Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 11.djvu/27

Rh of said new southern boundary of Champooick County and east of Benton County.

While the name was sometimes spelled Champooick and Champoick in early Oregon days, it is usually spelled Champoeg in the Journals of the Provisional Legislature. The name is now spelled Champoeg. It is now the name of a small town in Marion County, on the east bank of the Willamette River. Its main point of interest is that it is the place where the Provisional Government was started. The first mission in Oregon was the Methodist mission, established in 1834, by Revs. Jason Lee and Daniel Lee, at a place about ten miles north of Salem, and a few miles south of Champoeg. In "Ten Years in Oregon," by Revs. Daniel Lee and J. H. Frost, at page 126, Lee says, of his first trip up the Willamette River: "We struck the river at the lower point of the settlement [French-Canadian] called Campment du Sable, that is, 'Sandy Encampment.' The Indian name is Chumpoeg." It is spelled Shampoic in Palmer's "Journal," pages 96 and 116, and Champooing in Wilkes' "Narrative," Vol. 4, pages 347, 349 and 360.

Willard H. Rees, an Oregon pioneer of 1844, who located near the Town of Champoeg, in the Annual Address before the Oregon Pioneer Association, June 17, 1879, said: "Champoeg was the principal Indian village between Chemeketa [Salem] and Willamette Falls [Oregon City] and the home of the Champoeg chieftains from time immemorial." ("Transactions of the Oregon Pioneer Association" for 1879, P a £ e 25).

In a letter written by Rev. P. J. De Smet, S. J., to Bishop F. N. Blanchet, dated at St. Francis Xavier, Willamette [St. Paul], Oregon, June 20, 1845, Father De Smet gives the name of the village as Champois. ("Oregon Missions," page 97). On a map attached as a part of the book "L'Oregon et les Cotes de l'Ocean Pacific du Nord," by M. Fedix, and published at Paris in 1846, the name is spelled Champoing.

December 1 ith of this year, I had an interview with Francois