Missionary
Parrish and the others arrived in Oregon in May 1840. Beginning in February 1841 Parrish became involved in the movement towards creating a government in the Oregon Country, which on May 3, 1843, at the last of the Champoeg Meetings he voted in favor of creating the Provisional Government of Oregon. The vote to create a government passed 52-50. During the two years of on and off meetings he helped to build the Star of Oregon that was sailed to California by a crew led by Joseph Gale. In California the vessel was sold in order to purchase cattle to be driven overland to the Willamette Valley. On February 1, 1842, Parrish was selected as a trustee to the new Oregon Institute, a school established to teach the children of the missionaries that would later become Willamette University.
Also in 1842, Parrish moved to the Clatsop Plains and took over the branch mission of the Methodist Mission from Joseph Frost. In 1844, when the Methodist Mission was dissolved by George Gary, Parrish purchased the Clatsop Plains mission. From 1849 until 1854 he worked as an Indian agent in the now Oregon Territory. As a rancher he was the first breeder in Oregon of pure-breed sheep, and had brought the first white clover seed to Oregon when he migrated aboard the Lausanne.
Read more about this topic: Josiah Lamberson Parrish
Famous quotes containing the word missionary:
“Why have such scores of lovely, gifted girls
Married impossible men?
Simple self-sacrifice may be ruled out,
And missionary endeavour, nine times out of ten.”
—Robert Graves (1895–1985)
“Are there no Moravians in the Moon, that not a missionary has yet visited this poor pagan planet of ours, to civilize civilization and christianize Christendom?”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“We crossed a deep and wide bay which makes eastward north of Kineo, leaving an island on our left, and keeping to the eastern side of the lake. This way or that led to some Tomhegan or Socatarian stream, up which the Indian had hunted, and whither I longed to go. The last name, however, had a bogus sound, too much like sectarian for me, as if a missionary had tampered with it; but I knew that the Indians were very liberal. I think I should have inclined to the Tomhegan first.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)