school.[1] A wedding breakfast followed the conclusion of the services. Thus was inaugurated the marriage ceremony in the Willamette Valley, where heretofore christianized forms had not been deemed essential.[2]
The labor of settling the families now occupied all the time that could be spared from the harvest, in both of which Jason Lee and White assisted. Beers and Willson spent most of the summer in transporting the goods which arrived by the Diana from Fort Vancouver, by the slow conveyance of canoes. A log house and shop were built for Beers. White had a hewn-log house, in which the skill of the mechanic Willson was very serviceable. A school-room was added to the Mission house, and Miss Johnson installed as teacher. Mrs Shepard made and mended the clothing of the Indian children; the other women attended to the general housekeeping. A temperance meeting was held to keep alive the sentiment against the introduction or manufacture of intoxicating drinks, an effort in which the missionaries were successful for a number of years after the first formation of the Oregon Temperance Society.[3]
In August, Jason Lee made two exploring excursions in company with his wife and Mr and Mrs Shepard. The first one, under the guidance of a French settler named Desportes, was toward the upper end
- ↑ Roe had a strange history. He was born in New York in 1806 and came to Oregon in 1834. He early joined the Methodist church in which for many years he had a good standing. On the death of his wife he married again in 1856 another half-breed girl of good character; but becoming jealous of her, he murdered her in 1859, for which he was hanged, professing to hope for forgiveness, and expressing a willingness to pay the penalty of his sin. Hines' Oregon Hist., 25; Or. Statesman, March 1, 1859.
- ↑ Parker says that when he urged the duty of the marriage relation he was met by two reasons for dispensing with a legal marriage: one, that if the men wished to return to their former homes they could not take their Indian families with them; and the other, that the Indian women did not understand the obligations of the marriage covenant, and might at any time, through caprice, leave them. Parker's Jour., Ex. Tour., 180–1.
- ↑ Wilkes, whose visit to the Willamette settlements occurred in 1841, expressed his surprise at the general regard for temperance, and opposition to distilling spirits among a class of men who might be expected to favor that indulgence. But they were all convinced that their welfare depended on sobriety. Wilkes' Nar., U. S. Explor. Ex., iv. 386.
