ingly, he sent an agent, Mr. W. A. Slocum, to the Pacific to collect information for the government, and on this voyage the first official visit was paid to Oregon.
Slocum's visit to Oregon. Slocum arrived in the Columbia River at the end of the year 1836, with particular instructions from President Jackson to govern his doings there. He was to visit all the white settlements on and near the Columbia, as well as the various Indian villages; to make a complete census of both whites and Indians, and to learn what the white people thought about the question of American rights in Oregon. Briefly, he was to "obtain all such information ... as [might] prove interesting or useful to the United States." Mr. Slocum performed his work with a good deal of thoroughness. He made charts of the Columbia River, locating all the principal Indian villages; visited Fort Vancouver to learn about the fur trade and other business of the establishment; and went up the Willamette Valley to the Methodist mission, calling at nearly every settler's cabin passed on the way. He was pleased with the country, found the missionaries doing good work among the French and other settlers, and became enthusiastic over the agricultural advantages of the Willamette Valley. He pronounced it "the finest grazing country in the world. Here there are no droughts," he says, "as on the Pampas of Buenos Ayres or the plains of California, whilst the lands abound with richer grasses both winter and summer."
The Willamette Cattle Company, 1837. ^r.
