directed Point to found a new mission, under the name of the Sacred Heart, among the Coeurs d'Alêne, and set out in August for the Missouri border to lay the wants of the savages before his superiors. The result of his appeal was, that in the following year, 1843, fathers Peter De Vos and Adrian Hoeken, with three lay brothers, were ordered to the Rocky Mountains, while De Smet himself was despatched to Europe to enlist other aid for the new field of Oregon.[1] In the same year seven lay brothers came from Canada with the annual brigade, Blanchet having made such representations to Simpson at Vancouver as to overcome his objections.[2]
De Smet's journey to Europe was eminently successful. He returned to Oregon July 31, 1844, accompanied by fathers Antonio Ravalli, Giovanni Nobili, Aloysius Vercruysse, Michele Accolti, several lay brothers, and six sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. They arrived, like the Methodist reënforcement of 1840, in a chartered vessel, the bark L'Indefatigable, from Antwerp, bringing money and material for the prosecution of their plans of establishing Catholic schools in the Willamette Valley, and Indian missions in the more remote parts of the territory.[3] The sisters took possession of a convent erected for them on French Prairie, called St Mary, on the 19th of October, and opened a school for girls soon after. A boys' college, named St Joseph, was already in operation, under the charge of Rev. J. B. Bolduc, who
- ↑ Burnett, in his Recollections of a Pioneer, 102, speaks of meeting De Smet and De Vos at the crossing of the Kansas River, but this is an error. De Vos and Hoeken were meant. They travelled in advance of the emigrants of 1843, a part of the time in company with a hunting party from New Orleans, under Captain Stuart. See Niles' Register, lxv. 70.
- ↑ Blanchet's Cath. Ch. in Or., 131, 139. The archbishop is at fault again in his dates, writing 1842 for 1841. Sir George is also made to keep 'his promise of sending assistants,' as if he were part of the Catholic Mission, which he was far from being.
- ↑ The Indefatigable entered the south channel of the Columbia, an entrance not attempted before. Her commander was without any knowledge of the river, but having lain outside four days waiting for a pilot, decided to try the entrance, and sailed straight in, being several times in peril from shallows, but arriving safe at Astoria. Subsequently the channel deepened until it came into common use.
