Throughout the following decade McKee worked on a relative's farm in Washington County and for merchants in Pittsburgh.

It was a momentous occasion for McKee who recorded later that:"I seemed to live in a new world, and became desirous to serve a loving and compassionate Master.

While still 18 McKee was hired to manage a general goods store and a storage depot in Wheeling.

McKee joined a three-man commission created by the Federal Government in 1850 to draft treaties with California Natives.

Local American militias were reported to be excessively violent in "revenging outrages" supposedly committed by natives.

American colonists from Scott Bar and Shasta Butte City contended for possession of the valley as well.

[11]The location of the Shasta reservation was apparently accepted, albeit grudgingly, by most American colonists of the area.

The commissioners were stated to have always consulted with local American colonists and miners in establishing the borders of each reservation.

Ellison suggested that the vast amount of land set aside by the treaties and the expenditures allocated by the commissioners made the agreements unpopular in Congress.