The real force behind the emigration of 1843 was the provisions for granting lands to settlers in Linn's bill which it was expected would pass Congress in 1843.[1] That a large emigration was in preparation for 1843 Whitman knew in 1842, five months before he left Oregon. May 12, 1842, Gray wrote from Waiilatpu: "There will probably be a large party of immigrants coming to this country in the spring of 1843. Some young men are now returning with the expectation of bringing out a party next spring."[2] That Whitman may have urged individuals to join the emigration is likely enough, and is affirmed by Lovejoy, that he gave some advice to prospective emigrants while on his way East seems certain;[3] but he had no time to do more, and they would not have had time to get ready unless they had begun before his arrival.[4] The legendary account of Whitman's relation to the emigration of 1843 has been supported by a letter published by Spalding from John Zachrey, one of the emigrants of 1843, who wrote in 1868:—
"In answer to your inquiries, I would say that my father and his family emigrated to Oregon in 1843, from the State of Texas. I was then 17 years old. The occasion of my father starting that season for this country, as also several of our neighbors, was a publication by Dr. Whitman, or from his representations, concerning Oregon and the route from the States to Oregon. In the pamphlet the doctor
- ↑ The proofs of this are numerous. Dr. Whitman himself in his letter to the Secretary of War, received June 24, 1844, says of the emigration: "The majority of them are farmers, lured by the prospect of bounty in lands, by the reported fertility of the soil," etc. Nixon, 316. "But if the Oregon bill passes, a party under Lieutenant Fremont, or some one else, will go through the Rocky Mountains to Oregon; and parties of emigrants or explorers will go also." Letter of Asa Gray to George Englemann, Feb. 13, 1843. Letters of Asa Gray, I, 297.
- ↑ Letter-book, Oregon Indians.
- ↑ "A great many cattle are going, but no sheep, from a mistake of what I said in passing." Whitman's letter to his brother-in-law, May 28, 1843. Trans. Oregon Pioneer Assoc., 1891, 178.
- ↑ Cf. statement of Elwood Evans, p. 104 below.
of Dr. Whitman, missionary, who had an establishment on the Walla Walla, respecting the practicability of the road." I am indebted to Mr. W. I. Marshall for this reference to Burnett's contemporary account.
