Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/94



O God, thou art good, this good food thou hast given us. In like manner always kindly look upon us, and give us all good things, for the sake of thy Son, Jesus Christ, amen!

From the old Mission Press were issued nine little Indian books between 1839 and 1845, the first printing in the Pacific Northwest. The little Ramage press, a gift from Honolulu, was set down by packtrain at Lapwai, May 13, 1839. By May 24, Nez-Perce's First Book, "designed for children and new beginners," was published, eight pages, in an edition of 400. The second book, also in Nez Perce' , was printed in August. The third, printed in 1840, was a book of 52 pages, 800 copies: Numipuain Shapahitamanash Timash. Then, as the printer had left, two of the missionaries got out the fourth book: Etshiit Thlu Silskai Thlu Siais Thlu Sitsiaisitlinish, a sixteen-page primer in the Spokane dialect. The fifth was a book of simple laws, the sixth a hymn book, and the seventh was a book of scripture selec tions. There was a real printer again for the eighth book: Matthew- nim Taaiskt, a quaint translation of the gospel of Matthew. It was dated 1845, and it was followed in the same year by the ninth and last of the Lapwai publications, a small Nez Perce' and English vocabulary.

The old press is now the property of the Oregon Historical So ciety. Copies in complete series of the little books are, so far as known, no longer anywhere in existence. The largest collection to be preserved is in the library of Pacific University at Forest Grove. As miners might dream of some day rediscovering the fabled Blue Bucket Mine, so collectors of Northwest Americana might in moments of extrava gant fancy picture themselves stumbling by accident onto one of these little volumes.

Among the manuscripts left by Frederic Homer Balch is a penciled sketch on Memaloose Island, which contains this reference: "...