Page:The Whitman Controversy.pdf/66

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

61

Rev. C. Eells. As no such sentence occurs in Mr. Eells' statement, it must be an immense "chimera of a diseased brain," and Mr. Evans must stand its "sponsor." Mr. Eells says, in substance, that the mission voted an approval of Dr. Whitman making the attempt to go to Washington for the purpose of doing what he could to save the then Oregon to the United States, but says nothing about "accrediting Dr. Whitman as delegate." Mr. Eells also says that it was expected that the doctor would attend to some business relating to the mission. As a proof that Mr. Eells' memory is not reliable as to events transpiring thirty-six years before he made his statement regarding the special meeting of the mission in September, 1842, in which statement Mr. Eells says Mr. Gray was present at the meeting, Mr. Evans tells us that "It is certain that he [Mr. Gray] was not at Waiilatpu after June, 1842," also "Gray had removed to the Wallamet Valley as early in 1842 as he could find conveyance to the Wallamet." In reply to these assertions of Mr. Evans, let us see what the only two survivors of the male members of that mission say as to whether Mr. Eells was right in saying that Mr. Gray was present, or as to Mr. Evans being correct in saying Mr. Gray was absent. In a letter to the writer hereof, dated January 15, 1885, written by Rev. Cushing Eells, that gentleman says: "If the statement has been, is, or shall be made, that Mr. W. H. Gray had become disconnected with the Oregon Mission of the A. B. C. F. M. in the spring of 1842, I affirm that to be a false statement; to my certain knowledge Mr. Gray was present, and participated in the meeting of the mission held at Wai-i-lat-pu, September, 1842." This letter was written at Cheney. Below I give an extract from a letter from Hon. W. H. Gray, written on the same day as that of Mr. Eells, and each in answer to letters written to these gentlemen only five days before. Mr. Gray writes from Astoria. As that place and Cheney are four hundred miles apart Mr. Evans will probably not conclude that the coincidence of dates, indicate collusion between the witnesses. Mr. Gray says he "left Waiilatpu to go to the Willamette the first of September, 1842. Returned to the station for my family on the 21st of September. I was at the annual meeting in June, 1842. There was a special called at Dr. Whitman's station in September to consult about Dr. Whitman's proposition to go to Washington to inform our Government of the proceedings and designs of the Hudson's Bay Company, first made known to me by Frank Ermatinger at what was known as Horse Plains, the usual place to meet the Flat-