accompanied only by a guide and A. L. Lovejoy of the recent immigration, who, being detained two or three weeks behind his company, was induced by the doctor's specious arguments to return to the States.[1] From Fort Hall they took the route by the way of Uintah, Taos, and Santa Fé, changing guides at each of these points, and experiencing sometimes bitter cold, and sometimes pinching hunger. They arrived at Bent Fort on the Arkansas in time to join a company going from Santa Fé to the border, when Lovejoy determined to remain at the fort till spring, and Whitman proceeded without him to his destination, which he reached in March 1843.
The reception given to the doctor by the missionary board was not cordial or even kind; it was frigid. They disapproved of his leaving his station, of the unnecessary expense of the journey, and of its object, especially as it asked for more money and missionaries. Whitman repeated the arguments advanced to his colleagues in the wilderness.[2] The board was cold; the savages of the inhospitable north-west were not just then in favor with the Sunday-schools. Nevertheless, these wise men of the east did finally consent to permit the doctor to continue the mission work there begun should he wish to do so without further help from them.[3] Further than this, the board refused to pay the expenses of his journey,[4]
- ↑ Lovejoy's Portland, MS., 20.
- ↑ This is the statement made of Whitman's object and arguments, by the prudential committee to whom they were addressed. See Boston Missionary Herald, September 1843, 356. Daniel Lee also says 'Whitman visited the United States to obtain further assistance, in order to strengthen the efforts that had already been made.' Lee and Frost's Or., 213. But Gray wickedly asserts that Whitman went to Washington with a political purpose, instead of going on the business of the mission.
- ↑ The Missionary Herald of Sept. 1843, after mentioning the doctor's desire to have 'Christian families to emigrate and settle in the vicinity of the different stations,' goes on to say: 'How far his wishes in these particulars will be responded to is at present uncertain'—showing that the matter was left to him to arrange. A man whose acquaintance he formed on the return journey says: 'He often talked with me about his want of success with the board, and expressed his fears of the consequences.' Applegate's Views of Hist., MS. 35.
- ↑ I gather this from the statements of some of the immigrants of 1843, with whom he travelled. He certainly knew the requirements of a journey
