anah Walker and Cushing Ealls in 1838, and the Lausanne party of fifty Methodist missionaries and laymen that came around Cape Horn in 1839. All of these people were from the state of New York, and they were all educated intelligent persons, and at once on reaching this country set to work writing letters back to their friends and to newspapers fully describing the advantages of the country for settlement.
On this missionary movement the Methodists expended nearly two hundred thousand dollars, and the Presbyterians must have spent fully one fourth as much. And while they, all of them, came out to teach the Indians, they, each and all, soon saw that they could not maintain their positions in this country if they placed their sole dependence upon the natives. That the beautiful and pathetic story of the Flatheads could be applied to the other Indian tribes with very little hope of success. And consequently, the sequel shows, that very soon after these missionary men and women got here they were actively convassing by correspondence in every direction to get recruits to come out from the states to settle in the country as farmers and home builders, independent of any Indian reformation. Zion's Herald of April 27, 1837, contains a two column letter from Jason Lee showing the advantages of the country for settlement. In the summer of 1838, Jason Lee returned to the states overland, and before starting he drew up a memorial to congress which was signed by the American settlers. From that memorial, we take the following extract:
"A large portion of the territory from the Columbia river south to the Mexican line, and extending from the sea coast to the interior for 300 miles, is either well supplied with timber or adapted to pasturage and agriculture. The fertile valleys of the Willamette and the Umpqua are varied with prairies and woodlands, and intersected by abundant lateral streams affording facilities for machinery. Perhaps no country of the same latitude can be found with a climate so mild. The ground is seldom covered with snow, which remains but a few hours. We need hardly allude to the commercial advantages of the territory for trade with China, India and the west coast of America. Our interests are identical with those of the country of cur adoption. We flatter ourselves that we are the germ of a great state."
Here was this Methodist preacher, born and reared in the British province of Canada, coming over to the land of the stars and stripes, and becoming as true and tried a citizen of the United States as was ever born under its flag, voicing the sentiments of all the Americans in old Oregon—about two dozen all told — and proclaiming themselves to be the germ of a great state. Could the imagination of a Poe or a Byron, have drawn a longer bow? And yet they made good that hopeful prophecy. They did not do it all, but they did all they could. They started the ball to rolling.
Within twenty-four months after Lee and his little band prepared the above memorial to congress, which Lee himself carried east in 1838, and delivered in person at Washington city, Daniel Webster, then secretary of state, wrote to Edward Everett, the American minister to London, as follows: "The ownership of Oregon is likely to follow the greater settlement, and the larger amount of population."
The conduct of the great Daniel Webster—"the god-like Daniel"—in this Oregon controversy was open to severe criticism. If he was not actually opposed to making a fight for Oregon, his lukewarmness in the cause was utterly disgusting. But it only shows how much more determined and vigilant the Americans in Oregon had to be. It is a safe proposition to assert that the "boosting" for this country from 1835 to 1840, was done almost wholly and solely by the missionaries. Of course there were other Americans here, such men as Col. Joe Meek—who were just as sincerely the defenders of the flag and the rights of Americans as were the missionaries. But these men had not the address or the facilities to reach and arouse the people of the states. Very few if any letters were written back to the states except by the missionaries. And
