have done a great deal of good for the Indians. His mission was situated upon a fine tract of land and he had erected a saw and grist mill."[1]
Again, in 1856, Joseph Lane, the territorial delegate, who had gone out to Oregon in 1849 as Governor of the Territory, eulogized in Congress the services to Oregon of Marcus Whitman. "Never, in my opinion, did missionary go forth to the field of his labors animated by a nobler purpose or devote himself to his task with more earnestness and sincerity than this meek and Christian man." Gen. Lane then related how Whitman devoted his time to teaching the Indians the arts of civilization, but said not a word of political services.[2]
In 1858 Dr. Atkinson in a review of his ten years of labor in Oregon dwelt at some length on the usefulness of the missionaries in that region. Among other things he says: "We gave our influence to make Oregon a free state," but not a word of the services of Whitman.[3]
Even more striking is the silence of Gushing Eells in a brief sketch of the old Oregon Mission to the Indians and a description of the Walla Walla country, published in The Home Missionary in 1860. He writes: "In the autumn of 1836 Marcus Whitman, M. D., with Mrs. Whitman, together with other missionary associates, arrived at Fort Walla Walla on Columbia river.—Dr. and Mrs. Whitman stopped among the Cayuse Indians. And commenced their labors at a place since called Waiilatpu, situated twenty-five miles east of Ft. Walla Walla.—The missionary work was prosecuted rather steadily among the Cayuse, Nez Percés, and Spokane Indians till 1847. On the 29th of November of that year. Dr. and Mrs. Whitman met a violent death at the hands of the Cayuse Indians."[4] If Cushing Eells knew at this time
- ↑ Ibid., 403. James G. Swan in his Northwest Coast, or, Three Years' Residence in Washington Territory, New York, 1857, describes the immigration of 1843, 236-7, but is silent about Whitman.
- ↑ Cong. Globe, 34th Cong., 1st Sess., part I, 776.
- ↑ The Home Missionary, Dec. 1858, 185.
- ↑ The Home Missionary, March, 1860, 261. The passages quoted contain all
