In view of the irritable state of my lungs every winter and of the soft and salubrious climate of Oregon Ter. and the amount of emigration annually passing over the Rocky mountains, we are contemplating removing to the said Territory next year, if Providence smiles and we can raise the means,[1] As we have been almost eleven years in this Valley, we wish to visit our friends in New York, Vermont and Massachusetts before we make this removal. Our reasons are, First, the benefit of my lungs and health of my family. Second, it will probably be more difficult to persuade men to go to Oregon than to Iowa, especially at first, while the demands will be greater in three years. We hear of companies forming in various portions of our country to go out the present year and numbers of them are Baptists. Third, I have been a pioneer for more than ten years and have no desire ever to settle over a church in the old states, while the field is the world in the new and rising portions of our country. We shall probably leave this place as soon as the first of June for New York, and I wish, by the Grace of God, to devote as much of my time to the service of the Messiah's Kingdom as I can during my journey with my family. . . . Our Board will meet in this place next week, and I shall present my views to them for consideration and counsel.
Please send me a draft of twenty-five dollars as soon as convenient as I am owing for rents which were due last November and we cannot raise a dollar in money on my last year's subscription.
All which is submitted.
- ↑ The first important immigration to Oregon was in 1842 when about one hundred accompanied Elijah White, newly appointed Indian agent of the United States, on his return to Oregon. This was merely the advance guard of an immigration of about a thousand in 1843. The immigrants of this year came largely from Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. The interest of Ezra Fisher in Oregon probably dates from the interest in Oregon and the glowing reports of the country which were circulating all through the west in the winter of 1842-4. See Bancroft, Hist. of Oregon, Vol. I, passim.
