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The great changes are seen in the fact that in 1838 there were but thirteen settlements by white men in Oregon, viz.: That at Waiilatpui, at Lapwai, at the Dalles and near Salem, and the Hudson Bay Forts at Walla Walla, Colville, Fort Hall, Boise, Vancouver, Nisqually, Umpqua, Okanogan and the settlement at Astoria. The old missionaries felt thankful when letters reached them within two years after they were written.
Mrs. Whitman's first letter from home was two years and six months reaching the mission. The most sure and safe route was by way of New York or Montreal to London, around the Horn to the Sandwich Islands, from which place a vessel sailed every year for Columbia. The wildest visionaries at that time had not dreamed of being bound to the East by bands of steel, as Senator McDuffie said: "The wealth of the Indies would be insufficient to connect by steam the Columbia River to the States of the East." Uncle Sam seems to have been taking a very sound and peaceful nap. He did not own California, and was even desirous of trading Oregon for the cod fisheries of Newfoundland.
The debt of gratitude the Americans owe to the men and women who endured the privations of that early day, and educated the Nation into the knowledge of its future glory and greatness, has not been fully appreciated. The settlers of no 268
