Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/208

120 miles distant from any civilized habitation, in the heart of the great American wilderness, listening to the message of Christ from this young man, and reverentially bowing their heads in prayer to the Almighty Maker and Preserver of all men and things.

From Fort Hall (then only in process of construction by Capt. Wyeth) the party proceeded on to the Columbia river, being assisted by the Indians sent along with them by Thomas McKay, a fur trading captain in the employ of the Hudson 's Bay Company. On coming down the river in boats and canoes, most of which were wrecked, the missionary party lost nearly all of their personal effects. Rev. Lee reached Fort Vancouver in September in a bedraggled condition, and was very kindly received by Chief Factor McLoughlin, who promptly supplied all his personal wants. The Lees had carefully noted all the conditions of the upper Columbia river country as they passed through it, and having heard much of the beauty of the Willamette valley, came on west to see it as probably the best location for a mission. After resting a few days with Dr. McLoughlin, the mission party proceeded down the river in boats furnished by McLoughlin to the ship May Dacre, which had arrived from New York with the household goods of the party, and was then tied up at the bank of Sauvie's island (then called Wappato island), about twelve miles below the city of Portland. From Wappato island, and with horses and men to assist them, the Lees proceeded to hunt a location in the Willamette valley, and taking the trail made by the fur hunters, crossed the hills back of the city of Portland, into what is now Washington county, passing out into Tualatin plains by the point where Hillsboro is now located, and on by where the town of Cornelius is located, crossing over the Tualatin river at Rocky Point where the first flouring mill in Washington county was constructed; from thence ascending the northwest end of the Chehalem mountain ridge and following the ridge five miles eastwardly, they found themselves on Bald Peak from which point they could see the great Willamette valley spread out before them for sixty miles south. Oregon was then all a wild wilderness country. Elk and deer were everywhere as tame almost as sheep.

From the Chehalem mountains the party descended into the Chehalem valley, and passing along by the little prairie where the prosperous town of Newberg and its Friends' College is now located, the party swam their horses across the Willamette river, and crossing in a canoe kept on south to the farm of Joseph Gervais, where they stayed all night with the hospitable Frenchman, and for whom the town of Gervais has been named. The next day they selected a tract of land two miles above the Gervais farm on the east side of the river and sixty miles south of Portland for the site of their mission; and where they built their first mission house. Returning to Vancouver, Dr. McLoughlin furnished a boat and boatmen to move the household goods from the ship and transport them up the Willamette river to the mission point; seven oxen were loaned with which to haul timbers to build houses at the mission, eight cows with calves were furnished to supply milk and start stock; and by the 6th of October, 1834, Jason Lee and his party were all safely landed in their mission home in the Willamette valley—the first Protestant mission in the United States, west of the Rocky mountains from the North Pole down to the Isthmus of Panama. It will be asked by the reader, why did not Lee answer the pathetic call of