THE LEGEND OF MARCUS WHITMAN
Familiar as the student of history is with the growth of legend, it is frequently assumed that these products of fancy develop only in the absence of documents and contemporary records; or that, if they do invade the field of authenticated history, it is only to clothe the bare limbs of fact with the foliage of picturesque incident or winged words: Columbus stands the egg on its end, or Galileo mutters "e pur si muove." History is full of such touches, which if not true are not essential distortions of the train of events. For examples of the complete legendary reconstruction of history we naturally turn to the Middle Ages or earlier periods, and call to mind the Donation of Constantine or the story of William Tell. That such a reconstruction of history should take place in the latter half of the nineteenth century in the United States and should involve an event of such immense importance and world-wide publicity as the acquisition of Oregon will seem little short of incredible. To trace the steps by which the imaginative reconstruction of this transaction, strangely distorting the relative significance of men and events, has slowly but steadily pushed aside the truth, until it has invaded not only the text-books but the works of historians whose reputation gives their utterances a certain authority, would give every one a new idea of the pervasive and subtle power of the legendary faculty of the human mind and of the need of unceasing critical vigilance.[1]
- ↑ Its first appearance in a formal history was in W. H. Gray's History of Oregon, 1792–1849, Drawn from Personal Observation and Authentic Information, Portland, Oregon, 1870. Von Holst mentions it in 1881 (Const. Hist, of the U. S., III. 51, 52), with some hesitation. It is taken from Von Holst by Lyon G. Tyler, Letters and Times of the Tylers, Richmond, Va., 1885, II. 439, and presented with some corrective comments. The period of its widest diffusion and general acceptance, however, begins in 1883 with the publication of Barrows's Oregon. Thence it has passed into magazine and newspaper articles and text-books. See McMaster's With the Fathers, N. Y., 1896, the chapter entitled "The Struggle for Territory," pp. 307–310; McMaster's School History of the U. S., 1897, pp. 32–34; J. W. Foster's Century of American Diplomacy, 1900, p. 305; J. W. Burgess's The Middle Period, 1897, pp. 314–316; the school histories of Scudder, Thomas, Montgomery, and Gordy, also the Encycl. Brit, as well as the American Supplement and The International Cycl., arts. Oregon.
In O. W. Nixon's How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon, Chicago, 1895, all the legendary elements are combined with some genuine material, but the author is either ignorant of or suppresses essential facts. Eva Emery Dye's McLoughlin and Old Oregon, Chicago, 1900, adds new fictitious materials. This book is hardly more than an
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