how news traveled among the Indians. Doctor McLoughlin was a humane and religious man. At Vancouver he soon established the custom of services on Sunday, one for the servants and voyagers and families, and another for the officers. He often read the service himself, that of the church of England.[1] The news of such observance could have been carried to the Flatheads and Nez Perces before 1831.
Governor Simpson's journal on April 8, the day previous, reads as follows: "Had a long interview with Eight Chiefs belonging to the Flat Head Coutonais Spokan and other tribes who assembled here for the purpose of seeing me; they appeared much pleased with all that was told them and promise well. Made them a present of a little ammunition and Tobacco. The Spokan & Flat Head Chiefs put a Son each under my care to be Educated at the Missionary Society School Red River and all the Chiefs joined in a most earnest request that a Missionary or religious instructor should be placed among them; I promised to communicate their request to the Great Chiefs on the other side of the Water with a recommendation from myself that it should be complied with."[2] This suggests at least that even before 1825 these tribes had some knowledge of a white man's religion, and talked about it among themselves. Simpson had received a similar request for missionaries from a chief at Fort Okanogan a few days before.
Among the Hudson's Bay Company traders in conference with Governor Simpson at Spokane Forks was Finnan McDonald, born in Scotland and of the Catholic faith. Finnan had been among the Spokane, Pend d'Oreille and Flathead Indians fifteen years and had joined in at least one buffalo hunt. His name is tradition among the Flatheads of even the present day, and his feats of strength and bravery are still related among them.
Finnan's wife was a Pend d'Oreille Indian, a neighboring tribe to the Flatheads. When he retired, about 1827, his family accompanied him to the Glengarry district in Canada, and while en route he insisted that they all be baptized by the first Catholic
