As a native Oregonian, and a Catholic, I have always been interested in the early history of the Catholic Church in the Pacific Northwest. It all began in 1838 at Fort Vancouver in Washington state with the arrival of Father Francis Norbert Blanchet and Father Modest Demers, priests of the Archdiocese of Quebec who came to the Oregon Country at the request of Dr. John McLoughlin, the chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company. McLoughlin was responding to the requests of his French Catholic employees for priests to serve their spiritual needs.
A year later, in 1839, at St. Paul (then called French Prairie), on the Feast of the Epiphany, twenty years before Oregon became a state (February 14, 1859), the first Mass in the Oregon Country was celebrated. As the population of Oregon Catholics increased, Rome, in 1843, established the Vicariate Apostolic of the Oregon Territory, with Francis Norbert Blanchet as the first vicar apostolic and bishop; then, to the surprise of many, in 1846, Pope Pius IX raised the vicariate to the dignity of an archdiocese, the Archdiocese of Oregon City, with Francis Norbert Blanchet as its first archbishop, and suffragan sees at Walla Walla and Vancouver Island. After the Archdiocese of Baltimore on the east coast, the Archdiocese of Oregon City (now Portland), is the second oldest archdiocese in the United States.
Introduction: In the Beginning
The Native Populations of the Oregon Territory
at the Time of the Early Explorers, Settlers, and Missionaries
Before we actually get into the history, growth, and development of the Catholic Church in western Oregon, I first want to say something about the native populations present at the time the early explorers, the fur traders, the settlers, and the missionaries arrived. How large and diverse were the native populations? And what word or name should we use to refer to these indigenous and native peoples?
I’ll start with the question of naming: what should we call these peoples? What exonym is useful? Indians, Native Americans, American Indians, Indigenous Peoples, First Nation, Aboriginals? Tribal names? In fact, no single term is appropriate in all instances, and there is no agreement among scholars. The best I can do as we move through these various peoples is to choose a name that seems best for the context.
The origins and timings of native peoples in western Oregon are based on the ebb and flow of glaciers and the existence of a land bridge linking Asia with North America. Over thousands of years, first vegetation, then large mammals, and finally human hunters and gatherers moved onto and eventually crossed the land bridge. People slowly migrated southward, following a route along the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains and, as growing evidence suggests, along the coast.
There is considerable evidence that humans have lived in the Pacific Northwest at least fifteen thousand years. Archeological evidence in the Fort Rock area (central Oregon), The Dalles, and on the Oregon Coast indicate that people were beginning to occupy several locations in the region ten thousand to five thousand years ago. In Oregon’s western valleys there is archeological evidence that humans were present from six thousand to ten thousand years ago.
In about 1800, before the ravages of Old World diseases dramatically reduced their numbers, a conservative estimate of the Native population of the Pacific Northwest was about 180,000 people. Some scholars increase this number, at the upper end, at about 300,000.
At some point during the 1770s and 1780s, the European voyagers to the North Pacific Coast introduced viruses and bacteria to people who had no immunological defenses against them. The consequences were catastrophic. It is estimated that there was a hemisphere-wide population decline of at least 90 percent in the centuries following the Columbian voyage of 1492.
Smallpox and other Old-World diseases probably arrived relatively late on the Northwest Coast because the region was generally distant and beyond the major routes of European travel. The evidence suggests that, beginning in the mid-1770s, mariners from Spanish ships landing along the Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia coasts spread smallpox among the people they encountered. Studies indicate the spread of smallpox in the 1780s from the Tillamooks on the Oregon Coast to the Tlingits in the north. The disease caused profound social and cultural upheavals with mortality estimates in excess of thirty percent from the initial outbreaks.
Though we have no official written records when Lewis and Clark wintered on the lower Columbia River in 1805-6, they found that smallpox had already greatly reduced the population of local Clatsop villages. In fact, by the 1850s, tribes on the northwest coast lost an estimated 80% of their populations. The Siletz people alone lost 90% of their population in less than a century.
