Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 29).djvu/124

in every direction, and many of the Indian tribes heard from them of the Catholic religion and the worship of the true God. In 1821, the North-West and Hudson Bay Companies united their interests, and gave a new impulse to the fur-trade. Mr. John McLaughlin, who went to Oregon in 1824, was chiefly instrumental in promoting the prosperity of the country.^[1] He added to the business posts, and gave employment to a greater number of Canadians and Iroquois. They commenced at the same time the cultivation of wheat. One of the settlers having undertaken, in 1829, to till the soil in the valley of Willamette, his example was soon followed by others, and the colony became so numerous that in 1834 an application was made to Dr. Provencher, Vicar Apostolic of Hudson Bay, to procure a clergyman for the service of the people.^[2] The colonists, however, did not succeed in obtaining a favorable answer to their petition, until the following year, when two clergymen were appointed for the mission; but, owing to the arrival of a Methodist preacher and of an Episcopalian minister in Oregon, the former in 1834, and the latter in 1837,[10] the departure of the Catholic clergymen was considerably {18} delayed. Rev. Mr. Demers went as far as the Red River in 1837, and arrangements having been made for himself and fellow-*

1. For McLoughlin see Townsend's Narrative in our volume xxi, p. 296, note 81.—Ed.
2. See, on the Willamette settlement, De Smet's Letters in our volume xxvii, p. 386, note 203; on Provencher, ibid., p. 391, note 213.—Ed.