Dr. McLoughlin, the chief factor at Vancouver, who had received them with the utmost interest and cordiality, persuaded them that the Willamette Valley would be a more promising field. Its advantages were obvious. It was directly on water navigation to the sea, and within easy distance of it. It was so near the chief entrepot of the Hudson's Bay Company as to be comparatively safe and accessible to all mails. The valley was of extraordinary scenic charm and salubrious climate. The natives, moreover, seemed more tractable and peaceful than those of the upper valley. Accordingly the Methodist brethren ascended the Willamette to a point near a group of farms which had been located by French employees of the Hudson's Bay Company on what is known now as French Prairie. One of these Frenchmen was Joseph Gervais, and from him the subsequent town of Gervais was named. The mission was located on the Willamette near Chemawa, the present site of the United States Indian School. It was ten miles north of Chemeketa, which was the great Indian Council Ground, or Peace Ground, from which fact the missionary applied to it the name of Salem,--a change of name more commendable for piety than for taste.