There was about that time—1815—a young New Englander, Hall J. Kelley, who resented the neglect of the United States to protect Oregon from seizure by a foreign commercial corporation, and who essayed to stir up a colonizing activity in the people. He was in spirit at least the father of the colonists. He was succeeded at a considerably later period by missionary colonizers, at whose head was Jason Lee, the father of the Methodist settlement in the Wallamet Valley, who, since he was successful, may be named one of the fathers of Oregon.
But Jason Lee, had he not himself, and all that came after him been fathered by Dr. John McLoughlin, must have failed in the settlement of the country by Americans. The great historical pioneering triumph of 1843, which a religious denomination has sought to fix upon one of its members, would have been, without McLoughlin, a grievous historical tragedy, and would have lost instead of gaining us this great Northwest.
Colonizers, unless of the Robinson Crusoe sort, must be enthusiasts in the first place, and men of resources afterwards. The mistakes which enthusiasm is liable to commit may be corrected by ample equipment and the necessity of learning from experience. But one of the most sadly pathetic spectacles in life is where the enthuism is present and the means, with the sympathy of one's fellows, are absent.
In such a case was Hall J. Kelley, the Boston school teacher, who aspired to be the promoter of colonization in Oregon, and indirectly was so. From 1815, when he was twenty-six years of age, to 1824, he studied the Oregon question, together with plans of educational work. He helped to found the Boston Young Men's Education Society, and the Penitent Female Refuge Society. The first Sunday-school in New England was chiefly due to his efforts, and the first Sunday-school book was his work.
