large idea was to refine, to spiritualize and exalt the multiplying activities and
efforts called forth in the endless differentiation of modern life."
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC LEADERSHIP.
Peter John De Smet, the evangelist to the red man, was the great Catholic priest to Oregon, and to the great west. De Smet ranks as high in popular esti- mation and historical repute at St. Louis and Kansas City as in Oregon. But De Smet established no churches, or institutions in Oregon, in the modern accept- ance of the terms. That work of the Catholic church was left to Francis Nor- bert Blanchet, first bishop of Oregon City. Rev. Blanchet was a parish priest in the Montreal district of Canada before coming to Oregon. Having through the liberality of the Hudson's Bay Company secured passage to Oregon with the company's annual express. Rev. Blanchet with his assistant. Rev. Modeste De- mers, left Montreal in May, 1838, and reached Fort Vancouver in November of the same year, having held religious services for the Indians on their way at Forts Colville, Okanogan, and Walla Walla. The first Catholic service was held in Oregon at Vancouver on November 25, 1838. It is pertinent to remark here that the Hudson's Bay Company consented to help these Catholic preachers out to this distant region on condition that the Catholic mission should be established in the Cowlitz valley north of the Columbia. The reason for this condition being, that the company felt sure at this time that the country north of the Columbia would be awarded to the British, although they were hoping that England would get the whole of Oregon.
Rev. Blanchet came to Oregon with the title of vicar-general, practically an assistant to a bishop, and exercising jurisdiction in his name. Rev. Blanchet was therefore not only the first Catholic priest to enter the confines of Oregon, but he was the official head of the great world wide church in Oregon. He was, therefore, no ordinary personage, and undoubtedly selected for abilities to not only preach the gospel according to the ritual of Catholicism, but also to found churches and institutions, and manage the same in the name of and for the great head of the church at Rome.
During the early part of the year of 1840 the rivalry between the Catholic and Methodist missionaries was intense; resulting in recriminations against each other which seem at this distance of time to have been childish and ridiculous, but about which this work is not concerned. The only point of importance which is made clear and distinct, in the contentions between the rival sectarians, was that the influence of Blanchet and Demers united the French Catholic settlers in a community by themselves, and thereby weakened the power of the Protestant missionaries as a political force supporting the claims of the United States to the country. This fact as conclusively shown by the first two petitions of the set- tlers to the United States congress, each being signed equally by French Catholics and Americans; while the memorials sent to Washington after the advent of Blanchet, were signed only by Protestants and Americans. While this shows that the priests and their churchmen had decided to not favor American control of the country, it is not necessarily a reprehensible act. For at that time England was claiming the country equally with the United States, and in joint occupancy by consent of our own government. And as Blanchet and the French Catholics were all subjects of Great Britain, it was but natural they should to some extent, even though passively, sympathize with the claims of the Hudson's Bay Company and England. However, all the Catholics did not side with England, silently or otherwise, but openly and actively espoused the cause and claims of the Ameri- cans. De Smet, the greatest of them all, was a naturalized American citizen and heartily advocated the American side, as did also Etienne Lucier, F. X. Mat- thieu and some others.
Blanchet was first of all things, a priest and servant of the church, and for the whole of his career, was an active and untiring worker to establish parishes and
