they interested themselves in the settlement of our first missionaries, and remembrance of the benevolence of Doctor McLoughlin to our people, shown many long years, is a possession that will be cherished in our history forever.
In every sketch of the early history of Oregon it is necessary to make some statement of the controversy between Great Britain and the United States over rights of sovereignty here, I shall not pursue the subject, but must mention it, for it is the key to our pioneer history, and the fact must ever be borne in mind, when dealing with any part of the theme.
As missionaries to the Indians, the little band and those who came after them can not be said to have been successful. After few years not many Indians remained to be educated and civilized. This was not the fault of the missionaries, but the inevitable and universal consequence, repeated here, of contact of the white and Indian races. But, as settlers and colonizers, our missionaries "came out strong." They, with the reinforcements sent out during the next ten years, became the chief force that Americanized Oregon and held the country till the general immigration began to arrive. The Presbyterians followed the Methodists in the missionary effort. Samuel Parker was sent out in 1835. Whitman came in 1836. Reinforcement to the Methodist mission arrived by sea in the spring of 1837. Its leader was Dr. Elijah White. Doctor White and wife sailed from Boston in the ship Hamilton July 2, 1836. They came by way of the Sandwich Islands. With them came a dozen persons, for work in the mission, including three young women who became wives of missionaries. Of these details I can give no more in so brief an address as this must be, than are necessary to the main purpose of a short and rapid narrative. Within a year after this reinforcement arrived, Jason Lee, realizing the need of a still stronger
