of the Willamette Valley, by an eastward circuit to the head waters of the Mollale, and down that stream to its junction with the Willamette, which he crossed, and returned to the Mission by the west side. The second excursion was to the sea-coast, at the mouth of the Salmon River, under the guidance of Joseph Gervais. Here they sojourned seven days, bathing in the salt water, and preaching as they were able to the Killamooks. Health and pleasure with light professional occupation was the object of these excursions, Shepard particularly being in need of change of air. This visit to the coast was an example which later became the custom, namely, for camping parties to spend a portion of the summer on the west side of the Coast Range, there to enjoy the sea-bathing and rock-oysters.[1]
Hardly had the excursionists returned to the Mission when news came of the arrival of a second reënforcement, which left Boston on the 20th of January, 1837, in the ship Sumatra, and arrived at Fort Vancouver on the 7th of September following. The Sumatra was loaded with goods for the Mission, and brought as assistants to Lee the Rev. David Leslie of Salem, Massachusetts, Mrs Leslie, and three young daughters, Rev. H. K. W. Perkins, who was to marry Miss Johnson, and Miss Margaret Smith, afterward the wife of Dr Bailey. Perkins and Miss Johnson were married November 21, 1837, Bailey and Miss Smith in 1840.
The family at the Willamette mission now numbered sixty members, including the native children, or nearly an equal number of Indians and white persons. It was a somewhat expensive process, one civilizer to every savage, especially where ninety-nine out of every hundred of the latter died under the infliction.
- ↑ A pear-shaped mollusk in a soft shell, incased in the sandstone of the sea-shore at the mouth of the Salmon River. It is found by breaking open the rock, and seems to have enlarged its cell as required for growth.
