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made great use of it almost as soon as it was obtained from Mr. Eells, and it was copied into many prominent Eastern papers. Mr. Eells then said, in the hearing of the writer, to his wife, substantially as follows: "See what a great man like Mr. Treat can do with such a fact. The world is greatly aroused by it, while we less noted ones have been trying to say the same things for years, but the world does not get hold of it until a great man makes it public."
Mr. S. A. Clarke wrote it for the Sacramento Union in 1864. Previous to the writing of this article by Mr. Clarke, Mr. Moores of Marion county, speaker of the house, related the story to the Oregon Legislature when the hatchet with which Dr. Whitman was killed was presented to the legislature.
Fourth—Still he says: "In 1866 Rev. Cushing Eells had in his possession at the time he made his statement of that year, all the official records of the missions, the minutes of all the missionary meetings."
I can not conceive where Governor Evans obtained his information, certainly not from any member of Dr. Eells' family. As a member of that family I deny the statement. In my pamphlet (page 10) Dr. Eells, under oath, says—"record of the date and acts of the meeting was made. The book containing the same was in the possession of the Whitman family. At the time of the massacre, November 29, 1847, disappeared."
Fifth—Still further, he says: "The assertion that those records were destroyed by fire in 1872 will not be accepted as a satisfactory excuse that between 1865 and 1862 those minutes were not appealed to."
The above quotation from Dr. Eells settles this statement. I am not aware that anybody except Governor Evans ever made that assertion.
Sixth—While Mrs. Victor thinks that Governor Ramsey must have seen Dr. White, who was in Washington the year before Dr. Whitman went there, Mr. Evans thinks he saw Rev. J. Lee. He says—"cotemporary history establishes that Rev. Jason Lee, the pioneer missionary of Oregon, was in Washington that winter [1843-4] and without doubt Governor Ramsey has confounded Dr. Whitman with that eminent missionary."
Cotemporary history establishes the fact that Rev. J. Lee was not in Washington during that winter. Rev. G. Hines, in his "History of Oregon," (chapter x.) says that Mr. Lee and himself
