Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 23.djvu/151



in Honolulu in the Washington's birthday carnival with that statement. Mr. Himes, the curator of the Historical Society, states to the writer that his authority for the assertion is Rev. Myron Eells, "who obtained the state- ment from his father, Rev. Gushing Eells, who had it from Mr. Hall himself, who certainly must have known." Rev. Myron Eells' description of the press is printed in his Marcus Whitman, Pathfinder and Patriot, Seattle : 1909, page 106, as follows :

"In April, 1839, a printing press arrived from the Sandwich Islands, for the benefit of the mission. It was the first one on the Pacific Coast, and on it was done the first printing on the coast. It had been sent by the American Board in 1819 to the Sandwich Islands to be used by the mission there. That was the year when the first missionaries ^were sent to those islands, and, in 1822, their language had been so far reduced to writing that the press came into use. It was the pioneer press there as well as now on the Pacific Coast. It was a Ramage writing, copying and seal press, No. 14. After using it for twenty years the Hawaiian mission had grown so that it needed a larger press, and consequently, the native church at Honolulu bought it, with type, fur- niture, paper and a few other articles, altogether valued at five hundred dollars, and donated it to the Oregon Mission of the American Board. E. 0. Hall, a practical printer, at the Islands, came to Oregon with it. His wife's health was quite poor, and it was hoped that the voyage and change would do her good, and as there was no printer in Oregon, he came also to teach the art of printing. On April 30th Dr. and Mrs. Whitman and Mr. and Mrs. Spalding met it and Mr. and Mrs. Hall at Fort Walla Walla. By common consent it was taken on horse back to Lapwai, where, on the sixteenth of May, it was set up, and on the eighteenth the first proof sheet was struck off. On the twenty-fourth a small booklet of eight pages in Nez Perces was printed."

The statements previously quoted from Messrs. Bingham, Chamberlain and Hall of the Sandwich Islands Mission ought to be sufficient authority to disprove the