So, who were the people that inhabited the Oregon Coast at first contact with Euro-Americans? The Clatsop tribe lived around the mouth of the Columbia River. South of Tillamook Head were the Tillamook and the Nehalem Tillamook. Their homeland extended as far south as present-day Lincoln City. Further to the south were the Siletz, Yaquina, and Alsea peoples. The Kalapuya people resided in the foothills of the Cascade Range. The Siuslaw and the Lower Umpqua peoples lived from Heceta Head south to the dunes around present-day Reedsport. At Coos Bay were the Hanis Coos, the Miluk Coos, and Upper Coquille. South of them were the Coastal Rogue and the Chetco. The Chinook and the Kalapuya tribes largely populated the area from Portland into the Willamette Valley.
The Kalapuya tribe was the most numerous among the tribes inhabiting the Willamette Valley, with some bands living in the upper Umpqua Basin. During the transition of seasons, people in the Willamette, Umpqua, and Rogue valleys, and the Klamath and Modocs in the upper Klamath Basin harvested camas, acorns, wapato (similar to potatoes), hazelnuts, arrowroot, tule, cattails, and many berry varieties. They also hunted deer, elk, waterfowl, and fished local streams for salmon and freshwater fish. Camas was the most widespread and important of the root bulbs.
With Thomas Jefferson’s election as president of the United States in 1800, forces were set in motion that initiated a great immigrant movement to the Northwest that eventually marginalized Native people in their own homelands.
Fort Rock, an archeological site in Central Oregon, near Bend, with evidence of human habitation for 10,000 years.
Lewis and Clark arrived at the Pacific Ocean on November 7, 1805. The “corps” built Fort Clatsop and spent the winter there, returning to St. Louis in September 1806. When word of the fur trade in the Northwest reached the ears of John Jacob Astor, a New York merchant, he took an immediate interest. His first ship arrived at the mouth of the Columbia River in March 1811. His crew established the first American settlement in the Northwest, calling it Astoria. The stage was set for much change in the Oregon Country.
The fur trade continued to grow, and the Hudson’s Bay Company sent Dr. John McLoughlin (1784-1857) to Oregon in 1824 as its chief factor. Prior to this, in 1818, Great Britain and the United States agreed that, for a period of ten years, the citizens and subjects of each nation would have equal access to the Oregon country. This arrangement lasted until 1846, when the boundary between Canada and the United States was set at the 49th parallel.
Dr. John McLoughlin: The Father of Oregon
Central to the history of this early period is Dr. McLoughlin, and he is rightly called the “Father of Oregon.” It was his decision to move the headquarters of the Hudson’s Bay Company from Astoria to Fort Vancouver, the confluence of the Columbia and the Willamette Rivers, in 1825. Let’s take a closer look at John McLoughlin, one of the most powerful and influential people in Oregon history.
McLoughlin was described as a striking figure, with steel blue-grey eyes, a ruddy complexion, a tall muscular frame, and shoulder length white hair. As chief factor of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) in the Oregon Territory, McLoughlin looked after the HBC’s business interests in the Pacific Northwest. The district governor of the company, George Simpson, saw McLoughlin as a “man of strict honor and integrity, but a great stickler for rights and privileges,” with a turbulent disposition that sometimes led to conflict.
McLoughlin was born in Quebec, on October 19, 1784, to a family with both a Catholic and Protestant lineage. At a young age, desired a career in Medicine; and, after an apprenticeship with a Quebec physician, received a license to practice medicine in 1803. That same year, Loughlin joined the North West Company as surgeon and apprentice clerk. In 1810 or 1811, McLoughlin met Marguerite McKay, a (common law?) relationship that lasted until McLoughlin’s death.
McLoughlin’s connection to Oregon began in 1824, with the merger of the North West Company into the Hudson’s Bay Company. It was then that Loughlin was appointed chief factor of the Columbia Department, which encompassed all the land from the crest of the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. It would be McLoughlin’s responsibility to initiate a maritime coastal trade and to increase British presence between the Columbia River and the 49th parallel. McLoughlin was also to extract as much profit as possible from the region south and east of the Columbia River before it became American.
From Fort Vancouver, McLoughlin diversified the HBC, launching the first large-scale agricultural, lumber, and salmon export industries. He also empowered trapping brigades to extract as many furs as possible south of the Columbia. Of special note regarding the character of John McLoughlin, he was well known at the time for welcoming new settlers, especially missionaries, often lending them seed and grain.
