The Willamette Mission

Undated drawing shows front of mission.

        Almost thirty years after the Lewis and Clark Expedition, four desperate Northwest Indians trekked half way across the continent to ask General Clark for his "Book of Heaven", hoping to save their people from disease and poverty. Alerted by a sympathetic article in the Christian Advocate, the Methodist evangelical spirit responded by financing a missionary effort to Oregon led Jason Lee. His nephew, Daniel Lee, was selected to be his assistant missionary, and Cyrus Shepard was appointed as lay missionary. With the addition of two other laymen, Philip Edwards and Courtney Walker, the small party prepared to cross the continent into a fate none could have imaged.
        The 1834 overland expedition was guided by Nathaniel Wyeth, a successful Boston businessman hoping to establish western fur and dried salmon trading posts and, from Fort Hall to Fort Vancouver, by Thomas McKay, stepson of John McLoughlin, who was a Hudson Bay Company brigade leader and explorer of the Columbia River area. The Methodist mission was organized in the Willamette Valley near a French Canadian settlement, about ten miles north of the present city of Salem. In contrast to the trader/trapper attitude of living in concert with the Indians, the Americans wished, through their preaching classes for the Indian children, to "civilize" the native people by their own standards of society. As examples, the Methodist sponsors realized that American women were needed in the mission community to serve as teachers and to establish families. Aside from these practical matters, one can imagine that the young missionary gentleman were as eager to seek the comfort of women as had the retired French-Canadian trappers living nearby and to attain female help for household domestic activities in their rough frontier cabins. The Methodists recognized that, even if one of their missionaries sought Christian marriage with a native women of the area, it would not be recognized if they returned to their former homes "in the states." There was also the general observation that native women, if they displeased with their male companions, would simply leave them. The ceremony of marriage was a necessity, and with American women who understood the duties of the institution.
         The Board of Missions of the New England Conference of the Methodist Church responded by sending five women who volunteered to be in the next group of missionaries sailing in two whaling vessels from Boston in the summer of 1836. The year-long voyages, including several months in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), ended in Fort Vancouver (near the present city of Portland, Oregon) in May and September of 1837. The travelers proceeded by canoes for three days to the landing at Champoeg where horses were obtained carry them to the mission settlement on the Willamette River about 10 miles north of the present city of Salem. This route took them over the potential rich farmlands of “La Jolie Prairie”, now known as the historic French Prairie area between the two cities. Among the voyagers were three families: a future leader of the missionary community, David Leslie, arrived with his wife Mary and three daughters; a much-needed blacksmith, Anson Beers, with his wife Rachel and three children; and Dr. Elijah White, his wife Serepta and adopted son. A carpenter, William Willson, who had learned medical skills from Dr. White, came as a bachelor. Two of the four unmarried women of the group were already engaged: Susan Downing, to Cyrus Shepherd, a teacher at the mission and Elvira Johnson to minister H. K. Perkins. The Methodist church sponsors hoped that Anna Maria Pittman, acquainted with Jason Lee, would become his wife. Margaret Smith, an experienced teacher, was alone determined to continue unmarried in her profession.

The future of these seven women would be revealed in the frontier life of the structures seen above.

Today's "Ghost" structures in the State Park recall the original mission settlement. This interpretive view point  shows the reverse of the drawing above.

A Triple Wedding ~ Susan, Anna Maria, Nancy

      On July 16, 1937 a triple wedding took place in a grove of fir trees, perhaps like this one, near the mission settlement. Two of these couples are well-known in Oregon history, the other largely ignored. Jason Lee conducted the first ceremony uniting Susan Downing and Cyrus Shepherd, the most gifted of the mission teachers. They had become engaged to marry before the expeditions to Oregon. The second ceremony of marriage that day, for Jason Lee and Anna Maria Pittman, a teacher, was more of a surprise: although she was informed before she left New York that she was a "suitable" prospect as his wife, he had expressed reservations.

         Susan and Anna Maria had voyaged together to Hawaii on the ship Hamilton, then waited several months for the Diana to complete their landing at Fort Vancouver. They were still together in the canoes paddling upriver to Champoeg the next three days. At that landing, Babtiste Desporte McKay presented a letter from Daniel Lee, reporting twelve sick persons at the mission and urging Dr White and the party to hasten in relief. They found the dirt floor of the mission structure covered with the sick, covered with blankets. Susan, dressed carefully for her reunion with Cyrus, found him unkept, busy with housework and caring for the ill. Soon he, too, became sick and Susan found her duties, which continued after their marriage, would be in nursing the sick and caring for the mission children.
     Susan's daughter, born in August 1838, was named Anna Maria Lee Shepherd. Unfortunately, Susan's friend for whom the infant was named, had died a few days after her son was born in the previous June. The Lee son died as well.

