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Governor Evans says—"That he in any manner whatever or in the most remote degree stimulated the great immigration of 1843, is as untenable as the political claim we have been discussing. No opportunity had ever occurred for meeting parties who could be influenced to go to Oregon. In those early days the Oregon immigrant had to arrange in the fall of the preceding year for the next year's journey. Dr. Whitman's connection with that great immigration commenced with the crossing of the North Platte river in June, where he overtook the train.
I claim four mistakes in those four sentences, and the evidence to sustain it comes from the immigrants of that year. I have never been able to assent on the one hand to Mr. Spalding's statement that Dr. Whitmun originated the whole of that immigration, because the testimony of some of the immigrants is against it. Nor have I been able on the other hand to accept Governor Evans' assertion that he had nothing to do with it until he overtook it on the Platte, because the testimony of some of the immigrants is against that also. In my pamphlet from pages 26 to 31 is the testimony of fourteen of those emigrants, and I wrote to all the living immigrants of that year whose post office address I could obtain. Ten of these say that nothing that Dr. Whitman said or wrote induced them to start for Oregon, namely: Hon. L. Applegate, Hon. J. Applegate, Hon. J. M. Shively, Messrs. A. Hill, Matheny, W. J. Dougherty, S. M. Gilmore, J. B. McLane, J. G. Baker and Hon. J. W. Nesmith. Four others state that it was the representations of Dr. Whitman by a pamphlet, newspaper articles and personal conversation, which induced them to come, namely: Mrs. C. B. Carey, Hon. John Hobson, and Messrs. William Waldo and John Zachrey. All of these, I think, came from Missouri except Mr. Zachrey, who was from Texas. Mr. Hobson was from England on his way to Wisconsin, but was in St. Louis when the family met Dr. Whitman, who persuaded them to come to Oregon. Even Dr. Whitman in a letter which he wrote from Westport May, 28, 1843, says that no sheep are going "from a mistake of what I said when passing."
According to Hines' History of Oregon, published in 1851, even the Indians understood, before Dr. Whitman's return in 1843, that he had gone with the avowed purpose to bring back as large an immigration as possible. As far as having to get ready the fall before, even Hon. L. Applegate says it was not till the 1st of March, 1843, that he put a notice in the Booneville, Mo., Herald that an effort
