justments of that story devised by Dr. Geiger and Perrin B. Whitman. The only conclusion is that he knew nothing of any one of them, and that they could not have been true without his having heard of it.
That Whitman's journey was of service to Oregon Mr. Eells sincerely believed, that Whitman made it because he believed the preservation and reinforcement of the Southern Mission indispensable to the welfare of Oregon he knew, that Whitman may have used the words "Save Oregon" is altogether probable, that Whitman later believed his services to the immigration of 1843 played no small part in promoting the occupation of Oregon he clearly recollected. In the lapse of years these constituent elements become merged, and in 1866 his memory reproduces a composite which is not an accurate record. This puts a reasonable and favorable construction on the discrepancies between Mr. Eells' statements and the contemporary records. Unfortunately, however, for Mr. Eells' credit as an independent witness it is only too clear that while he did not and, no doubt, could not bear witness to Spalding's Walla Walla dinner story, he did reinforce his memory in regard to things about which he had no personal knowledge by consulting the Spalding narrative. The comparison of extracts in parallel columns will prove this.
Spalding's article in Pacific, Nov. 9, 1865:—
"On reaching the settlements Dr. Whitman found that many now old Oregonians … had abandoned the idea because of representations from Washington that every attempt to take wagons and ox teams through the Rocky Mountains and Blue Mountains to the Columbia had failed. The representations purported to come from Secre-
The Eells' letter of May 28, 1866:—
"On reaching Washington, he learned that representations had been made there correspending to those which had been often repeated on this coast. Oregon, it was said, … was difficult of access. A wagon road thither was an impossibility. By such statements Governor Simpson (the territorial Governor of the
