270    EARLY SETTLERS IN THE WALLAMET VALLEY.



  As has been stated, the Methodist mission settlement was
reinforced in 1837, by the arrival of about twenty persons,
among whom were several ladies, and a few children.
These, like those preceding them, were first entertained at
Fort Vancouver before proceeding to the mission, which
was between fifty and sixty miles up the Wallamet, in the
heart of that delightful valley. These persons came by a
sailing vessel around Cape Horn, bringing with them sup-
plies for the mission.
  In the two following years there were about a dozen
missionary arrivals overland, all of whom tarried a short
time at the American Company's rendezvous, as before re-
lated. These were some of them designed for the upper
country, but most of them soon settled in the Wallamet
valley.
  During these years, between 1834 and 1840, there had
drifted into the valley various persons from California, the
Rocky Mountains, and from the vessels which sometimes
appeared in the Columbia; until at the time when Newell
and Meek resolved to quit the mountains, the American
settlers numbered nearly one hundred, men, women, and
children. Of these, about thirty belonged to the missions;
the remainder were mountain-men, sailors, and adventur-
ers. The mountain-men, most of them, had native wives.
Besides the Americans there were sixty Canadian French-
men, who had been retired upon farms by the Hudson's
Bay Company; and who would probably have occupied
these farms so long as the HI. B. Company should have
continued to do business in Oregon.