Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/230

168 critics of Dr. McLoughlin will do well to note that by his generous action for the Hudson's Bay Company, the project was successful. His kindness and business foresight it was that pursuaded them to purchase a band of seven hundred, thus dividing the great cost of the enterprise to advantage. The company took one-half of these cattle and bore half the costs. If it had been their habit to "rob the settlers" nothing would have been easier than to keep the "monopoly" their enemies charge against them.

Ewing Young, another of the early Americans, went as captain of the expedition. Mr. Slacum took those who went from the valley on this errrand in the "Loriot" to San Francisco without cost, and Mr. Edwards, who came out in Jason Lee's party, accompanied these pioneer cowboys as treasurer of the cattle company. The animals were driven up the Sacramento, and then to- Oregon, closely following the present route of the railroad. The cost delivered at destination was eight dollars per head. Probably this large influx of Spanish blood is responsible for many of the gifted fence- jumping bovines that still roam our fields.

Mr. Slacum bore a petition from the missionaries and from the few other Americans of the valley, as well as from some of the Canadian settlers, that the government of the United States would recognize them as an American community and extend to them its protection.

In 1837 twelve members were added to the mission forces. They came by sail around Cape Horn, eight arriving in May and four in September. Seven of these were women. The names of many oi these are written large in Oregon history.

On July 16, Jason Lee was married to Miss Anna Maria Pitman, one of the recent arrivals. At the same time Cyrus Shepard was married to Miss Susan Downing, another lady of the newly arrived assistants.

In January, 1838, Jason Lee set out upon a journey to the Umpqua valley, to see about establishing a mission there. He spent two months on this quest, enduring great privations and peril. The Dalles was selected as a promising point for a mission, and to this field Rev. Daniel Lee, who had come west with his uncle, Jason Lee, and Rev. H. K. W. Perkins were assigned. They arrived at their destination, the Indian town of Wascopam, March 22, and immediately began their work. The field of their labors extended from the Cascades to Deschutes river, and on both sides of the Columbia. In this territory were clans of Walla Walla, Wishram (the notorious robber tribes of the Grand Dalles), Wascos, who lived at Wascopam, Klickitats and the "Upper Chinooks," the two latter occupying the country north of the river. About 2,000 Indians were more or less permanently in this field, and Yakimas, Cayuses and Klickitats, were frequently passing through it. The latter tribe made astonishing journeys from their country to northern California annually, and claimed to over-lord the Willamette tribes. The Dalles mission religiously accomplished more among the Indians than any of the other stations.

The missionaries used the Chinook intertribal tongue in their public talk to the Indians, as the upper tribes, as far as the Nez Perces at least, were accustomed to make use of Chinook, though speaking languages of their own which were as different from Chinook as Arabic is from the English. Some of their hymns, prayers and addresses are preserved, all in Chinook of the "upper" dialect, in old books.

Frequently is was necessary that the words of the missionary should be translated into the speech of the interior tribe by an interpreter.

In 1840, after the arrival of the lay-party of missionaries in the Lausanne, a council or conference of the members of the mission was held, at Vancouver, and new missions were detailed for Clatsop (sometimes called Chinook) Nis-