in line with the agitation he was carrying on, and published a pamphlet on the necessity of immediate action.
As a consequence of all this agitation, the Missionary Board of the Methodist Episcopal church was importuned to establish a mission among the Flathead Indians at once. A call was issued for volunteer missionaries for this work in distant Oregon. In answer to that call, Jason Lee formerly of Stanstead, Canada, and his nephew Daniel Lee, appeared and offered themselves for this work. Jason Lee had formerly been engaged in this line of work in the British Provinces. He had all the qualifications for the labors, trials and dangers for such a field of missionary effort. In fact no man could have been found probably who was as well prepared for such a trying and responsible trust. Lee was accepted by the Methodist Board and later on made a member of the Conference in 1833. He was now thirty years of age, tall, powerfully built, rather slow and awkward in his movements, prominent nose, strong jaws, pure blue eyes, with a vast store of reliable common sense. Such was the first man sent out to old Oregon, to preach the gospel to the heathen.
By October 10, 1833 three thousand dollars had been provided for an outfit; and in March 1834, Lee left New York for the west, lecturing on his way; and taking with him his nephew, Daniel, together with two laymen, Cyrus Shephard of Lynn, Mass. and Philip L. Edwards, and adding Courtney M. Walker of Richmond, Mo. At Independence, Mo. the missionary party fell in with Nathaniel J. Wyeth, then starting on his second trading expedition to the Columbia river, and were afterwards joined by the fur trader Sublette, going to California, and his party; and as they filed out westward on the 28th day of April, 1834, the party numbered all told, seventy men, and two hundred and fifty horses. Such was the first missionary expedition to old Oregon.
The Missionary party reached Old Fort Hall, which was some forty miles north of the present town of Pocatello, Idaho, on the 26th day of July, and held there the next day, being Sunday, the first public service of the Protestant churches ever held west of the state of Missouri and Missouri river, Jason Lee conducted this service and preached to a congregation made up of Wyeth's men, Hudson Bay fur hunters, half breeds and Indians, all of whom conducted themselves in a most respectful and devotional manner. It was a wonderful sight, a grand and solemn sight; the rough and reckless children of the forest, of various tongues and customs, gathered from the four quarters of the globe, a thousand miles distant from any civilized habitation, in the heart of the great American wilderness, listening to the message of Christ from this young man, and reverentially bowing their heads in prayer to the Almighty maker and Preserver of all men and things.
From Fort Hall (then only in process of construction by Capt. Wyeth) the party proceeded on to the Columbia river, being assisted by Indians sent along with them by Thomas McKay, a fur trading captain in the employ of the H. B. Co. On coming down the river in boats and canoes, most of which were wrecked, the missionary party lost nearly all of their personal effects. Rev. Lee reached Fort Vancouver in September in a bedraggled condition, and was very kindly received by Chief Factor. McLoughlin, who promptly supplied all his personal wants. The Lees had carefully noted all the conditions of the upper Columbia river country as they passed through it, and having heard much of the beauty of the Willamette valley, came on west to see it as probably the best location for a mission. After resting a few days with Dr. McLoughlin, the mission party proceeded down the river in boats furnished by McLoughlin, to the ship May Dacre, which had arrived from New York with the household goods of the party, and was then tied up at the bank of Sauvies Island (then called Wappato island) about twenty miles below this city. From Wappato island, and with horses and men to assist them, the Lees proceeded to hunt a location in the Willamette valley, and taking the trail made by the fur hunters, crossed the hills back of this city into a what is now Washington county, passing out into
