School History of the United States, by William A. Mowry and Arthur May Mowry,[1] which was published in 1898. In the body of the work all that is said is " Dr. Marcus Whit- man had practically saved this country to us by an emigration brought over in 1843," but in an appendix, just preceding the account of the War with Spain, a page is devoted to the legend.
Reliance upon Barrows' Oregon, on the other hand, accounts for the acceptance of the legend by such historians as Professor Burgess, Professor McMaster, and John W. Foster. Professor Burgess asserts that President Tyler upon receiving the information which Whitman brought ceased to consider giving up Northern Oregon and adds : " The Administration caused Dr. Whitman's descriptions of Oregon to be printed and distributed throughout the United States and also his offer to lead a colony to take possession of the country." ^ Professor McMaster has popularized Barrows in his excellent school history, 3 and Ex-Secretary John W. Foster has fallen into the same trap.* Probably the same explanation is to
2 Burgess, The Middle Period, N. Y., 1897, 315-16. It is needless to say that these statements are without authentic evidence and are derived from Spalding through Barrows.
3 McMaster, School History, N. Y., 1897, 322-324. Barrows is followed also in presenting Spalding's Protestantized version of the mission of the Four Flathead Indians to St. Louis in 1832. In McMaster's With the Fathers (1896), in the chapter on " The Struggle for Territory," the Whitman legend is told with vivid details, 307-10.
4 See A Century of American Diplomacy, Boston, 1900, 305. Another victim of Barrows is Professor Thomas of Haverf ord. See his History of the United States, Boston, 1893 and 1897, 242-43, and also his Elementary History, Boston, 1900, 290- 298, where, as in Mowry's book, the story of the Oregon question is the story of Whitman. Among other text-books which have incorporated the story may be mentioned Gordy's, 1898 (it is entirely omitted in the edition of 1899), and Charles Morris's two books. In his History of the United States, Philadelphia, 1897, it appears in a footnote, p. 315, but in his Primary History, 1899, 210-15,
- ↑ Boston, 1898, 254 and 418. In the First Steps in the History of our Country, by the same authors, Boston, 1899, the whole history of the Oregon question centers around Marcus Whitman, and the chapter concludes, p. 234: "Thus we see how, through the sterling patriotism, intrepidity, and energy of one man, it has happened that three states, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, were added to our Union, three stars to our flag, and six members to the American Senate."
