Page:History of Oregon volume 1.djvu/277

CHAPTER IX.

PROGRESS OF EVENTS.

1839–1841.

The Peoria Party—Incidents of the Journey—Farnham Arrives in Oregon—Return of McLoughlin from London—Dissatisfaction of Missionaries and Colonists—Petition to Congress—Belcher's Expedition—Extent of Canadian Jurisdiction—More Immigrants From Illinois—Missionaries Continue to Arrive—The Newell Party—Missionary Hospitality—Spaulding's Report—Wilkes on the Coast—The 'Star of Oregon'—Overland Exploration to California—Sir George Simpson at Fort Vancouver—Mofras' Mission—The Red River Settlers.

I have termed Jason Lee a Methodist colonizer, but he was in reality more than that. His well-directed efforts in behalf of his church could not, in their effects, be restricted to that body. They were, in fact, quite as likely to fire the imagination of the adventurer as to stir the pious zeal of the sectarian, while the discussions which they had provoked in congress attracted the attention of all classes. The first ripple of immigration springing from Lee's lectures at Peoria was in the autumn of 1838. It will be remembered that one of his Chinook boys, Thomas Adams, was left there ill. Tom was proud of being an object of curiosity to the young men of the place, and was never better pleased than when supplementing Lee's lectures with one of his own, delivered in broken English helped out with expressive pantomime and dilating upon the grand scenery of his native country, the wealth of its hunting-grounds, and the abundance of its fisheries. Rude as Tom's descriptions were, they stirred the ardor of his hearers, and sug-