     There follows an excerpt from a letter written by 34 year-old Anna Maria Pittman while she was preparing to come to Oregon. Date June 9, 1836, it was written from New York to her brother, George W. Pittman, she says:

       "I have taken my pen in hand to address you for the last time. The time is drawing nigh when I must bid a long farewell to all I love. I quit the scene of my youth, the land of my birth, and in a far and distant land among strangers I expect to dwell. Soon the rolling billows of the tempestuous ocean, and the towering mountain's rugged steep, will intervene between us, and perhaps we see each others faces no more. As the hour approaches for my departure, I still remain firm and undaunted; I have nothing to fear, God has promised to be with me even to the end of the world. Dear brother, farewell, may Heaven bless you, and oh remember your sister who goes not to seek the honors and pleasures of the world, but lays her life a willing sacrifice upon the altar of God."

       Jason Lee in his diary recorded his second meeting with Anna Maria Pittman: "In our first reinforcement in the summer of 1837 there were three single ladies, one of which was not engaged. I had seen her before in N.Y. City, but was not at all favorably impressed with her personal appearance, and least of all, did I think she would ever become my wife; even when I was informed by letter that she was coming to Oregon, and on my first interview with her there, my prejudices remained the same. I was told that she was sent out on purpose for me, and that she had come with expectation that I would marry her.

After the marriage, Jason Lee wrote "Thus I commenced a new era in my life and began an experimental acquaintance with the state of marriage, the happiness of which I had long been favorably impressed. The most perfect harmony and unanimity subsisted between us, and we were always happy in the enjoyment of each others society."

      The Lees and Shepherds took a honeymoon camping trip the coast (each way was four days by horseback) where the ministers preached to Indians and, we hope, the ladies indulged in salmon and enjoyed the dramatic Oregon coast views.  Early in the next year, Jason Lee was on his way back to the east to gain more financial support for the mission effort. Although pregnant and ill, Anna Maria accompanied him to the ship in Vancouver (again by horseback, being helped on and off by their companions). Her friends felt at that time that she would not recover. Indeed, she and the new born son died in June of 1839 and were buried together in a hastily constructed casket. Flooding caused damage to the mission grave site. Her casket was later moved to Lee Mission Cemetery in Salem. 

       In 1840, Cyrus, always in ill health due to tuberculosis, died after the amputation of a leg. Susan must have left the mission at that time. In 1841, Susan married Joseph Whitcomb in Washington and returned east the next year. He died soon after. A grandchild, Clara Shepherd Newell Traxler wrote "Stories my Grandmother Told Me", including memories of Susan's tragic four years Oregon.

        The third couple was Nancy McKay, daughter of Captain Thomas McKay and his Indian wife, Timmee T'ikul Tchinouk, to Charles Roe, an employee of the Hudson's Bay Company. The mission community festivities included a "love feast" with sermons on the joys of married life, singing, and conversions of Indian attendees. Charles Roe also joined the church that day.
        Nancy was as close to northwest aristocracy as any young lady of that day. Her father, Thomas McKay was the respected explorer, trapper and trader who acted as guide for the party that brought Jason Lee to Oregon. McKay was the step-son of John McLoughlin, the leading representative of Britain in the northwest. Nancy’s mother has been described as a daughter of a Chinook chief. With this family background, it is not surprising to find a record that Nancy and her brothers were among the “Indian” children who attended the mission school where Cyrus Shepard was teacher. However, Nancy and Charles were not a part of the mission community. They lived in the French Prairie area, among the retired French-Canadians and their families. Her home, later described as a "hut" by Gustavus Hines who found it unoccupied, was a modest one. The only recorded sighting of Nancy herself after her marriage was in 1843, near Walla Walla. Hines wrote the following: 

        "An Indian woman and her daughter joined our party, of whom mention has been made in another part of this narrative. The old woman lived many years with Thomas McKay, but he finally cast her off, and she is now the wife of an old half-breed Iroquois, by the name of Jo Gray. Her daughter is the wife of Charles Roe. They both live in the lower country, but were up on a visit to their relatives among the Indians. Their dresses were an imitation of the Boston fashions, but were much defiled by the smoke, dirt, and grease of wigwams. They were both astride their horses, the younger carrying her little son before her."

        And so Nancy and her son disappear from the records of that time. Nancy’s birth date is unknown, but she died before 1856. Charles Roe remarried in that year and in 1859 was hanged in Salem for the murder of this second wife.

Marion County photograph by TN Green, Jr.