Note 145 — OREGON MISSIONS AN OUTLINE SKETCH OF OREGON TERRITORY AND ITS MISSIONS
Reading edition
“We stopped for a few hours at the Catholic mission,” says Capt. Wilkes, “to call upon the Rev. Mr. Bachelet (Blanchet), to whom I had a note of introduction from Dr. McLaughlin; he received me with great kindness. Mr. B. is here settled among his flock, and is doing great good to the settlers in ministering to their temporal as well as spiritual wants.... Mr. Drayton, Michael, and myself, dined with Mr. B. on oatmeal porridge, venison, strawberries and cream. His hospitality was tendered with good and kind feelings, and with a gentlemanly deportment that spoke much in his favor, and made us regret to leave his company so soon.” Mr. Wilkes represents the missions here and the farms of the Canadians, in a thriving state. He has incorrectly given the name Bachelet to Mr. Blanchet, superior of the Oregon mission, who was recently consecrated vicar-apostolic of that country.—Explor. Exp., vol. 4, p. 350.
Of the Methodist mission at Willamette, Mr. Wilkes says: “About all the premises of this mission there was an evident want of the attention required to keep things in repair, and an absence of neatness that I regretted much to witness. We had the expectation of getting a sight of the Indians on whom they were inculcating good habits, and teaching the word of God: but with the exception of four Indian servants, we saw none since leaving the Catholic mission.”—Ibid. p. 351, 2. At this latter mission he numbers four or five hundred natives. The Methodists had a school of twenty pupils at some distance.
Near Port Orchard the chapel of the Catholic mission is 172 feet long by 72 wide. “Many of the natives,” says Mr. Wilkes, “are capable of saying their prayers and telling their beads, and some were met with who could sing some Catholic hymns in their own language.”
Of the Protestant missions at Clatsop, Capt. Wilkes observes: “There appeared to me to be little opportunity for exercising their ministerial calling, though I understood afterwards that at particular seasons a number of Indians collected to hear them.”—Vol. iv., p. 322.—Ed. of Catholic Almanac.