In the fall of 1839, the Rev. J. S. Griffin and wife arrived at Dr. Whitman’s station. Mr. Griffin had undertaken an independent mission, in company with a Mr. Munger and wife. They had received an outfit from some warm-hearted Christians of the Litchfield North Association, of Connecticut. Mr. Griffin reached St. Louis a single man, fell in love and married on sight, I do not know whether it was first or second. At all events, Rev. Mr. Griffin and Mr. Munger and their wives consented to travel together till they reached Fort Hall, at which place Mr. Griffin, being the getter-up of the mission and claiming ecclesiastical jurisdiction, took it upon himself to leave Mr. Munger and his wife at Fort Hall, to take care of themselves as best they could. Frank Ermatinger, of the Hudson’s Bay Company, at once furnished Mr. Munger and his wife the means of transportation, and brought them to Dr. Whitman’s station, where he knew Mr. Munger could find a place for himself and wife. This transaction of Mr. Griffin injured his usefulness as a minister, and left him in the country but little inspected by any who knew of his conduct to a fellow-traveler and an intelligent Christian woman. The fact that Mr. Munger afterward became deranged, or even that he was partially deranged at Fort Hall, or before they reached that place, is no excuse for his treating a man in that condition and his wife as he did. Mr. Griffin claims that Mr. Ermatinger stole three of his horses, or had them hid, when at Fort Hall, to get Mr. Munger and wife to travel with him, and, by so doing, give the impression that he had abandoned them. From a careful review of Mr. Griffin’s lengthy defense in this case, we can not conceive that any further change or correction is required, as the facts stated are by him admitted. From Mr. Griffin’s statement we are satisfied that improper and undue influences were used to break up and defeat his Indian missionary plans and settlement by Mr. Ermatinger and the Hudson’s Bay Company, and also to destroy his clerical influence in the country. Unfortunately, Mr. Griffin gave too much cause for his enemies to do as they did.
In the winter of 1850, Mr. Griffin made an attempt to pass the Salmon River Mountains to Payette River, to establish a mission among the Snake Indians in which he failed and found his way into the Wallamet as a settler, where he still remains.
There were with Mr. Griffin’s party some four men, one by the name of Ben Wright, who hail been a Methodist preacher in the States, but whose religion failed him on his way over the mountains. He reached the Dalles, where he renewed his religion under Rev. Mr. Perkins and D. Lee.
While at the Dalles, the three clergymen succeeded in converting, as they supposed, a large number of the Indians. While this Indian revival was in progress the writer had occasion to visit Vancouver. On his way, he called on the missionaries at the Dalles, and, in speaking of the revival among the Indians, we remarked that, in our opinion, most of the religious professions of the natives were from selfish motives. Mr. Perkins thought not; he named one Indian that, he felt certain, was really converted, if there was a true conversion. In a short time Daniel Lee, his associate, came in, and remarked: “What kind of a proposition do you think —— (naming Mr. Perkins’ truly converted Indian) has made to me?” Perkins replied: “Perhaps he will perform the work we wished him to do.” “No,” says Lee.; “he says he will pray a whole year if I give him a shirt and a capote.” This fact shows that the natives who were supposed to be converted to Christianity were making these professions to gain presents from the missionaries. We have witnessed similar professions among the Nez Percé and Cayuse Indians. The giving of a few presents of any description to them induces them to make professions corresponding to the wish of the donor.
With Messrs. Griffin, Munger, and Wright, came Messrs. Lawson, Keiser, and Geiger, late in the fall of 1839; also a man by the name of Farnam, who seemed to be an explorer or tourist. I met him at Vancouver, where he was receiving the hospitality of the Hudson’s Bay Company, and collecting material for a journal, or history of Oregon. It is said of him that, on starting from the States, he succeeded in getting himself appointed captain of a company consisting of some fourteen men. He soon attempted to exercise absolute control of the company, which caused a division. The party voted to suspend his official functions, and finally suspended him and expelled him from the train. On returning to the States he published a book, which, as was to be expected, was favorable to himself and friends (if he had any), and severe on his opposers or enemies. The professed object of the party was to form a settlement in Oregon. In consequence of the course pursued by Farnam, it all broke up. A man called Blubber-Mouth Smith, Blair, a millwright, and Robert Shortess were of the party. These all found their way into Oregon, while the balance of the party went south and wintered in the mountains. Mr. Farnam was furnished a free passage to the Sandwich Islands by the Hudson’s Bay Company, for which his traveling companions and those best acquainted with him have given the company credit, as one good act.
