known. There is no doubt, however, that there were white men upon the Oregon shore before the date above mentioned, but who they were, and where they came from, or whether they sought to instill religious convictions of any sort into the minds of the natives, is and probably always will be unknown.
With the advent of the Lewis and Clark Exploring Expedition in November, 1805 the first expedition of the kind sent out by the Government of the United States the John Jacob Astor sea expedition in October, 1810, and the Wilson Price Hunt party, the overland section of the Astor party, in April, 1811, the North-West Company in December, 1813, and the Hudson's Bay Company, which absorbed the North-West Company in 1821 and began active operations in Oregon in 1824 there came a considerable number of French Canadian employees and traders, most of whom had been trained in the Roman Catholic church to some extent. While these men led wild lives to a considerable degree, yet they never forget their faith, and in every emergency, when danger threatened, they appealed to God for succor. However elemental their ideas of worship, they probably followed the best light they had at the time. In this manner the Indians by whom these trappers and traders were surrounded received their first impressions of the White Man's "Book of Life," and learned of the "Black Gowns" long before they were visited by a priest.
The Wilson Price Hunt party already alluded to as coming overland in 1811-12, endured great hardships and lost a good many men by desertion, among them twenty-four Iroquois, who had received religious instruction from the Jesuits, or "Black Robes," as they were known, belonging to the mission near St. Louis. By intermarriage they became members of the tribe whose territory was embraced in what is now the country in the vicinity of the present city of Spokane, Washington. Before long they began to yearn for the presence of the "Black Robes," and a council was called and the probability of securing a visit from them discussed. Finally four braves volunteered to go to St. Louis to communicate their desires,
