Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/74

46 of these hunters and Indian fighters. The most notable venture was made by Captain Bonneville, of the U. S. army on leave, who led a party of one hundred and ten men in 1832 into Utah, Nevada and Oregon. Want of experience in the business he had undertaken resulted in many errors and severe losses which were increased by the active and unrelenting opposition of the Hudson Bay Company, already established in this field. Bonneville had projected his expedition on the basis of making scientific observations as much as for trade. And the government had given him a furlough for two years on the condition that he should not only pay all the expenses of his expedition, but also that he must provide suitable maps and instruments, and that he should be careful to find out how many warrior Indians there were in the regions he might explore, and ascertain the nature and character of these natives, whether warlike or disposed to peace, their manner of making war and their instruments of warfare. Proceeding on this basis, Bonneville got as far west as the present city of Walla Walla, with twenty wagons in the year 1832. Bonneville found out a good deal about the country all of which is most charmingly written up by Washington Irving; but he lost his entire investment in goods from the opposition and sharp practices of the Hudson Bay Company.

In the same year another successful expedition was started to Oregon by Captain Nathaniel J. Wyeth, of Massachusetts. This was next to Astor's, the second purely commercial venture to Oregon by American citizens. At the same time he started his party overland to Oregon, he dispatched a ship from Boston ladened with goods, estimating that the ship would reach the Columbia river about the time the overland party would reach the Willamette valley. The ship was never heard from afterwards, and the overland party reached Fort Vancouver on the 29th of October, 1832. It was Wyeth's plan to take salmon from the Columbia, salt or dry them for the Boston market, trade for all the furs he could get, and in that way get a return cargo for his ship and do a profitable business. The loss of the ship defeated his first expedition. But it brought out some men who took root and grew up with the country. John Ball was one of them, and he is the man that opened the first school (at Vancouver) in all the vast region of old Oregon in January, 1833. The school was not a success, but it was a starter. Then Solomon H. Smith, another one of the Wyeth party, in March, 1834, opened a school at old Vancouver under an engagement with Dr. McLoughlin, chief factor of Hudson Bay Company, to teach for six months. Smith expected to teach an English school, but found a great confusion of tongues. The pupils came in all speaking their native tongues and each different from the other, Cree, Nez Perce, Chinook, Klickitat, etc; and the only boy who could understand the English of the teacher rebelled off hand. Dr. McLoughlin coming into the school in the midst of the difficulty proceded to enforce the law himself, and gave the little rebel such a thrashing as secured perfect discipline thereafter. Smith taught this school of twenty-five Indian boys for eighteen months in which time they learned to speak English well and the rudiments of the primary branches of a common school education. They had but one copy of an arithmetic in the whole school, and of this each pupil made a complete copy which was used afterwai'ds by other pupils. And so education started in the land where there are now more colleges, high schools and universities to the population than in any other region in the United States.

Wyeth's first expedition was a financial failure, but not disheartened, he returned to Boston overland and renewed his efforts to establish direct trade between the Columbia river and his home city. And having procured the ship May Dacre and filled her up with all sorts of goods and supplies for this country, the ship sailed for the Columbia via Cape Horn while Wyeth again enlisted a party of two hundred men and started overland from Independence, Missouri on April 24, 1834. With that party came the first missionaries to Oregon—Jason and Daniel Lee. On his way across the continent, Wyeth