Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 7.pdf/233

Rh pages of one book. The first is a narrative of the experiences of his first outward trip with Nathaniel J. Wyeth's second expedition, and of the trying time while fixing upon a location for the mission and constructing the necessary buildings. After an interval of nearly three years, but probably his first respite, while he and Cyrus Shepard were making their way through the mountains towards the Pacific seeking repair of the broken health of both, he puts the pen again to his journal. But he took them up only once. He speaks of the irksomeness of the task of writing when not in regular practice, and his action at this time speaks louder than his words. On the 28th of July, 1838, while on the North Fork of the Platte, making his first return trip to the East, he opened the third portion of the journal. After stating the causes compelling him to undertake so arduous a journey, and his preferred plan to go with the Hudson Bay Company express, he goes into a memoir of his life up to that time, dwelling particularly upon his domestic interests, and, finally, he gives a resume of the trip not quite up to the stage then reached, and stops abruptly.

On a fly leaf there is written: "Left Stanstead, L. C., Aug. 19, 1833." This no doubt marks the date from which on he gave himself to the Oregon mission work.

The opening entries of the journal proper which give the incidents of the preparation for and starting on the long journey are as follows:

Sunday, April 20, 1834, arrived at Liberty, Missouri, on my way to the Flat Head Indians.

Sunday evening attempted to preach in the Court House, but when about half through the wind frightened the people away and I dismissed by pronouncing the blessing, though I did not apprehend any danger.