Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/441



Til 10 CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OREGON 283

cliiel: was the eeleliraled leader of his tribe, sul)SP(|ueiitly known as "Law^yer, " and is remembered by many of our pioneers.

On July 10th, the expedition passed over the divide, from which the waters flow west into the Shoshone, and three days later they reached that river at the mouth of the Port Neuf. Here Wyeth's party remained some time, procuring provisions from the Indians and establishing the trading post station linown as Fort Hall. Here Lee preached the fii-st sermon ever uttered in the Oregon country, July 27, 1834.

His audience consisted of Indians, half-breeds, Canadian trappers, etc. Among the listeners w-as the famous Captain Tom McKay, who acted as guide for Wyeth's party from this point west, and two years later he performed the same service for Dr. Marcus Whitman, whom he also escorted from Fort Hall to Vancouver.

On the first day of September, they emerged from the Blue mountains and before night of September 2, they reached Fort Walla Walla. The missionaries had been placed under obligations for the food they ate to Captain McKay and the Indians of the country. Lee says in his diary: "The Indian women would bring food and putting it down return without saying a word, as they speak no language we can understand."

The Lees reached Vancouver September 17, 1834, going down the Columbia river in flat boats.

That night the missionaries slept in beds, in houses for the first time in 150 days. They were the guests of a prince among men. Dr. John McLoughlin, chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company, ma.ster of a territory that stretched from California to the Arctic and from the Pacific to Saskatchewan.

The country was esteemed much as Kamchatka and the seal rookeries of the North Pacific by ourselves now. The handful of white men scattered between the Rocky Mountains and the sea had no idea of "settling" the country. It was to them a great preserve of fur-bearing animals, and they intended to keep it so. No greater menace to their interest was possible than the occupation of the coun- try by settlers of whatever origin ; and yet they put no obstacles in the way of the stream which had its beginning in Jason Lee's party, and increased in volume year by year thereafter. Until long after Lee's arrival the Oregon country was a no-man's-land — a debatable ground, the intrinsic value of which was unknown alike to both America and England. Dr. McLoughlin was the governor of the country, acting for the only civilized people within its borders, who by existing treaties had at least an equal right in it wdth the only other contestant, and by possession and vested interests a better, than any then existing.

Jason Lee was received by Dr. McLoughlin as hospitably as man could be, and with the respect and deference due him as a clergyman. He was not quite sure that his mission met Dr. McLoughlin 's approval at first, but his frank kindness soon won Mr. Lee's confidence. The appeal of the four Indians who had gone to St. Louis still rang in his ears, and he counseled with the Doctor about going back into the Clearwater country to find their people, but Dr. Mc- Loughlin advised the establishment of the mission in the Willamette valley in the neighborhood of French prairie, where a number of former employees of the Hudson's Bay Company had settled on farms, and where many Indians gathered. This advice ought to set at rest any idea that Dr. McLoughlin was opposed to