Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/102

 94 FREDERICK V. HOLMAN tory of Oregon, it is said he came in 1839, and in Gray's History of Oregon, it is said he came in 1840. It was in 1834 that the real settlement in Oregon by Ameri- cans began. The first expedition of Nathaniel J. Wyeth, in 1832, was a failure because his vessel, loaded with goods and supplies, was wrecked in the South Pacific ocean, but his party was very small when it arrived in the Oregon Country. He returned to his home in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1834 he came again to Oregon with a large party, well equipped. With him came the first missionaries : Rev. Jason Lee, and Rev. Daniel Lee, Canadians and British subjects, Cyrus Shepard, P. L. Edwards, and Courtney M. Walker, Americans. They were all Methodists. These Methodist missionaries settled on or near French Prairie at a place about ten miles north of Salem, and there established the first mission of any kind in the Oregon Country. After continuing his enterprise for a time, this second ex- pedition of Wyeth's failed, and he sold all his assets to the Hudson's Bay Company. Of the men in this second expedi- tion, there settled in Oregon: James A. O'Neil, Thomas J. Hubbard, Charles Roe, Richard McCrary, all Americans. In 1834 there came from California, a party led by Ewing Young, who settled in Chehalem Valley, on the west side of the Willamette River, not far distant from Champoeg. In addi- tion to Ewing Young, there were the following white settlers. Lawrence Carmichel, Joseph Gale, Webley John Hauxhurst, John Howard, Brandywine, Kilborn, and John McCarty, all Americans. In 1835 there also came a party from California who settled in the Willamette Valley. They were : Dr. W. J. Bailey, born in Ireland, George Gay, an Englishman, each of whom joined with the Americans in founding the Provisional Govern- ment, and John Turner, an American. William Johnson, an Englishman, settled near Champoeg about 1835. Commodore Wilkes speaks of staying at John- son's house in 1841. Wilkes says that Johnson was a seaman and took part in the naval fight between the Constitution and