Rev. David Greene, secretary of the Ameriean Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions,[1] bears similar testimony, and says:
"The welfare and improvement of the Indians of the territory (Oregon) and the introduction there of the blessings of civilization and the useful arts, with education and Christian knowledge, seemed to be his (Kelley's) leading object. Much of the early interest felt in the Oregon country by New England people was probably the result of Mr. Kelley's labors."
Here is the testimony of two men holding very important positions in the church, one the secretary of the great missionary board, and the other editor of the then leading Methodist journal of the United States, both of whom personally knew Hall Kelley, and knew his work, and both certify to his good work done three years before the first missionary started for Oregon. And yet there is not a church history or a church document that has ever been printed that had the justice to give Kelley what was due to him.
The second cause or influence that started the great missionary movement to Oregon was purely sentimental, appealing powerfully to the imagination, and to that religion the first and greatest element of which is self-sacrifice. In the year 1831 the Flathead Indians living far up the watershed of Snake river, together with the Nez Perces, living on the Clearwater branch of the same river, united in sending a commission of four Indians to St. Louis in search for "The Book of Heaven," as it has passed into history. That is very likely to have been the language the Indians used in seeking the object of their mission. General Clark, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, had passed through the country of both these tribes in both coming to and returning from Oregon, and had been by them treated with all the kindness and assistance the Indians could render. Clark was still alive and was then superintendent of Indian affairs west of the Missouri river. Very naturally these Indians would go first to the man whose acquaintance they had made, and whose friendship they had secured in their own country. They found General Clark and explained to him their mission. Clark was a Christian man, a member of the Catholic church, and fully sympathized with the object and aspirations of those four Indians. It was one of the most remarkable events in all history. Think of it! Native tribes of people
- ↑ Note.—The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the foreign missionary society of the Congregational Churches of the United States, was organized at Andover, Mass., in 1810, as a result of the efforts of a dozen young men—students of Williams College—led by Samuel J. Mills. The American Board was supported by the Congregational Churches of the country until 1826, when the United Foreign Missionary Society, in which the Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed churches had been co-operating, was merged with the Board. The union of forces worked well until 1837 when the "Old School" Presbyterians withdrew from the American Board, and were followed by other branches of the Presbyterian Church in 1839. The "New School" Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed churches withdrew their support of the American Board about 1846. This note is compiled from the "Story of the American Board during its First Hundred Years." The names of the missionaries of the Board sent to Oregon were as follows: 1835— Rev. Samuel Parker and Marcus Whitman, M. D. 1836—Dr. Marcus Whitman and wife. Rev. Henry H. Spalding and wife, and William H. Gray, assistant missionary, often spoken of as "secular agent." 1838—Rev. Cushing Eells and wife, Rev. Elkanah Walker and wife, Rev. A. B. Smith and wife, William H. Gray and wife (Mr. Gray, referred to as assistant missionary, returned to New York in 1837, was married to Miss Mary A. Dix in Utica, N. Y., in February, 1838, and returned to their work that year. Mr. Smith and wife were sent to Sandwich Islands in 1841, and Mr. and Mrs. Gray were dismissed from the American Board Mission in the spring of 1843.) With the massacre of Dr. Whitman, his wife and twelve others on November 39-30, 1847, the work of the American Board ended in Oregon, so far as its original plan was concerned.
