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There is a cloud of witnesses outside of the members of the mission, whose testimony leads to the irresistible conclusion that Dr. Whitman did go to Washington, as is claimed by his associates. The late Honorable A. L. Lovejoy, who brought the news to the doctor which he considered of so much importance as to cause him to start East, and which Mr. Lovejoy thought sufficiently important to cause him to accompany the doctor, says of that journey: "Here we parted [ at Bent's Fort.] The doctor proceeded to Washington. * * * He [ Dr. Whitman ] often expressed himself to me about the remainder of his journey, and the manner in which he was received at Washington and by the board of foreign missions at Boston. * * * He was very cordially and kindly received by the president and members of congress, and without doubt the doctor's interviews resulted greatly to the benefit of Oregon and to this coast." Dr. Wm. Barrows was teaching in St. Louis in the spring of 1843. He says: "It was my good fortune that he (Dr. Whitman) should be quartered at St. Louis as a guest under the same roof, and at the same table with myself. * * * He was happy to meet men of the army and of commerce and fur, but he must hasten on to see Daniel Webster. Exchanging saddle for stage, for the river was closed with ice, he pressed on, and arrived at Washington March 3d." We next find the doctor in the state of New York at the house of the Rev. Samuel J. Parker, whom Dr. Whitman had accompanied to the Rocky Mountains in 1835. A son of the Rev. Mr. Parker, represents Dr. Whitman as saying to his father: "I have come on a very important errand. We must both go at once to Washington or Oregon is lost, ceded to the English. * * * * I know that Dr. Whitman went, either the next day or a day or two after he came to see my father. * * * Dr. Whitman came to see my father (again) after his return from Washington, and described his interview with the President and others there." Dr. William Geiger, who was left in charge of Whitman station during the doctor's absence in 1842-3, gives the account of the visit to Washington and the interviews with Mr. Webster and President Tyler substantially as it has been given by so many others, and says that "the doctor told him of it so often that he could not forget it." And still, with all this testimony before him, Mr. Evans denies that the trip to Washington was made; denies that the doctor ever set up any such claim during "his practical and useful life."
