station at the Dalles, from which they were willing to retire notwithstanding its prospective as well as present value, for the same reason—the fear of Indian troubles. This purchase was made in the spring of 1847, or at all events before the last of August. Waller was at that time contemplating a removal to the Willamette Valley,[1] and Whitman, when bringing up from Vancouver his milling machinery, early in September, left his nephew, Perrin B. Whitman, at the Dalles, in company with a man from the Willamette Valley named Hinman.
It would seem from these arrangements that Whitman did not consider the Dalles Indians dangerous. The Dalles besides was within two days' travel by canoe of Fort Vancouver, which was a point in its favor as compared with Waiilatpu. It must forever trouble the student of history to reconcile with his characteristic good sense in ordinary matters Whitman's persistency in remaining at his station when repeatedly threatened by the Cayuses and remonstrated with by McLoughlin for his temerity; and Gray's verdict, that he possessed a great obstinacy, seems justified.[2] There were, it is true, good reasons for wishing to remain. It was another case of the domination of the temporal over the spiritual. The Walla Walla Valley had been his home for eleven years. He had expended much labor and money upon improvements. He had taken rather high-handed measures with the American board in refusing to abandon the station in 1842–3, and did not now like to acknowledge himself in the wrong. He had hopes from the discussions in congress that he might be able to hold on until the United States should send an Indian agent to his relief, and until the promised ter-
- ↑ Or. Spectator, Sept. 2, 1847.
- ↑ Hist. Or., 108. Palmer says: 'He was going up with his machinery to put up a flour-mill, just as he intended, and if they continued their hostile policy he was going to break up that mission, abandon it, and go down to the Dalles, and make that his headquarters.' Wagon Train, MS., 29. This was what Palmer learned from the doctor himself whom he met on the Umatilla.
