1875 [1845], OR: The first Settlers spoke French and Chinuk Wawa, not English
Butteville, in Oregon Territory’s prairies françaises (French Prairie), got that name from an original French-speaking Settler; W.H. Rees tells us that the only other widely known language among those French-Canadians/Métis, at least as late as 1845, was Chinook Jargon.
Butteville, 1904 (image credit: Friends of Historic Butteville)
We already know this from other research, but it’s always wonderful to have someone’s eyewitness evidence, as we get in Rees’s article “Butteville in General“, excerpted here for you:
Hon. F.X. Mathieu, W. M. Case and the writer,
purchased the land, upon which they now re-
side, in 1845. All business intercourse with the
settlers living on French Prairie, by English-
speaking people, had to be done through an
interpreter or in the classic Chinook. Dr. W.
J. Baley resided on a farm adjoining Mr. Case
and the lamented Dr. Newell, at Champoeg.
In January, 1846, Mr. J. E. Hall, now, de-
ceased, settled in the neighborhood; and David
Crawford, who crossed the plains in 1844, and
had made a farm near the French settlement
in the Cowlitz country, abandoned it and es-
tablished himself in this vicinty…
— from the Portland (OR) Oregonian of February 06, 1875, page 1, column 4
