Lee and party were frank to make known to the company their object, and plans of future operations. Questions of trade and morality were comparatively new with the company. As religious teachers and Christian men they had no suspicions of any interference in trade. Mr. Lee hailed from Canada, and so did Dr. McLaughlin and a large number of the servants of the company.
“Mr. Lee is the man we want to instruct our retired servants in religious matters. Mr. Shepard will be an excellent man to take charge of our little private school; we have commenced with a Mr. S. H. Smith, who has found his way into this country, in company with Captain Wyeth, an opposition fur trader and salmon catcher. We do not know much about him, but if you will allow Mr. Shepard to take charge of our school till you can make other arrangements, and you require his services, we will make it all right.”
This arrangement placed the labor of selecting locations and the necessary explorations upon our friend Jason Lee. All being smooth and cordial with the company, Lee proceeds to French Prairie and up the river till he reaches a point ten miles below Salem, about two miles above Jarvie’s old place, and makes his first location. From all the information he could gather, this was the most central point to reach the greatest number of Indians and allow the largest number of French and half-native population to collect around the station. In this expedition he occupied about ten days. The whole country was before them—a wilderness two thousand six hundred miles broad, extending from the gulf of California on the south, to the Russian settlements on the north, with a few scattering stations among the border Indians along the western territories of Missouri, and the great unknown, unexplored west, which the American Board, in a book published in 1862, page 380, says, “brought to light no field for a great and successful mission,” showing that, for twenty-five years, they have neglected to give this country the attention its present position and importance demanded, and also a total neglect on their part to select and sustain proper men in this vast missionary field. They are willing now to plead ignorance, by saying, “Rev. Samuel Parker’s exploring tour beyond the Rocky Mountains in 1836 and 1837 (but two years after the Rev. J. Lee came to it) brought to light no field for a great and successful mission,” and console themselves by asserting a popular idea as having originated from Mr. Parker’s exploration, “a practicable route for a railroad from the Mississippi to the Pacific.” Mr. Parker never originated or thought of the practicability of the route till after Dr. Whitman had left his wagon at Fort Boise, and demonstrated the fact of a practicable wagon route. Then Mr. Parker, to give his work or journal a wider circulation, talked about a railroad. The American Board, I am sorry to feel and think, are good at attempting to catch at straws when important missionary objects have been faithfully placed before them.
Let us return to Mr. Lee. On Saturday, September 27, 1834, he was in council with Dr. McLaughlin, at Vancouver. The result of his observations were fully canvassed; the condition and prospects of the Indians and half-natives, Canadian-French, straggling sailors and hunters that might find their way into the country, were all called before this council. The call from the Flathead Indians and the Nez Percés was not forgotten. The Wallamet Valley had the best advocate in Dr. John McLaughlin. He “strongly recommended it, as did the other gentlemen of Vancouver, as the most eligible place for the establishment of the center of their operations.” This located that mission under the direct supervision and inspection of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and, at the same time, placed the American settlement south of the Columbia River.
Mr. Lee, the next day, was invited to preach in the fort. All shades of colors and sects attended this first preaching in the wilderness of Oregon. The effect in three months was the baptizing of four adults and seventeen children.
The Protestant missions were not dependent on the Hudson’s Bay Company for supplies any more than the Sandwich Islands were, or the American Fur Company. If such were the fact, that they were dependent upon the Hudson’s Bay Company, the missionaries themselves and the Boards that sent them to Oregon must have been a set of foolish men, not competent to conduct the commonest affairs of life. The idea that seven men and two women should be sent to a distant wilderness and savage country, and no provisions made for their subsistence and future supplies, is one originated without a soul, a lie to produce effect, a slander upon common honesty and common-sense Christianity. Whitman’s party left in the Rocky Mountains a better set of tools than could be found in Vancouver. They brought seeds of all kinds. They had no occasion to ask of the Hudson’s Bay Company a single seed for farming purposes, a single thing in establishing their mission,—only as they had disposed of things at the suggestion of McLeod and McKay as unnecessary to pack them further. Arrangements were made to forward around Cape Horn, as soon as was deemed necessary, such articles and supplies as might be required. Rev. Jason Lee and party did not arrive in the country (as those who have all along attempted to insinuate and make a stranger to the facts believe, and in 1865 claim the sum of $3,822,036.67 for stealing credit due to others, and preventing the good others might have done to the natives in advancing them in the scale of civilization) destitute and dependent upon the Hudson’s Bay Company for supplies. On the contrary, by the time they had selected their station, the goods on the brig May Dacre had arrived, and were ready to be landed at the lower mouth of the Wallamet River. These goods, whether suitable or not, were all received and conveyed to the station selected by Mr. Lee by the 6th of October. The rainy season soon commenced; they had no shelter for themselves or their goods. All old Oregonians who have not been seduced and brought up by the Hudson’s Bay Company can comprehend the condition they were in. Rev. Jason Lee, like Dr. Whitman with his old wagon, had undertaken a work he meant to accomplish. His religion was practical. Work, labor, preach, and practice his own precepts, and demonstrate the truth of his own doctrines. Religion and labor were synonymous with him, and well did the noble Shepard, though but a lay member of the mission and the church, labor and sustain him. These two men were really the soul and life of the mission, as Dr. Whitman and Mrs. Spalding were of the American Board. During the first winter, 1834-5, they were wholly occupied in building their houses and preparing for the cultivation of the land for their own subsistence. There was no alternative; it was work or starve. Rev. Jason Lee set the example. He held the plow, with an Indian boy to drive, in commencing his farming operations. The first year they produced enough for home consumption in wheat, peas, oats, and barley, and abundance of potatoes, with a few barrels of salt salmon. The superintendent of the mission put up at the Wallamet Falls late in the season of 1834. They had a supply of their own for the first year. It is true they did not have superfine flour to eat, but they had plenty of pounded and boiled wheat, and a change to pea and barley soup, with oats for the chickens they had received from the vessel.
Daniel Lee soon falls sick, and Edwards becomes dissatisfied. They both arrange to leave the country on the May Dacre. Rev. D. Lee is advised to go to the Sandwich Islands, and Edwards is induced to undertake an independent school at Champoeg.
Shepard toils on with his Indian and half-native school. Mr. Lee preaches and labors at the mission among the French, and at Vancouver.
In October, 1835, Rev. S. Parker arrived at Vancouver. In November he made a flying visit to Mr. Lee’s mission. His Presbyterian spectacles were not adapted to correct observations on Methodist Episcopal missions. He was inclined to pronounce their efforts a failure. This impression of Mr. Parker’s arose from the fact, that no female influence, except that of the natives of the country, was seen or felt about the mission. His impressions were also quite unfavorable to the Hudson’s Bay Company from the same cause. These impressions were, at the suggestion of the writer, omitted in his first published journal. Four months after Mr. Parker’s visit to Mr. Lee’s mission, we find the gentlemen of the Hudson’s Bay Company making a handsome donation to Mr. Lee’s mission of $130, including a handsome prayer for a blessing upon their labors, in the following words: “And they pray our heavenly Father, without whose assistance we can do nothing, that of his infinite mercy he may vouchsafe to bless and prosper your pious endeavors.” This is signed in behalf of the donors by John McLaughlin.