Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/121



were last Iwiwtl I'l'diii in 1S27. and Smith was foiuul alom- in " I'ici'iv's Hole," ;i deep mountain valley at tiu' fountain head of Snake river. The redoubtable .)oe Meek, then a stripling, was one of the party to rescue Smith from the wilderness. Smith returned to St, Louis and witii his partners, Jackson and Sublette, or- ganized and sent out the lii'st train of wagons from the Missouri to the Uockv mountains, July 16, 1829.

Jedediah Smith's contril)ution to the settlement of Oi-egon was not lar'ge. but lie unquestionably did add largely to the interest in Oregon liy his knowl- edge of the country given to fur traders and other business men at St. Louis. Misfortune seemed to pursue him throughout his career. His last venture was from St. Louis to Santa Fe, during which he got into a battle with the Comanche Indians on the Cimmaron river and lost his life in 183L

CAPTAIN N-. J. WYETH'« EXPEDITIONS — 1.S32

Another successful explorer was Cajjtain Nathaniel J. Wyeth, of Massachu- setts, who made two overland expeditions to Oregon. These were nest to Astor's the second purely commercial ventures to Oregon by American citizens. At the same time he started his first party overland to Oregon, he dispatched a ship from Boston ladened with goods, estimating that the ship would reach the Columbia river about the time the overland party would reach the Willamette valley. The ship was never heard from afterwards, and the overland party reached Fort Vancouver on the 29th of October, 1832. It was Wyeth 's plan to take salmon from the Columbia, salt or dry them for the Boston market, trade for all the furs he could get, and in that way get a return cargo for his ship and do a profitable business. The loss of the ship defeated his first expedition. But it brought out some men who took root and grew up with the country. John Ball was one of them, and he is the man that opened the first school (at Van- couver) in all the vast region of old Oregon November, 1832. The school was not a success, but it was a starter. Then Solomon H. Smith, another one of the Wyeth party, in ^larch, 1833, opened a school at old Vancouver under an en- gagement with Dr. McLoughlin, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, to teach for six months. Smith expected to teach an English school, but found a great confusion of tongues. The pupils came in, all speakin.s' their native tongues and each different from the other, Cree, Nez Perce, Chinook, Klickitat, etc. ; and the only boy who could understand the English of the teacher rebelled off-hand. Dr. McLoughlin coming into the school in the midst of the difficulty pi-oceeded to enforce the law himself, and gave the little rebel such a thrashing as secured perfect discipline thereafter. Smith taught this school of twenty-five Indian hoys for eighteen months in which time they learned to speak English well and the rudiments of the primary branches of a common school education. They had but one copy of an arithmetic in the whole school, and of this each pupil made a complete copy which was used afterwards by other pupils. And so education started in the land where there are now more colleges, high schools and universities to the population than in any other region in the United States.

Wyeth 's first expedition was a financial failure, but not disheartened, he returned to Boston overland and renewed his efforts to establish direct trade between the Columbia river and his home city. And having procured the ship