Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 20.pdf/173

 BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY IN OREGON Protestants, to take

response.

But

up the

call

163

and urge a quick and hearty

his efforts did not arouse those to

whom

he

appealed to sufficient activity to begin operations at once. The Macedonian cry reached the ears of Dr. Wilbur Fisk, President of the Wesleyan Methodist Academy at Wilbraham, Mass. He was a man of action, prompt and decisive, and on

March

20, 1833,

he wrote a

letter to the

Methodist Missionary

Board suggesting the establishment of a mission to the Flatheads without delay. This Board having a fund which could be used at once, considered the suggestion favorably, and after a few preliminaries, Dr. Fisk became the leading spirit in promoting the

enterprise.

In recalling the young to his

men who had been former

students

mind reverted to one Jason Lee, who had come school from Canada, and who was then in the service

under him,

his

of the Wesleyan church at Stanstead, Canada, the place of his birth.

Mr. Lee caught the inspiration from Dr. Fisk and at once said, "Here am I, send me." Needed preparations were made as rapidly as circumstances would permit, and in March, 1834, Revs. Jason Lee and Daniel Lee, and three laymen, Cyrus Shepard, P. L. Edwards and C. M. Walker, started in company with Captain Nathaniel J. Wyeth, of Massachusetts, who was coming west on a business expedition. On the way across the plains, Sunday, July 27, 1834, Mr. Lee held public worship in a grove. This was the first religious

service he

conducted after starting for the Pacific

from Liberty, Mo., April 21, 1834. His audience was a mixed company of Indians, half breeds and Canadian Frenchmen. That evening, while two of the French-Canadians were racing, a third one ran across the track and a collision ensued which caused the death of one of the riders. Although the deceased person was a Roman Catholic, Captain Thomas McKay, requested Mr. Lee to conduct the funeral service, which slope

he did the next day, thus making Monday, July 28, 1834, memorable as being the day on which the first funeral service west of the Rocky Mountains was conducted by a Protestant min-