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.

Mission Mothers ~ Rachel Beers & Mary Leslie

     Two of the first five women who came to the mission in 1837 brought three small children.
     We know little of Rachel Beardsley Beers. She married on November 17, 1830 and came to Oregon with her husband Anson and their three young children. A description of the couple was made by Dr. and Mrs. White on the 1837 voyage to Oregon: "He was a man of low stature, rather dark complexion, rigid puritanical manners, and well versed in scripture, ever stoutly insisting on all coming to his landmark, his righteous soul chafing sorely at the least departure of his friends from his golden rule. Being rather bilious, it increased the authority of his manners, which failed to render him a favorite with either crew or passengers. Mrs. Beers was of medium height, round favored, philosophical turn of mind, docile, quiet in temperament and perfectly obedient to her husband, as the reader might suppose she had better be, after the above description of him."
       Anson was a blacksmith, an important skill in the frontier community. He also took on both a political and military role in the new village of Salem. Rachel lived in the mission settlement while he was often away on various ventures. In Oregon, one of her children died and four more were born. Their seven births were between 1834 and 1848 ~ perhaps one every two years until her death.
     When the mission enterprise in Oregon was dissolved in 1844, the mission property was sold to Beers. A note in Rev. George Gray's diary says, "Today we made a bargain with Mr. Beers to sell him the farm which he occupies with the stock, tools, etc... This puts a heavy concern off our hands. We will soon be able to dismiss Mr. Beers from the services of the mission."
     If Rachel's death was recorded, that document is now lost: he remarried in 1852 and died the next year. There is a tombstone near his in Lee Memorial Cemetery, simply marked "Beers" that may be hers. 

     However, Rachel may be remembered in another way. In 1845, a year after Rev. Gray's note quoted above, and four years after the missionaries had moved to Salem, John Minto wrote about visiting the original mission settlement, Beer's property, remarking that floods had carried away everything but "six or eight peach trees; a rose bush, some gooseberry and currant bushes and a bed of rhubarb." The rose bush was probably Rachel's. In 1837, she found a wilted rose clipping among her belongings when she unpacked in Oregon. Cyrus Shepherd planted it for her and it thrived. Later it was noted by several writers as the brightest spot of color in the mission settlement. Did another generation of that rose grow in what became her son Oliver's garden? His handsome 4000 square feet house, built in 1870, is located at 10602 Wheatland Road N in Gervais. In the successful nomination for this property on the National Register of Historic Places, there is speculation that her home was here: Evidence supports two conclusions: one, a building previously existed here...and mission occupation is inferred. The Willamette mission hospital building is the most likely candidate...The hospital, described in 1841 a a 'well-built frame edifice' was Alanson Beers' dwelling place in the 1840s and 1850s...Possibly the executor of Alanson Beers' estate, Josiah Parrish, inhabited the hospital until 1862, at which time Oliver Beers began a three-year lease and eventual purchase of the claim." Perhaps Rachel's rose will be found 
 there.

Memorial to Mary Leslie

Mary A. Kinney Leslie (the same age as Anna Maria Pittman Lee) was married to David Leslie, a minister who took over many of the duties of Jason Lee while he was traveling back and forth to the east. She brought three daughters with her to Oregon. We know that while Mary Leslie was ill (perhaps pregnant), the family shared mission housing with Elvira and Henry Perkins. The structure burned, destroying all their possessions. Mary had two more daughters before her death at the mission in her 31st year in 1841.
When the missionaries' Methodist church sponsorship was dissolved, the community moved to the new settlement at Salem and the church lands there distributed among the families. David Leslie was awarded the claim lying between the present Mission and Gilchrist streets, the east edge of what is now Bush Pasture Park and the Willamette Slough. Here he built the fourth house in Salem (a frame house of two floors) and planted an orchard with numerous varieties of apples and pears. (Bush House now stands at this site.) Mary Leslie's remains were transferred to the section of family land that has since become Pioneer Cemetery and may be considered the first burial in that historic cemetery.

Sadly, four of Mary's five daughters died at early ages: Without his wife to assist in raising the children, Leslie decided to take them to a mission in Hawaii (Sandwich Islands) where there was a school for them. As they waited to leave Astoria, one of the daughters (Satira age 15) left the ship and married Cornelius Rogers. Leslie accepted the marriage and then left two other daughters, Helen and Aurelia, in the new couples’ care. Leslie then continued on to Hawaii where he left the two remaining daughters Mary and Sarah at a boarding school. Sarah died a year later in Hawaii, while Cornelius, Satira and Aurelia (perhaps 2 years old) also died that year, February 1843, in Oregon when their canoe went over Willamette Falls. Mary grew up to marry George H. Jones, but at age 25 died at the birth of their second daughter in 1857. Helen, who survived the canoe accident ~ or was not present ~ did not marry, but lived with her step-mother Adelia (Leslie's second wife) in Salem. Both died in the same year, 1890.

This Google image depicts a romantic vision of pioneer life in America.

The Lady Said No ~ Margaret Smith

      Most of us have had an acquaintance (or member of the family) like Margaret Jewitt Smith. She was, to put it in more a modern-day term, "ahead of her time". Even today, when a woman in America has more choices in her future than Margaret could have imagined, there are those who seek unconventional paths. She saw herself as more than the wife and mother her society demanded of her future: she wanted to express herself as a writer of poetry, to have a career as a teacher, to see the world. She might have even had aspirations to vote! She said "No" to the limits of domestic life, always under the control of men, offered women of her time.

