METHODIST EDUCATIONAL EFFORT IN OREGON TO 1860 67
went to the Mission where he assisted P. L. Edwards in the mission school Lee had established there. Horner gives Ed- wards the honor of being the first Oregon school teacher, 5 but I think it is conclusive that Solomon Smith deserves that honor and the credit of long service thence forward as a representative citizen. Shepard was teaching at the mission school as early, at least, as was Edwards. 6 Geo. H. Hines is the authority for the statement that Smith also assisted in this mission school.
Shepard was a frail, studious man, while Edwards was a large, strong Kentucky frontiersman. It really is more rea- sonable to assume that Shepard did the teaching while Ed- wards cleared and cultivated land.
There were some wild Indians in the school, but their main reason for being there seems to have been a desire for food and shelter rather than any great spiritual or educational yearning. There were three Calapooia orphans received in the mission house in the winter of 1834-5. One of them, John, helped with the work, but as soon as the warm spring came, he answered the call of the wild, leaving his sickly, scrofulous sister, Lucy Hedding } (named after the Bishop) to the mis- sionary influences of the Methodists. Some of the Umpquas brought a boy to the Mission in the spring of 1835. Shortly thereafter, he died of consumption. Hines 7 says the Ump- quas came and menaced the lives of the Lees, as a result, but Daniel Lee denies this. A Tillamook Indian boy was brought to the mission and left there by his people. He would neither work nor study, but sat all day long, looking toward the coast, weeping. When his friends returned, he left with them.
A French-Indian, Louis Shangaratte, died and left three children and five Indian slaves. Dr. McLoughlin asked Lee to take them into the Mission. Lee agreed to this, but de- manded that the slaves be given their freedom. This was done. This crowded the small 18x32 building considerably but it was not long till three of them died of syphilis and two more ran away. During the first year, fourteen children were re-
5 Horner, "Oregon History," p. 70.
6 Hines, H. K., "Miss. Hist, of Pac. N. W '.," p. 99. Shepard taught at Van- couver in the winter of 1834; came to the Mission in March, 1835.
7 Hines, G., "Oregon History/' p. 14.
