From P. Bal, "Fairchild -- Heritage of the Spokane Plains"

[Dave Robertson]

Thanks once again to Tina Wynecoop, who turned this up in her research.

Peggy Bal's book (publisher and date not known to me), "Fairchild -- Heritage of the Spokane Plains", provides a fairly detailed history of the area just west of present-day Spokane, Washington.  Page 77 has the following, which tends to build up the picture of a pretty longstanding tradition of use of Chinook Jargon in this inland area:

"[Mrs. Maude Weeks Bailor, 83 years old at the time of writing, recalls:]  'Every so often, the Indians [of a group of families who had a farming colony in this area circa 1878-1887] would come back from the reservation to visit.  Father talked to them in the Chinook Jargon.'  ... Others who spoke Chinook with the Indians were Mrs. Wilbur F. Bassett and Louise Magers, whom the Indians called hiu-skookum Boston Man -- very good white man."

It's interesting that the leader of the Indian farming colony, William Threemountains, "[i]n 1839, at the age of 16, [was] a member of the Elkanah Walker household at Tshimakain ... Walker was a Presbyterian missionary, and with Cushing Eells, established a mission a little ways north of the Spokane River near the Colville wagon road."

C. Eells was a member of the family of Myron Eells, who preached to the Indians in Jargon at Puget Sound.

Dave
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