Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/468



On each side it was always a commercial war to finisli. It was a similar com- petition to that the American traders engaged in with each other. Rev. H. K. Hines, D. D., a ilethodist minister, who came to Oregon in 1853, in an address at Pendleton, Oregon, December 10, 1897, said: "My own conclusions, after a length}^ and laborious investigation, the results of which I have given only in bare outline, is that Dr. McLougirlin acted the part of an honorable, high-minded and loyal man in his relation with the American traders Avho ventured to dis- pute with him the commercial dominion of Oregon up to 1835 or 1837."

In November, 1850, Samuel R. Thurston, the first territorial delegate from Oregon territorj-, who was unfriendly to Dr. McLoughlin, wrote to Nathaniel J. Wj^eth, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the latter then resided, asking for information against Dr. McLoughlin as to his treatment of Wyeth, wheu the lat- ter was in Oregon in 1832 and 1834. Wyeth replied in a letter of praise and also wrote to Robert C. Wiuthrop, then a congressman from Massachusetts, say- ing that Wyeth had no confidence that his testimony would be called for by any congressional committee and that he woiild like to present a memorial in favor of Dr. McLoughlin. In this letter, after quoting an excerpt from Thurston 's let- ter, Wyeth wrote Winthrop : " I have written Mr. Thurston in reply to the above extract, that myself and others were kindly received and were treated well in all I'espects, by J. McLoughlin, Esq., and the officers of the Hudson's Bay Com- pany. * * * The very honorable treatment received by me from McLough- lin during the years 1832 to 1836, during which time there were no other Amer- icans on the lower Columbia, except myself and parties, calls on me to state the facts." Wyeth forthwith sent a copy of this correspondence to Dr. McLough- lin and wrote him, tendering Wyeth 's good offices in the matter, and saying: ' ' Should you wish such services as I can render in this part of the United States, I should be pleased to give them in return for the many good things you did years since, and if any testimony as regards your efficient and fyiendly actions towards me and other earliest Americans who setled in Oregon, will be of any use in placing you before the Oregon people in the dignified position of a bene- factor, it will be cheerfully rendered. ' '

But Dr. McLoughlin 's humanit.v was extended also to those who were not of his race. In 1834 he learned accidentally that three Japanese sailors, the sur- vivors of a crew of seventeen of a derelict Japanese junk which had drifted across the Pacific, had been captured and enslaved by the Indians a few miles south of Cape Flattery, near the entrance of the straits of Fuca. After great trouble these Japanese were rescued and taken to Fort Vancouver, where they were most kindly treated for several months. He then sent them to England on one of the company's vessels, whence they were sent to China.

In 1832 he started the first school west of the Rocky Mountains. John Ball, who came with the trading party of Nathaniel J. Wyeth in 1832, was a graduate of Dartmouth college. On the failure of this expedition. Dr. McLoughlin en- gaged Ball to teach his son and other children at the fort. After teaching about two months he was succeeded by Solomon H. Smith, who also came with Wyeth. Smith taught his school about eighteen months, when he was succeeded by Cyrus Shepard. a lay missionary, who came with Revs. Jason and Daniel Lee in 1834.

The first missionaries to Oregon were Methodists who came to Oregon with Wyeth 's second party in 1834. The next missionaries were the Presbyterians,