OREGON MISSION PRESS 45
30 ult & Mr and Mrs Hall with the press &c safe 29, hope to start tomorrow, Mrs Hall in a canoe effects on horses."
After a week's rest the party started on May 6 for Lapwai, which was reached on the evening of May 13th.
The journey is thus described by Mr. Spalding in a letter to the A. B. C. F. M. dated, Clear Water, Oct. 2, 1839:
"My last date left myself & Mrs Spalding at Ft W. W. expecting soon to leave with Mr & Mrs Hall for this station. We had a pleasant journey up the river Mrs Hall alone in the canoe polled by 3 men the remainder of us on horses, obliged frequently to cut high points which presented impass- able bluffs by the waters edge. We reached home in 7 days travel from W. W. Mrs Hall suffered no inconvenience from the journey Mr Hall arranged our little printing establish- ment & printed for us the first book in the Nezpercs language. A few copies are sent you we hope to have other books ready for the press during the winter. Mr Rogers, who was em- ployed at this station last year is to spend this winter with Revd Mr Smith he is somewhat acquainted with printing & may be able to render us some assistance in this department of our labor The whole donation from the First Native church at Honolulu to this Mission, consisting of the press, Type, paper, Ink, Binding aparatus & family supplies, amounted to about $500 & will be acknowledged by the committee appointed to write to the Board on the subject, you will recollect that the same church made a donation to this mission last year of $80, in money & 10 bushels of salt, with two of their No. a man & his wife who have given themselves to our work & are rendering Doct Whitman important assistance in his secular affairs. Others will doubtless come to our assistance next season. The same church has offered to sustain a missionary in this field, which offer has been accepted by our mission & directions suggested as to the best manner of contributing to ths object."
On May 16th the press was set up and on May 18th the first proof-sheet was struck off. By May 24, 1839, four hundred copies of a small 8-page book in Nez-Perces in the artificial alphabet devised by Mr. Spalding were printed, this constitut- ing the first book ever printed in the Oregon Territory.
In 1914, Mr. Wilberforce Eames, of the New York Public Library, discovered the four outer pages of this book used as a paper cover to a copy of the 20-page Nez Perces First Book
