124 ^ History of the Pacific Northwest
and printed them on a little press, the gift of the Hawaiian missionaries; they helped the Indians build houses for themselves, showed them how to till their fields and lead water upon the growing crops; they erected rude mills to grind their corn and wheat.
Coming of the Catholics. The earliest missions were founded, as we saw, by the Methodist society, and the next group by the American Board, both of those religious groups having been influenced by the story of the Flathead, or Nez Perces, or mixed delegation to St. Louis in 1831 in search of religious guidance. Yet, there is reason to believe that those Indians, who in their country had received the religious impulse which aroused their astonishing zeal, or curiosity, as one may view it, from Iroquois Indians Christianized in the Red River settlement, were really asking for black-robed priests like those of whom the Iroquois told them. If so, they were momentarily disappointed, but their people persisted and ultimately the " black robes "came to them. However, the first Catholic missionaries came to western Oregon, not to the land of the Flatheads or Nez Perces. It was in the year 1838 that Father Blanchet of the Montreal diocese and Father Demers of Red River began their labours among Catholic settlers and Indians under the protection and with the active support of the Hudson's Bay Company.
The Catholic missions. The first mission was esta1:)lished on the Cowlitz. Afterwards, St. Paul on the Willamette became the mission capital and the resi
