With the aid of his reinforcements De Smet did brave work, founding in rapid succession the mission of St Ignatius, among the Pend d'Oreilles, and the chapels of St Francis Borgia, among the Kalispelms, St Francis Regis in Colville Valley, St Peters at the Great Lakes of the Columbia, the Assumption on Flatbow Lake, and the Holy Heart of Mary among the Kootenais. De Vos and Accolti were placed in charge of St Ignatius, where a mission farm was opened. De Smet employed much of his time travelling among the aborigines; and as there was much despatch used in making converts, it was claimed that between 1840 and 1846 six thousand natives embraced the Catholic faith.[1]
During the absence of Archbishop Blanchet in Europe his vicariate had been erected into an ecclesiastical province, containing the three sees of Oregon City, Walla Walla, and Vancouver Island; the first being allotted to the archbishop, the second to his brother, the Rev. A. M. A. Blanchet, canon of Montreal, and the third to Vicar-general Demers. The bishop of Walla Walla proceeded from Montreal to Oregon by way of St Louis, where he was joined by nine others, among whom were the Oblate Fathers and two lay brothers, two secular priests, namely, J. B. A. Brouillet, appointed vicar-general of Walla Walla, and Father Rosseau; and a deacon, Guillaume Leclaire. Brouillet and Rosseau immediately took up
- ↑ The good missionary was fond of writing. His earliest published work seems to have been Letters and Sketches, written in 1841, after his first visit to the Rocky Mountains, printed in 1843, and marked by the novel impressions received from contact with savages. His Oregon Missions, New York, 1847, is a book of over 400 pages, and contains, besides a narrative of the mission work in the Willamette Valley and a brief sketch of the territory, a great number of letters filled with descriptive, scientific, and religious matter. He followed this with several works, little more than reprints, in French and Italian; and published in 1863 his Western Missions and Missionaries, a series of letters addressed to the editor of Precis Historiques at Brussels, containing more information of a general character concerning the country than his earlier works.
1850 McLoughlin became a partner in the firm, and so remained till 1853, when the business was closed. Captain Menes settled on French Prairie, where he resided up to his death in 1867. Oregon City Enterprise, March 21, 1868.