It was John McLoughlin who, in the 1830s, persuaded retiring HBC employees to homestead in the Willamette Valley, realizing that it would not long remain without settlers. Preferring settlers that he and the HBC could influence, McLoughlin nurtured Euro-American communities in French Prairie (near present-day St. Paul).
This would lead to conflicts between Loughlin, the HBC, and the newly arriving Americans. Loughlin was known for his generosity in assisting Americans who were settling in the Willamette Valley with grain and seed and extended credit, to the dismay of the HBC. But McLoughlin also faced growing opposition from Americans who desired the HBC’s resources at Fort Vancouver and who resented McLoughlin’s land claims in Oregon City.
McLoughlin also faced false accusations of mistreatment of the Americans. In his defense of actions regarding Americans and HBC, McLoughlin said that if “he had refused them assistance, they would have starved, and the world would have raised a hue and cry against the company (HBC) . . . and they (the Americans) would as a last resort have taken Vancouver.”
The HBC wished to remove McLoughlin from his position, and they offered him to take a leave of absence in order to remain in Oregon—the legal requirement if he meant to hold his land claim in Oregon City—or to transfer to a position east of the Rocky Mountains. McLoughlin chose to stay in Oregon; and, in 1845, resigned from the British controlled HBC and built a house on his claim. The HBC allowed McLoughlin a furlough and leave of absence that extended (on paper) his HBC service to mid-1849.
In order to protect his land claims and to provide financial stability for his family, McLoughlin, in 1849, filed an intention to become a US citizen; and in 1851, he became one. Despite this, some businessmen continued to challenge McLoughlin, eventually passing legislation to deprive him of significant property holdings.
McLoughlin remained in Oregon City for the rest of his life. There, he managed his mercantile and milling interests, served briefly as the city’s mayor, and helped provision relief efforts following the murder of Marcus and Narcissa Whitman in Walla Walla in 1847. McLoughlin died in his home in Oregon City on September 3, 1857.
As time passed after his death, American sentiment toward McLoughlin turned more positive, with many settlers to Oregon publicizing the support he provided them upon arrival. Today, McLoughlin’s house in Oregon City is preserved as the McLoughlin House Unit of Fort Vancouver National Historic Site.
Importantly for Oregon, and for the Catholic Church, a statue of Dr. John McLoughlin is one of two statues from the State of Oregon in The National Statuary Hall Collection in the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C.
As for John McLoughlin’s relationship with the Catholic Church, he was baptized Catholic in Quebec, Canada, but was raised Anglican. He returned to the Catholic Church in his later years. As mentioned, when the terms of some of his employees at the Hudson’s Bay Company expired, Dr. McLoughlin supplied them with provisions and farm implements and sent them into the Willamette Valley. They settled in a place called French Prairie, near the current town of St. Paul. These French Canadians were Catholic, and many had married native women. They longed for the sacraments of the Church, for marriage, and for the baptism of their children.
With that in mind, and at the request of these French-Canadian settlers, Dr. McLoughlin wrote to Bishop Joseph-Norbert Provencher in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1834 and 1835, asking that priests might be sent to those living in the Willamette Valley. The bishop said that he had no priests at Red River (Winnipeg) but that he would forward their petition to Archbishop Joseph Signay in Quebec. The archbishop ultimately decided to send two priests to the Oregon country, though the Hudson’s Bay Company objected to the establishment of a mission south of the Columbia River, whose sovereignty was disputed by the American and English governments. It was finally agreed by all parties that the original mission would be established north of the Columbia River, on the banks of the Cowlitz River (near present day Longview).
Eventually, Father Francis Norbert Blanchet was given charge of the mission at French Prairie (St. Paul) in Oregon, and he was appointed Vicar General to the archbishop of Quebec for the Oregon Country. Fr. Blanchet’s jurisdiction extended from the Rocky Mountains on the east to the Pacific Ocean on the west. Father Modeste Demers was appointed his assistant. The Catholic Church in the Northwest had begun.
