96 THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 



then superintendent of Indian affairs for the Northwest. They met him 

 and explained their mission. While in Saint Louis the two old men died. 

 The two younger men (Nos. 145 and 146, herein), after an interview 

 with Governor Clarke, telling their mission and its failure, started to 

 return to the Upper Columbia on the steamer Yellowstone, the first 

 steamboat to navigate the waters of the Yellowstone. On this boat 

 the two Indians were fellow passengers with Mr. Catlin. (See No. 

 311, a view of the steamer with the. Indians on the deck.) A young 

 man, it is said, a clerk in Governor Clarke's office, was present at the 

 last interview with the Nez Perces. After their departure this clerk 

 mentioned the matter to persons at Pittsburgh. Mr. Catlin, on his re- 

 turn from the Yellowstone in 1833, was asked at Pittsburgh about this 

 incident. He thought the story of the search for the book improbable, 

 as the two Indians in their journey with him up the river on the steam- 

 boat had not even alluded to it (one of them died near the mouth of 

 the river). Mr. Catlin wrote to Governor Clarke, who confirmed the 

 story, and then in his letter (No. 48) to the Commercial Advertiser, New 

 York, he wrote of this singular mission. 



The attention attracted by the publication and the incident resulted 

 in action by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions 

 and of the Methodist Board of Missions. 



Jason and Daniel Lee, brothers, along with other divines, were sent 

 out to Oregon in 1835 by the Methodists, and the now famous Kev. 

 Marcus Whitman and Dr. Samuel Parker in 183G. The journey lasted 

 from six to eight months. 



Mr. Catlin in 183G met Kev. n. H. Spalding and wife at Pittsburgh, 

 who were on their way to Oregon as missionaries, and, in a conversa- 

 tion, detailed to them the above incident and others of Indian life. 



No more romantic incident than this can be found in Northwestern 

 history — the four Nez Perce Indians traveling thousands of miles in 

 search of the book, looking for the white man's Deity. Still the Jesuits 

 had been missionaries among these same Indians for scores of years 

 prior to this time. Lewis and Clarke found many of the " Black 

 Gowns" with the Indians. 



This incident was enough to excite the mind and heart of denomina- 

 tional devotees. Men and women were found to abandon home and 

 friends, to suffer privations, and some at last to meet death at the 

 hands of the savages whose condition they were trying to better. 



The economic results of these early Northwestern Protestant missions 

 beginning in 1835-'3G, and the political consequences following, are 

 most graphically detailed in "Oregon; the Struggle for Possession, by 

 William Barrows," Boston, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1884, as well as 

 the partial results of these missions and the fate of Whitman and other 

 missionaries. Dr. Whitman and his wife and thirteen or more asso- 

 ciates were murdered November 29, 1847. See also " History of Indian 

 Missions on the Pacific Coast," by Rev. Myron Eells, 1882. 



