if missionaries were not likely to outnumber the natives in Oregon, the North Litchfield Association of Connecticut, in 1839, fitted out two young men for that field of labor. They were Rev. J. S. Griffin and Asahel Munger. Munger was already married; Griffin found a young woman at St Louis who was willing to join her fortunes with his, and who married him at a moment's notice, as seems to have been the fashion with missionaries of that period. Placing themselves under the protection of the American Fur Company, they proceeded to Westport, Missouri, where they were joined by several persons bound for California.[1]
- ↑ Farnham, who fell in with these persons at Fort David Crockett in Brown Hole, says one had the lofty intention of conquering California, others of trading, farming, etc., on the lower Columbia, and others to explore the wonders of nature on the shores of the Pacific. Travels, 120. The names of this party were William Geiger, J. Wright, Peter Lassen and Doctor Wislizenus and a German companion. A second party for California consisted of D. G. Johnson, Charles Klein, William Wiggins, and David D. Dutton. Two
souri. He was a member of the legislature of that state, and advocated free-state doctrine. In 1835 he removed to Illinois, where he laid out the town of Osceola; but becoming enamored of the far-off Oregon, left his family and sought the famed Willamette Valley. Selecting a claim on the west side of the falls, he made himself a home, which he called 'Robin's Nest,' where he was joined by his family, and where he spent his remaining days, having acted well his part in the early history of the country. He died September 1, 1857. Oregon Argus, Sept. 12, 1857; Wilkes' Nar., U. S. Explor. Ex., iv. 370; Address of M. P. Deady, in Or. Pioneer Assoc, Trans., 1875. Another pioneer of this period was a Rocky Mountain trapper, named George W. Ebberts, who settled in Oregon in 1839, where he was known as Squire Ebberts, or the Black Squire. He was born in Bracken County, Kentucky, June 22, 1810. At the age of 19 he engaged with Wm Sublette to go to the mountains as a recruit. He served 6 years in the American Company, and 3 years in the Hudson's Bay Company, leaving the mountains in the autumn of 1838 and wintering at Lapwai. Farnham describes an interview with him. Seeing a white man on the bank of the river above the falls of the Willamette, he went ashore to speak to him, and found him sitting in a drizzling rain by a large log fire. He had already made one 'improvement' and sold it, and was beginning another. He could offer no shelter, and took Farnham across the river to the log cabin of William Johnson, which contained a fireplace and a few rude articles of furniture. Ebberts finally settled in the Tualatin plains, with several other mountain men who arrived a year or two later. Brown's Miscellanies, MS., 22. Ebberts' Trappers Life, a manuscript narrative of scraps of mountain adventure and pioneer life, shows a man without education, but full of good fellowship, brave, and frank. Ebberts lived in the Tualatin plains. William Johnson, above mentioned, was a Scotchman. He had been in the naval service of the United States. Subsequently he became a trapper in the Hudson's Bay service, and when his term expired settled near Champoeg, and took an Indian wife. By her he had several children, to whom he gave such educational advantages as the country afforded. Wilkes' Nar., U. S. Explor. Ex., iv. 371–2; Farnham's Travels, 173. Johnson died in September 1876.
