48 Joseph Schafer had originally given them the grants from the "claim" he had made to a portion of this section of the country. In 1835 many Canadians and H. B. Company's retired servants settled on the river, and in this or the preceding year* two Roman Catholic missionaries from Canada established themselves near the center of what now had become the Canadian settlement, erecting a church and building a school- house for the education of the Canadians, half-breeds and Indian population. During the following years a few Ameri- cans straggled into the country, attracted by the exaggerated descriptions of the soil and climate, as represented by the American traders and trappers, many of whom were in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company. In 1841-42 the H. B. Company on the east of the Rocky Mountains contributed largely to increase the British subjects in this country, by encouraging and affording means of trans- port to such of the inhabitants of their settlement at Red River who might wish to emigrate to the Red River. About 150 families were induced by this means to settle on the Cow- litz River, and on the plains in the neighborhood of Nesqually, in Puget's Sound ; and horses, cattle, etc., given to encourage their labor. The soil of that part of the country not yielding so great a return as anticipated, many of them removed in the following year to the valley of the Willamette. Till the year 1842-43 not more than thirty American fam- ilies were resident in the country.t In 1843 emigration consisting of about 1000 persons, with a large number of wagons, horses, cattle, etc., arrived on the Willamette, having traversed the vast desert section of the country between the Missouri, the Rocky Mountains and the Columbia. They arrived at an advanced season of the year, much exhausted by their arduous journey, and were
- The Catholic missionaries arrived late in the year 1838.
fThis estimate varies from that made by Simpson in November, 1841. See
Simpson Letters, Am. Hist. Rev., XIV, p, 80.----
