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ESSAYS IN HISTORICAL CRITICISM
advice and guidance. These services were amply recognized by the leaders of the emigration.
In Jesse Applegate's most interesting narrative, "A Day with the Cow Column," and in Peter H. Burnett's Recollections there are warm tributes to Whitman's disinterested and untiring efforts for the welfare of the emigration; but neither of these leaders of the movement intimates that the organization of the expedition was owing in any way to Whitman.[1] In none of the strictly contemporary sources is Whitman credited with having organized the emigration and in many of them he is not even mentioned.[2]
- ↑ Applegate's article was originally published in the Overland Monthly, August, 1868, 1, 127-133. It is reprinted in Nixon's How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon, 146-163, and in the Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society for December, 1900. Applegate says: "Whitman's great experience and indomitable energy were of priceless value to the emigrating column.... To no other individual are the emigrants of 1843 so much indebted for the successful conclusion of their journey as to Marcus Whitman," 131-132. Cf. Burnett's Recollections and Opinions of an Old Pioneer, N. Y., 1880, "Dr. Whitman who had performed much hard labor for us and was deserving of our warmest gratitude." 126.
- ↑ The emigration of 1843 attracted much attention in the newspapers, but Whitman's name is nowhere mentioned as a leader with those of the Applegates, Burnett, and the others. See Burnett's Recollections, 97-98. After Burnett decided to go, he "set to work to organize a wagon company. I visited the surrounding counties wherever I could find a sufficient audience and succeeded even beyond my own expectations." Cf. this extract from a letter from Iowa Territory dated March 4, 1843: "Just now Oregon is the pioneer's land of promise. Hundreds are already prepared to start thither with the spring, while hundreds of others are anxiously awaiting the action of Congress in reference to that country, as the signal of their departure. Some have already been to view the country and have returned with a flattering tale of the inducements it holds out. They have painted it to their neighbors in the highest colors. These have told it to others. The Oregon fever has broken out and is now raging like any other contagion." N. Y. Weekly Tribune, April 1, 1843. As this letter is dated March 4, and Whitman arrived at the present site of Kansas City, Feb. 15, and went straight to St. Louis, it is obvious he had no connection with this excitement. Several of the writers realizing this have attributed to Lovejoy the work of getting up the emigration; but he was at Bent's fort in Colorado while Whitman was in the East. After his arrival in Oregon, Burnett wrote an account of the journey which was published in the N. Y. Herald, and later in Geo. Wilkes' History of Oregon, N. Y., 1845, Part II, 63 ff. (cf. Burnett's Recollections, 177). In this narrative the only reference to Whitman in connection with the organization of the expedition is the following: "A meeting was held in the latter part of the day [May 18], which resulted in appointing a committee to return to Independence and make inquiries
