MEDICAL EDUCATION OF DR. WHITMAN[1]
By Frederick C. Waite
Dr. Marcus Whitman was both by heredity and as an individual a pioneer. His ancestors and he, in a period of less than two hundred years, made four migrations, each time into more remote wilderness. The first was before 1640 from England to Massachusetts Bay; next just after the Revolutionary War from near Boston to the Berkshire Hills; then in 1799 from western Massachusetts to the frontier of western New York; and finally in 1836, across the continental divide to the distant Oregon territory. In his veins coursed the blood of a line of fearless leaders.
He was born in 1802 in a frontier hamlet in western New York settled only five years before his birth. His father was a craftsman, a tanner and a shoemaker by trade. His mother was but moderately educated. None of his forebears had been professional men. His father died in 1810, when Marcus was eight years old and he was sent two hundred and fifty miles to live with his father's half brother, Freedom Whitman, at Cummington, Massachusetts.
There is very definite record that this foster parent, Freedom Whitman was, throughout his life, a leader. Moreover there is testimony of his integrity, honesty, industry, and decisiveness. His wife, Sarah, had intellectual capability, a taste for education, and personal forcefulness.
Under the beneficial influence of these two persons, Marcus Whitman developed a personality and character marked by integrity, positiveness, and leadership. He also developed ambition and this led to another change into an environment yet more complex, for it included another home and in addition a school attended by boys from many localities.
In Plainfield, a town adjacent to Cummington where he lived from the age of eight to thirteen, was a school. It had been founded by Moses Hallock, a graduate of Yale College in
- ↑ Address delivered at celebration of the Whitman centennial, Walla Walla, Washington, August 13, 1936.
