Methodist missionaries under Jason Lee arrived—may be considered the advance guard of American immigration. Kelley, upon his return to New England by way of the Sandwich Islands, disseminated much useful information about Oregon. To him, without doubt, is to be attributed much of the subsequent wave of interest which swept on toward American immigration. As first a New England college man, educator, and social theoriser, and then a leader of the pioneer movement to Oregon, Hall J. Kelley is worthy of permanent remembrance.
Ewing Young became distinguished for leading the party which in 1837 drove a band of seven hundred cattle from California to Oregon. This even marked an epoch in preparing for immigration and subsequent American possession. One of the peculiarly noteworthy facts in connection with Young's enterprise, is that Dr. McLoughlin, the Hudson's Bay Company's magnate, who had at first discountenanced Young on account of a charge of stealing brought against him from California, and who frowned upon the cattle enterprise for fear of American influence, became reconciled to both Young and the cattle, and subscribed liberally to the enterprise.
Nearly contemporary with Kelley and Young were Bonneville and Wyeth.
Bonneville was a well-educated French-American, a West Pointer, and holding the commission of captain in the United States Army. His ardent and imaginative disposition became fired with the thought of a far western expedition, and in 1832 he organised a fur-traders' company of a hundred and ten men. Though not realising his dreams of a fortune in furs,