Sydney Smith—called “Blubber-Mouth,” from the fact that he was a great talker and fond of telling big yarns, which he, no doubt, had repeated so often that he believed them to be true, and would appear somewhat offended if his statements were not believed by others—had a tolerably fair education, and appeared to understand the lottery business, as conducted in some of the States. He was a man who had read considerable in his early days, and had he been less boisterous and persistent in statements that appeared improbable to others, would have been far more reliable and useful. As it was, in those early times, his knowledge and free-speaking became quite useful, when combined with the hearty action he gave to the objects in contemplation. He was ambitious and extremely selfish, and, when opposed in his plans, quite unreasonable.
Robert Shortess possessed a combination of qualities such as should have formed one of the best and noblest of men; with a good memory, extensive reading, inflexible purpose, strong hate, affectionate and kind, skeptical and religious, honest and liberal to a fault, above medium height, light-brown hair, blue eyes, and thin and spare features. His whole life is a mystery, his combinations a riddle. He early entered with heart and soul into the situation and condition of the settlements, and stood for their rights in opposition to all the combined influences in the country. As a politician he acts on the principle of right, without any regard to expediency. As a religious man he has no faith; as a skeptic he is severe on all alike. The country owes much to him for his labor and influence in combating slavery and shaping the organic policy of the settlements.
At the close of 1839, there were ten Protestant ministers and two Roman priests, two physicians, six laymen, and thirteen American women in the country—twenty-nine in all—connected with the Protestant missions, or under their immediate control, and twenty settlers, besides about ten men that were under the control of the Hudson’s Bay Company, yet having strong American feelings. There were also ten American children, five of them born in the country. Mrs. Whitman gave birth to the first white child, a daughter, born on this coast, who was drowned in the Wallawalla River at about two years of age; Mrs. Spalding the second, a daughter, still living; Mrs. Elkanah Walker the first boy, and Mrs. W. H. Gray, the second. These boys are both making good names for themselves. It is to be hoped that every act and effort of their lives will be alike honorable to their parents, themselves, and their native country. As to the first daughter of Oregon, I regret to say, she disobeyed the wish of her parents and friends, and married a man whose early education was neglected, but who has natural ability and energy to rise above his present position, obtain an education, and become an ornament to his adopted country, and an honor to Oregon’s eldest daughter.
On the first of June of this year, the Lausanne, Captain Spalding, arrived in the Columbia River with a re-enforcement for the Methodist Mission of eight clergymen, five laymen, and one physician, all with wives, five single ladies, and fifteen children, belonging to the different families, with a full supply of goods, such as were needed and appropriate for the settlement, the various missions, and for Indian trade. September following, Rev. Harvey Clark and wife, A. T. Smith and wife, and P. B. Littlejohn and wife, arrived across the Rocky Mountains. With this company came eleven mountain men, eight of them with native wives. We now had twenty-one Protestant ministers, three Roman priests, fifteen lay members of the Protestant Church, thirty-four white women, thirty-five American settlers, and thirty-two white children—one hundred and eight persons immediately under control of the missions. Thirty-six settlers, twenty-five of them with native wives. These thirty-six settlers are counted as outside the missions and Hudson’s Bay Company. There were about fifty Canadian-French under the control of the company.
Thus we can begin to see the development of the three influences or parties. The Hudson’s Bay Company had in their religious element three Romish priests, assisted actively by all the Canadian-French Catholics and such clerks as Pambrun, Guinea, Grant, and McBean, with such interpreters as old Toupin, of whom Mr. Parker, in his journal, says: “The interpreter I had been expecting did not arrive, and consequently much of what I wished to say to these hundreds of Indians could not be communicated for want of a medium.” On the preceding page, Mr. Parker remarks: “But as I have little prospect of the arrival of my interpreter, I shall probably be left to commiserate their anxiety, while it will be out of my power to do them good.”