BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY IN OREGON Protestants, to take
response.
But
up the
call
163
and urge a quick and hearty
his efforts did not arouse those to
whom
he
appealed to sufficient activity to begin operations at once. The Macedonian cry reached the ears of Dr. Wilbur Fisk, President of the Wesleyan Methodist Academy at Wilbraham, Mass. He was a man of action, prompt and decisive, and on
March
20, 1833,
he wrote a
letter to the
Methodist Missionary
Board suggesting the establishment of a mission to the Flatheads without delay. This Board having a fund which could be used at once, considered the suggestion favorably, and after a few preliminaries, Dr. Fisk became the leading spirit in promoting the
enterprise.
In recalling the young to his
men who had been former
students
mind reverted to one Jason Lee, who had come school from Canada, and who was then in the service
under him,
his
of the Wesleyan church at Stanstead, Canada, the place of his birth.
Mr. Lee caught the inspiration from Dr. Fisk and at once said, "Here am I, send me." Needed preparations were made as rapidly as circumstances would permit, and in March, 1834, Revs. Jason Lee and Daniel Lee, and three laymen, Cyrus Shepard, P. L. Edwards and C. M. Walker, started in company with Captain Nathaniel J. Wyeth, of Massachusetts, who was coming west on a business expedition. On the way across the plains, Sunday, July 27, 1834, Mr. Lee held public worship in a grove. This was the first religious
service he
conducted after starting for the Pacific
from Liberty, Mo., April 21, 1834. His audience was a mixed company of Indians, half breeds and Canadian Frenchmen. That evening, while two of the French-Canadians were racing, a third one ran across the track and a collision ensued which caused the death of one of the riders. Although the deceased person was a Roman Catholic, Captain Thomas McKay, requested Mr. Lee to conduct the funeral service, which slope
he did the next day, thus making Monday, July 28, 1834, memorable as being the day on which the first funeral service west of the Rocky Mountains was conducted by a Protestant min-