Father Francis Norbert Blanchet and Father Modeste Demers:
Establishing the Mission at St. Paul
Archbishop Francis Norbert Blanchet,Archbishop of Oregon City
St. Paul Church, St. Paul, Oregon, dedicatedNovember 1, 1846, the oldest brick buildingin the Pacific Northwest
Bishop Modeste Demers, the first bishop ofVancouver Isaland
The Oregon Trail made an enormous contribution to the population and culture of the Pacific Northwest while, at the same time, bringing prosperity and development to the future states. The trail extended roughly 2,000 miles from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City on the Willamette River. By the time the railroads arrived in the 1860s and 1870s, 400,000 people had traveled the trail (and its tributaries) to the Oregon Country and to the greater West beyond. Aside from trappers and early merchants, the missionaries were the first to traverse a path from the east coast to the west coast. Marcus Whitman was among the first, who, in 1835, set out to demonstrate that the westward trail to Oregon could be traveled safely. Returning to the east, Whitman set out again, now with his new bride, Narcissa. They went further west than Whitman’s first trip, using Indian trails to cross the Rockies, and finally reaching Fort Walla Walla and Fort Vancouver in 1836.
The Oregon Trail made an enormous contribution to the population and culture of the Pacific Northwest while, at the same time, bringing prosperity and development to the future states. The trail extended roughly 2,000 miles from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City on the Willamette River. By the time the railroads arrived in the 1860s and 1870s, 400,000 people had traveled the trail (and its tributaries) to the Oregon Country and to the greater West beyond. Aside from trappers and early merchants, the missionaries were the first to traverse a path from the east coast to the west coast. Marcus Whitman was among the first, who, in 1835, set out to demonstrate that the westward trail to Oregon could be traveled safely. Returning to the east, Whitman set out again, now with his new bride, Narcissa. They went further west than Whitman’s first trip, using Indian trails to cross the Rockies, and finally reaching Fort Walla Walla and Fort Vancouver in 1836.
The Importance of the Oregon Trail
Msgr. Pat on the original ruts of the Oregon Trail (1840s) at Baker City, Oregon
The Political Situation in 1840s Oregon and
Joseph Lane, the First Governor of the Oregon Territory
As mentioned, the political situation in the Oregon Country was somewhat unsettled. A treaty in 1818, and later renewed, granted a joint occupancy of the Oregon Country by the United States and Great Britain. In the meanwhile, attempts were made to establish a local government that would bring greater order and stability to the increasing number of settlers. At the time, the settlers were not equally protected by the law. The English Parliament (through the Hudson’s Bay Company) had extended the civil laws of Canada to British subjects in the area; but there was no such provision for the Americans. Discussions began in 1841on the establishment of a government in the Oregon Country, though the Canadians were cool to the idea, fearing the loss of their protected status.
Those promoting a provisional government were equally in opposition to the British Hudson’s Bay Company, which had taken on both governmental and police duties in the area. Fr. Blanchet was conflicted, since the establishment of a provisional government (American?) could easily affect his relationship with Dr. John McLoughlin, the chief factor of the British Hudson’s Bay Company. The question of jurisdiction, and American sovereignty, was ultimately resolved pragmatically by the influx of American settlers over the Oregon Trail. Personally, though not officially, Dr. McLoughlin did support the idea of a provisional government. But no matter his thoughts and motivations, Dr. McLoughlin’s first priority was to assist the emigrants who came west—at some cost to himself—no matter their nationality or background.
Fr. Blanchet’s attitude toward the establishment of a provisional government is disputed by Oregon historians. It is surmised that Fathers Blanchet and Demers’ British nationality prevented them from fully supporting the notion of a local government, but Fr. Blanchet himself denies this. He says that any perceived opposition on his part was a matter of timing and prudence. Whatever the facts might be, Father Blanchet participated in the early discussions (1841) regarding local governance, and he remained a respected leader in the Oregon community.
The vote for a Provisional Government took place on May 2, 1843. The male settlers of the Willamette Valley gathered at Champoeg to cast their ballot. The count showed 52 for the Provisional Government of Oregon and 50 against. This government provided a legal system and a common defense among the mostly American pioneers settling an area then inhabited by the many indigenous Nations. The laws were intended from the start as an interim entity until “whenever such time as the United States of America extends her jurisdiction over us.”
