Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 13.djvu/106

 98 FREDERICK V. HOLMAN With the arrival of the Lausanne the Oregon Methodist Mis- sion became in effect a Methodist colony. (Hines' "Missionary History of the Pacific Northwest," page 139). In this His- tory Rev. H. K. Hines says, that after the arrival of the Lausanne party, often called the "great re-enforcement," the entire force attached to the Methodist missions was as follows : "Ministers : Jason Lee, Daniel Lee, David Leslie, H. K. W. Perkins, G. Hines, A. F. Waller, J. L. Frost, W. W. Kone and J. P. Richmond. In the secular department, Dr. Elijah White, Ira L. Babcock, George Abernethy, H. B. Brewer, L. H. Judson, J. L. Parrish, James Olley, Hamilton Camp- bell, Alanson Beers, W. H. Willson and W. W. Raymond. Teachers : Miss Margaret Smith, Miss Chloe A. Clark, Miss Almira Phillips, Miss Elmira Phelps, with Miss Orpha Lankton as stewardess. All of the ministers, and all in the secular departments, except W. H. Willson, had families. Together, they constituted a missionary force of forty-one adults, and in the several families there were not far from fifty children." REASONS FOR FORMING A PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT. As I have said, there were no laws in Oregon which applied to American citizens, but the Hudson's Bay Company, through Dr. McLoughlin, exercised a commanding influence over the conduct of affairs. There were no lawsuits, for there were no courts and but little trouble between the American settlers, or between them and the Hudson's Bay Company's people, and other British subjects, although there was occasionally some small friction. The Indians in the Willamette Valley were a negligible quantity. The Methodist mission, by reason of its numbers, and having a store and mills, attempted to exercise control over public affairs, although not in an offensive way. These early American settlers in Oregon, and the British subjects, who affiliated with them, were not the kind of men to be forced to do anything by either the Hudson's Bay Company or the Methodist mission, or by anyone. The French-Canadian settlers were men, by nature, peaceable, and made no trouble. It was a peculiar, but pleasant, state of affairs, where men re- spected the rights of each other and there was no government.