As early as 1834 French Canadian employees and ex-employees of the Hudson’s Bay Company in Oregon had petitioned the Catholic bishop at Red River in western Canada for priests. At first the Hudson’s Bay Company refused to help priests come to Oregon, but in 1838 it agreed to transport Catholic missionaries across the Rockies provided that no missions were established south of the Columbia River.
The Bishop of Quebec accepted responsibility for sending Catholic missionaries to the Pacific Northwest. As soon as the Hudson’s Bay Company agreed to help with transportation, the bishop sent the Reverend Francis N. Blanchet to be vicar-general of the new area. Joined at Red River by Father Modeste Demers, Blanchet arrived at Fort Vancouver late in 1838.
Because of the company’s restriction, Blanchet was careful not to establish mission stations south of the Columbia. Before long, however, the restriction was removed, and a Catholic mission was established at French Prairie in the Willamette Valley.
PRINCIPAL MISSIONS AND STATIONS
Lower Columbia River and Its Tributaries
1834-1847
LEGEND: (A)—American Board (C)—Catholic (M)—Methodist Fort Langley Victoria (C) Whidby Island (C) 1840 Fort Nisqually (C) 1839 (M) 1840, Clatsop Plains (M) 1840, (C) 1840 Cascades (C) 1841 Fort Vancouver (C) 1838 Willamette Falls (M) 1840, (C) 1841 Old Mission (M) 1834 Chemeketa (M) 1841 Willamette R. The Dalles (A) 1811 Clackamas (C) 1841 St. Paul’s (C) 1839 St. Louis (C) 1844 Fort Colville (C) 1838 St. Paul’s (C) 1845 St. Francis Regis (C) 1845 Tshimakain (A) 1839 Fort Okanagan (C) 1838 St. Ignatius (C) 1845 St. Michael’s (C) 1844 Sacred Heart (C) 1842 1843 1846 Immaculate Heart of Mary (C) 1845 The Assumption (C) 1845 St. Francis Borgia (C) St. Rose Lima (C) 1847 Fort Walla Walla (C) 1838 Waiilatpu (A) 1836 St. Ann’s (C) 1847 Lapwai (A) 1836 St. Mary’s (C) 1841 Kamiah (A) 1839
During 1839 both Blanchet and Demers made extensive tours throughout Puget Sound and on the upper Columbia. While at Fort Colville, near the American Board station at Tshimakain, Demers learned that an American priest, Father Peter DeSmet, was in the Flathead country to the east. Father DeSmet had been sent out to Oregon by the Bishop of St. Louis in answer to a call similar to that which had stimulated the Protestant missions. In 1841 DeSmet founded St. Mary’s mission in the Bitter Root Valley in present-day Montana and, in the next year, the Sacred Heart mission among the Coeur d’Alene Indians, in what is now Idaho.
By 1842 the Canadian and American Catholic missions in Oregon were united under the authority of Blanchet. Soon reinforcements were received from Canada, the United States, and Europe. In 1844 Francis Blanchet was designated as bishop and 2 years later was promoted to archbishop when Oregon was elevated to an ecclesiastical province. The brother of the archbishop, A. M. A. Blanchet, was made bishop of Walla Walla. He arrived at Fort Walla Walla in September 1847, accompanied by Vicar-General J. B. A. Brouillet, six priests, and two lay brothers.
The 1830’s and 1840’s were years of strong antagonisms between the Protestant and Catholic churches in the United States. The missionaries in Oregon shared in this feeling. When Marcus Whitman met Bishop A. M. A. Blanchet at Fort Walla Walla, he was greatly disturbed by the presence of the Catholic missionaries.
