342 CHARLES HENRY CAREY
that field. Some time was necessarily spent in making preparatory arrangements for their departure, during which they held a number of missionary meetings in various parts of the country, with very encouraging re- sults. They started for the west in March, 1834. Two laymen, Messrs. C. Shepard and P. L. Edwards, were afterward added to their number and added to the mission.
Arrangements had previously been made for these brethren to cross the mountains in company with Captain Wyeth, who headed a band of men in the employ of a Fur Company which had been formed in Boston. Our missionaries joined this company at Fort Independence, Missouri, which place they left with the party for the Valley of the Columbia, in the latter part of April, 1834, and after a weary and perilous journey over the Rocky Mountains they arrived at Fort Vancouver, on the Co- lumbia River, in the ensuing September.
For several reasons satisfactory to themselves, the missionaries, on becoming acquainted with the position and circumstances of the Flat Heads, abandoned the idea of establishing a mission among them. A location on the Willamette was deemed much more eligible and was therefore selected as a starting point and as the centre of a wide circle of benevolent action. Several other places were afterward selected as mission stations, which in the judgment of the Superintendent made it necessary to increase the number of missionaries. Ac- cordingly in letters from Rev. Jason Lee, dated Febru- ary 1835, the Board were earnestly solicited to send out a reinforcement. In compliance with this earnest re- quest, eight assistant missionaries, a physician, a black- smith, and several teachers, wene sent. This company sailed from Boston in July, 1836; and after some deten- tion at the Sandwich Islands, arrived in Oregon in May, 1837.