       Born in Saugus, Massachusetts about 1812, Margaret was able to prevail against family wishes and attend Wesleyan Academy in Wilbraham. This was the institution where Jason Lee graduated in 1830 (when she was 18 years old) and one of the first to offer higher education to women. The evangelical enthusiasm to missionary work in Methodist church, inspired her go to Oregon as a teacher. She secured a "position" with the 1837 group and accompanied the Leslie family and William Willson on the nine months voyage. By the later, semi-fictional retelling of her story, she found herself as a servant to the ailing Mrs. Leslie during the trip, and was urged to marry Mr. Willson ~ her presumed suitor ~ after they arrived at the mission. She refused, even after he testified that they had been intimate during a winter at the mission settlement. When he married Chloe Clark, Margaret was relieved to have that matter settled. But her ambition to remain single, to have her writing published and to serve as a teacher were all challenged to such a degree that she left the community. Of course, she must marry someone. So her choice was Dr. William J. Bailey, not of the mission, and they settled in French Prairie. But that was far from the end of her story.

      Margaret discovered Dr. Bailey was not an ideal husband: he had a violent temper and was alcoholic. However, by 1848 her writing career was advancing as her poetry (signed by MJB) was appearing in the Oregon Spectator. She was even hopeful of editing a periodical for women. Realizing her personal situation with an abusive husband could not continue, she divorced Dr. Bailey in 1854. That same year her book, with the lengthy title of Grains, or, Passages in the Life of Ruth Rover, with Occasional Pictures of Oregon, Natural and Moral was published. In Chapter One the narrator as Ruth Rover reveals, "I am avoided and shunned, and slighted, and regarded with suspicions in every place till my life is more burdensome than death would be. I have, therefore, … been impelled by a sense of justice due to myself and a wish that my future life should not be overshadowed by the gloom of the present.” 
      This thinly disguised narration of her life at the mission changed the names of the missionaries in the novel, but revealed them in copies of actual documents inserted in the text along with her poems. Of course, this was too much! A divorced women casting suspicion on the motives and behavior of the ministers!  Amid public criticism, her career as a published Oregon writer came to an end.

      Margaret's personal story continued to be unfortunate: a year after her divorce, she married Francis Waddle in Polk County. In 1888, this marriage also ended in divorce. In Washington Territory she married for the third time. Perhaps this union brought her more comfort, but certainly not prosperity: she was reputed to be "in poverty" when she died in Seattle on May 17, 1882.

Much of this information is found in the Oregon Encyclopedia under the title "Margaret Jewett Smith Bailey (1812-1882)".

William Bailey went on to participate in Oregon's provisional government, living on his property in the French Prairie of the Willamette Valley with his second wife. He is buried in the St. Paul Cemetery.

Photograph: Oregon Historical Society, Research Library, ORHi37311

A Fatal Rescue ~ Elvira Perkins & Serepta White

Elvira Johnson had been engaged to Rev. Henry Kirk Perkins before she sailed to Oregon. In November of 1837, they were married by Rev. Leslie. She was described as "a willing worker, amiable, well-thought-of, and a person who made every effort to be useful". By March, Rev. Perkins left the Willamette mission with Daniel Lee, leaving his wife while a new mission was organized at the Dalles (Wascopan). She joined him six weeks later, traveling by canoe the 70 miles on the Willamette and then 95 more miles on the Columbia. Considering currents and weather, how would you like to undertake that canoe trip today?

By August, Elvira Perkins was ill. This might have been a difficult pregnancy as that "delicate condition" was often referred to as an "illness". David Leslie and Serepta White (with her infant son, Jason Lee White) boarded a canoe at Willamette mission to go to her aid. Mrs. White was an accomplished member of the mission company: a teacher and a medical assistant, trained by her physician husband. The trip to The Dalles was successful and Elvira was recovering as they left for the return trip. Along the way home, the canoe overturned, dumping the passengers into the water. As she later recalled, Serepta found herself under the canoe, struggling for breath, thinking, "I have done with my labors for these poor Indians ~ well, all will be over in a moment, but how will my mother feel when she learns my fate?" Then she felt someone grasp her dress and she was brought to the surface. Her first remark was, "Oh, Mr. Leslie, I lost lost my child!". Indians rescue them both and find the body of the child under the canoe. The small body was then wrapped in a blanket and the mother held it as they continued back to the mission, arriving the next day. This tragedy was compounded later that year when the White's adopted son George, age 14, became entangled in his saddle equipment and drowned while crossing the Willamette River.

Lifelines of Elvira and Serepta

Dr. Elijah White had conflicts with Jason Lee about the direction of the mission activities, the change in focus from aid to the Indian population to colonizing for American settlers. Dr. White and family left the mission in 1840. He became an Indian agent and then, ironically, led immigrants into Oregon.  While Serepta was living in New York during his expeditions, she lost another child, afterwards adopting several children. Dr. White returned to Oregon to promote the community of Pacific City. He died in California in 1879. Nothing more is known of Serepta except that they wrote "Travels of Dr. E. White and Lady". We may assume she returned to the west with him.

The Perkins returned to the mission where she was a teacher as well as caring for her own children, a son, Henry, and a daughter born in 1841. The Perkins and Leslie families shared a house, the one that burned, causing them to lose all their possessions ~ a household tragedy in these frontier circumstances. In 1844 when the mission efforts transformed into creating the community of Salem, Elvira and her family left Oregon to return to Massachusetts. Her husband's place was taken by Rev. Alvan Waller.  Like the White couple, the Perkins kept a journal of their years in Oregon, 1838-1844. 
The couple had six more children. Reverend Perkins died in 1884 in Somerville, Ma. Elvira survived him by a dozen years, dying in 1896. They are both buried at Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Ma.

Thanks to Google for this image of a typical canoe accident in river rapids.