Though the Oregon Treaty of 1846 settled the border dispute between the United States and Canada (and Great Britain) at the 49th parallel, the Provisional Government continued until 1849, when the first governor of the Territory of Oregon (1848-1859) arrived.
On August 14, 1848, the United States Congress approved the formation of the Oregon Territory. At the time, the Oregon Territory included all of the present-day states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and parts of Montana and Wyoming. Its capital city was located at Oregon City. This vast, new territory had a sparse population of American settlers; two years later, the census of 1850 counted only 13,294 residents in the Oregon Territory.
The formation of Oregon came at a time of rapid expansion under President James Polk and his administration which centered on Manifest Destiny and territorial growth in its domestic and foreign policy. On February 2, 1848, the United States and Mexico signed a treaty that ended the Mexican-American War. In the treaty, Mexico surrendered all of the states of California, Nevada, Utah, most of Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico.
One of the heroes of the Mexican-American War was a man named Joseph Lane, born in North Carolina (1801) and who eventually would become the first governor of the Oregon Territory, arriving in Oregon City on March 2, 1849. Lane was an active but controversial leader who made a strong impact on territorial politics. He dealt strongly with the Native Americans, gaining local popularity by obtaining the surrender of five Cayuse accused of murdering Marcus Whitman and his family. The five men were tried and hanged by territorial officials. In 1851, Lane won the first of the four-year terms as Oregon’s territorial delegate to Congress, eventually becoming an important part of the Oregon Democratic Party machine. One of the most divisive issues at the time for Oregon voters was the issue of slavery. With a nod to his Southern background, Lane was convinced of the slaveholders’ right to bring slaves into any territory. When Oregon achieved statehood on February 14, 1859, Lane was elected to the U.S. Senate. Though Lane’s influence in Oregon remained strong, he alienated an increasing number of Oregonians as he continued to defend territorial slavery. When Abraham Lincoln became president in 1861, Lane rejected compromise and defended the secession of the South from the Union. With that, he ended his term in the Senate and retired from Oregon politics. He died in Roseburg, Oregon, on April 19, 1881. Meanwhile, the Catholic community in Oregon was also looking to organize. Within a year of arriving in the Oregon Country, Fr. Blanchet saw the need and usefulness of having a bishop on the lower Columbia River. When Father De Smet came to St. Paul in 1842 to meet Father Blanchet, a principal topic of discussion was the establishment of a diocese.
One of the heroes of the Mexican-American War was a man named Joseph Lane, born in North Carolina (1801) and who eventually would become the first governor of the Oregon Territory, arriving in Oregon City on March 2, 1849. Lane was an active but controversial leader who made a strong impact on territorial politics. He dealt strongly with the Native Americans, gaining local popularity by obtaining the surrender of five Cayuse accused of murdering Marcus Whitman and his family. The five men were tried and hanged by territorial officials. In 1851, Lane won the first of the four-year terms as Oregon’s territorial delegate to Congress, eventually becoming an important part of the Oregon Democratic Party machine. One of the most divisive issues at the time for Oregon voters was the issue of slavery. With a nod to his Southern background, Lane was convinced of the slaveholders’ right to bring slaves into any territory. When Oregon achieved statehood on February 14, 1859, Lane was elected to the U.S. Senate. Though Lane’s influence in Oregon remained strong, he alienated an increasing number of Oregonians as he continued to defend territorial slavery. When Abraham Lincoln became president in 1861, Lane rejected compromise and defended the secession of the South from the Union. With that, he ended his term in the Senate and retired from Oregon politics. He died in Roseburg, Oregon, on April 19, 1881. Meanwhile, the Catholic community in Oregon was also looking to organize. Within a year of arriving in the Oregon Country, Fr. Blanchet saw the need and usefulness of having a bishop on the lower Columbia River. When Father De Smet came to St. Paul in 1842 to meet Father Blanchet, a principal topic of discussion was the establishment of a diocese.
Joseph Lane, first governor of the Oregon Territory, established August 18, 1948