Page:A History of the Pacific Northwest.djvu/149



I18 A History of the Pacific Northwest

not the only settlers in the Willamette valley. On arriving there they found about a dozen white men already occupying little farms, scattered along the river, where they lived in log cabins with Indian wives and families of children. ]\Iost of them were former servants of the Hudson's Bay Company who had either become unfit to range the forest, or preferred to settle down to cultivate the soil and live a quiet life. Dr. McLoughlin furnished them stock and provisions, as he did the men left in the country by Wyeth, receiving his pay in wheat w^hen the crops were harvested, and in young stock to take the place of fullgrown animals which he supplied. Here was the beginning of the first agricultural colony in Oregon, and it was this mixed community into which the missionaries now came as a new influence, tending to bring about better social conditions.

Progress of the mission. From the first, the missionaries were more successful in their efforts among the neighbouring settlers than with the surrounding Indians. They opened a school, maintained religious services, and soon organized a temperance society which, partly through Dr. McLoughlin's influence, many of the white men joined. The Indian children were admitted to their school, and some of them made fair progress in learning. Orphans were adopted into the mission family from time to time, receiving in this way greater benefits from their contact with civilization. In 1837 the mission was reinforced by the arrival of twenty assistants sent from the East in