hope to be ready to go out next spring, if we can have assurance of being sustained till churches can be raised up to support the gospel in that new territory. Our journey last year, together with the expenses of the family for the present year, strongly reminds me that $300 will be less than will sustain my family a year, should my services commence at the time of our departure from this place. Br. Johnson[1] and myself have had some conversation with Br. Brabrook, the Foreign Mission agent for this state and Missouri, and he thinks the mission would appropriately come under the cognizance of the F. Mission Society as it would tend to facilitate the establishment of an Indian mission west of the mountains. It matters but little to us with which Board we stand connected, provided we are enabled to devote ourselves entirely to the work of the ministry and not leave our families to suffer. I greatly desire that Br. Johnson may be appointed and immediately encouraged to go. I know of no man in the West I would prefer to accompany me, should it please the Lord to open the way for me. The undertaking is great and we greatly need more than one, that, in the case of death, the work might not be entirely suspended, the labor, money and time lost. I have just learned that the company going this year would probably be about fifteen hundred. Please write me the wishes of the Board.
- ↑ Rev. Hezekiah Johnson, to whom frequent reference is made in the letters from now on, was born in Maryland in 1799. He moved to Ohio in 1816, and was ordained there in 1827. He moved to Iowa in 1838. In 1845 he went to Oregon as the author records. He died in Oregon in 1866. C. H. Mattoon, Bap. Annals of Oregon, I: 45.
