The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Whitman, Marcus

WHITMAN, Marcus, American missionary and pioneer: b. Rushville, N. Y., 4 Sept. 1802; d. near Walla Walla, Ore., 29 Nov, 1847. After studying medicine at the Berkshire Medical Institution, Pittsfield, Mass., he practised in Canada for four years. He offered his services as a missionary (1834) to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and in 1835 went with Samuel Parker to explore the region of the Oregon, but did[?] not go beyond Green River. In 1836, he was[?] married, with his wife and three fellow missionaries he set out to work among the Indians[?] of the upper Columbia. The party crossed the plains by wagon, being the first pioneers[?] to reach the Pacific Coast by this means[?]. On 1 May they reached the Columbia River, and located themselves near the site of the present Walla Walla, Wash. They were soon followed by a large number of emigrants, who settled in what was then known as Oregon, and now forms the States of Oregon, Washington and Idaho. At this time the Hudson Bay Company was using every possible means to secure this territory to the English. When this plan became evident to Whitman he decided to take every precaution to forestall it. The Ashburton Treaty was then before Congress, and was expected to settle the Oregon question. In 1842-43 Whitman traveled over 3,000 miles to the East on horseback, enduring all the hardships of a Western winter in the mountains, and according to the statement of H. H. Spalding, one of his missionary companions, he reached Washington (3 March 1843) only to find that the treaty had been signed, but that the Oregon question had not been included. Whitman, as Spalding's version represents, at once went to work to show the government the value of the land it had deemed worthless, demonstrated to the people the fertility of the soil of Oregon, and the fact that it could be reached by wagon, and then returned at the head of a large body of emigrants. By his daring ride and earnest endeavors Whitman, in this view of the matter, won this great section for the United States and the results of his work were secured by the treaty of 1846. This claim, however, has been the subject of much controversy, and to the satisfaction of some students has been disproved. Whatever its merits, there is no doubt that Whitman's ride (he reached Boston 30 March 1843) resulted in the reversal of the missionary board's purpose to discontinue the southern branch of the mission in which he was engaged; and his work and that of his companions has a historical relation to the American settlement of the Oregon country. Whitman, his wife, and 12 of their companions were massacred by the Cayuse Indians. Consult Nixon, ‘Life of Marcus Whitman’ (1895); Mowry, ‘Marcus Whitman’ (1901); and Bourne, ‘Essays in Historical Criticism’ (1901), in which the Whitman claims are examined and discredited; and Marshall, W. J., ‘The Acquisition of Oregon and the Long Suppressed Evidence about Marcus Whitman’ (Seattle 1911). See Oregon; Oregon Question, The.