steamer which was to convey them to Sandy Hook, where the ship was anchored. Assembled there were many friends, and some strangers drawn thither by curiosity regarding so unprecedented a missionary exodus. Religious services were held conducted by the reverend doctors Bangs and Anderson, secretaries of the American Board. Stronger to move the heart than sound of brass or stretched strings is the music of the human voice; and as prayer and song fell upon the ears of those excited by hopes and fears, their souls were stirred within them, and sobs, tears, and embraces mingled with the farewell benedictions, as the travellers stepped from the steamer to the ship. No company ever sailed from that port whose departure was watched with more interest by religious and political circles.
The ship reached the harbor of Honolulu on the 11th of April 1840, where all disembarked, and were hospitably entertained until the 28th, when they set sail for the Columbia River. During their sojourn, Lee held a conference with Kamehameha III., relative to an exchange of productions between the Islands and Oregon, and an informal treaty of commerce was entered into, to the manifest pleasure of the king.[1]
Before the Lausanne reached its destination, it may be well to glance over the condition of things at the Mission during Lee's absence. In June had occurred the death of Mrs Lee, as previously related; in August White's infant son was drowned, the first boy[2]
- ↑ Hines' Hist. Or., 80.
- ↑ From a comparison of dates, it appears that the first child of white parentage born in Oregon was Alice Clarissa Whitman, born at Waiilatpu, March 4, 1837, and drowned in the Walla Walla River June 22, 1838. Jason Lee White was born in July 1836; he was eleven months old at the time of his death. Lee and Frost's Or., 212. While canoes were the only means of travelling by water, fatal accidents were not infrequent, which makes the coincidence in the mode of death of the first two infants less notable. On the 15th of September, 1837, Joseph Beers was born, and in 1882 resided in Marion Co., the oldest American native of Oregon. On the 15th of November, 1837, a daughter named Eliza was born to Mr and Mrs Spalding at Lapwai, and she afterward married a Mr Warren of Brownsville, Linn County. The next birth was that of Jason Lee's son, June 6, 1838, who died soon after, and who was
