This much of the well-nigh forgotten history we have thought appropriate to note in this connection; first, because of the new light given to it from the recent disclosures made; and, second, to call attention to the fact that a second time, forty-three years later, it served a valiant purpose in thwarting English ambition and serving America's highest interests.

Estimated from the standpoint of money and material values, it was a great transaction, especially notable in view of existing conditions, but from the standpoint of State and National grandeur, carrying with it peace and hope and happiness to millions, and continuous rule of the Republic from ocean to ocean, it assumes a greatness never surpassed in a single transaction, and not easily over-estimated, and never in the history of the English people did a single transaction, with dates so widely separated, arise, and so effectually check their imperious demands.

The American Republic may well remember with deep gratitude President Jefferson, and the far-seeing statesmen who rallied to his call and consummated the grand work. They can at the same time see the foresight and wisdom of Jefferson in, at once, the very next year, sending the expedition of Lewis and Clarke to the headwaters of the Columbia River, and causing a complete survey to be made to its mouth. It was a complete refutation of the claim of the English Commissioners, in 1837, that while "Captain Gray only discovered the mouth of the river, Captain Vancouver made a complete survey." The American mistake was, not in the purchase and active work then done, but the lassitude and inexcusable neglect in the forty subsequent years which imperiled every interest the Republic held in the territory beyond the Rocky Mountains.

When the treaty of 1846 was signed, it was hoped that the questions at issue were settled forever; but the Hudson Bay Company was slow to surrender its grasp on any of the territory it could hold, and especially one so rich in all materials that constituted its wealth and power.

The treaty of 1846 between the United States and Great Britain read:

"From the point on the 49th parallel to the middle of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's Island and thence southerly through the middle of said channel and of the Fuca Straits, to the Pacific Ocean, provided, however, that the navigation of such channel and straits south of the latitude 49 degrees remain free and open to both parties."

This led to after trouble and much ill feeling. The passage referred to in the treaty is about seven miles wide, between the archipelago and Vancouver Island. The archipelago is made up of half a dozen principal islands, and many smaller ones. The largest island, San Juan, contained about 50,000 acres, and the Hudson Bay Company, knowing something of its value, had taken possession, and proposed to hold it. The legislature of Oregon, however, included it in Island County by an act of 1852, which passed to the Territory of Washington in 1853 by the division of Oregon. In 1854 the Collector of Customs for the Puget Sound came in conflict with the Hudson Bay authorities and a lively row was raised.

The Hudson Bay Company raised the English flag and the collector as promptly landed and raised the Stars and Stripes. There was a constant contention between the United States and State authorities, and the Hudson Bay people, in which the latter were worsted, until in 1856-7, after much correspondence, both governments appointed a commission to settle the difficulty. Then followed years of discussion which grew from time to time warlike, but there was no settlement of the points in dispute.

In December, 1860, the British Government tired of the contest, proposed arbitration by one of the European powers and named either the Swiss Republic, Denmark or Belgium. Then followed the war of the Rebellion and America had no time to reach the case until 1868-9, when the whole matter was referred to two commissioners from each government and the boundary to be determined by the President of the General Council of the Swiss Republic.

This proposition was defeated and afterward in 1871 the whole matter was left to the decision of the Emperor of Germany. He made the award to the United States on all points of dispute in October, 1872, and thus ended the long contest over the boundary line between the two countries, after more than half a century's bickering.

CHAPTER II.

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN OPINION OF THE VALUE OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY—THE NEGLECT OF AMERICAN STATESMEN.

The history briefly recited in the previous chapter, fully reveals the status of the United States as to ownership of Oregon. Prior to the date to which our story more specifically relates, the United States had gone on perfecting her titles by the various means already described. For the Nation's interest, it was a great good fortune at this early period that a broad-minded, far-seeing man like Thomas Jefferson was President. It was his wisdom and discretion and statesmanship that enabled the country to overcome all difficulties and to make the Louisiana purchase.

Looking deeper into the years of the future than his contemporaries, he organized the expedition of Lewis and Clarke and surveyed the Columbia River from its source to its mouth. It was regarded by many at the time as a needless and unjustifiable expense; and their report did not create a ripple of applause, and it was an even nine years after the completion of the expedition, and after the death of one of the explorers, before the report was printed and given to the public.

But no reader of history will fail to see how important the expedition was as a link in our chain of evidence. The great misfortune of that time was, that there were not more Jeffersons. True, it did not people Oregon, nor was it followed by any legislation protecting any interest the United States held in the great territory.

There were Congressmen and Senators, who, from time to time, made efforts to second the work of Jefferson. Floyd, of Virginia, as early as 1820, made an eloquent plea for the occupation of the territory and a formal recognition of our rights as rulers. In 1824 a bill passed the lower house of Congress embodying the idea of Floyd stated four years previously, but upon reaching the Senate it fell on dull ears. When the question was before the Senate in 1828, renewing the treaty of 1818 with England, Floyd again attempted to have a bill passed to give land to actual settlers who would emigrate to Oregon, and as usual, failed.

In February, 1838, Senator Linn, of Missouri, always the friend of Oregon, introduced a bill with the main features of the House bill which passed that body in 1824, but again failed in the Senate. The Government, however, was moved to send a special commissioner to Oregon to discover its real conditions and report. But nothing practical resulted.

It is not a pleasant thing to turn the pages of history made by American statesmen during the first third of the century, and even nearly to the end of its first half. There is a lack of wisdom and foresight and broad-mindedness, which shatters our ideals of the mental grandeur of the builders of the Republic.

Diplomatically they had laid strong claim to the now known grand country beyond "the Stony Mountains." They had never lost an opportunity by treaty to hold their interests; and yet from year to year and from decade to decade, they had seen a foreign power, led by a great corporation, ruling all the territory with a mailed hand. While they made but feeble protest in the way we have mentioned, they did even worse, they turned their shafts of oratory and wit and denunciation loose against the country itself and all its interests.

Turn for a brief review of the political record of that period. Among the ablest men of that day was Senator Benton. He, in his speech of 1825, said, that "The ridge of the Rocky Mountains may be named as a convenient, natural and everlasting boundary. Along this ridge the western limits of the Republic should be drawn, and the statue of the fabled God Terminus should be erected on its highest peak, never to be thrown down." In quoting Senator Benton of 1825, it is always but fair to say he had long before the day of Whitman's arrival in Washington greatly modified his views.

But Senators equally intelligent and influential—such as Winthrop, of Massachusetts, as late as 1844, quoted this sentence from Benton and commended its wisdom and statesmanship. It was in this discussion and while the treaty adopted in 1846 was being considered, that General Jackson is on record as saying, that, "Our safety lay in a compact government."

One of the remarkable speeches in the discussion of the Ashburton-Webster Treaty was that made by Senator McDuffie. Nothing could better show the educating power of the Hudson Bay Company in the United States, and the ignorance of our statesmen, as to extent and value of the territory.

McDuffie said: "What is the character of this country?" (referring to Oregon). "As I understand it there are seven hundred miles this side of the Rocky Mountains that are uninhabitable; where rain never falls; mountains wholly impassable, except through gaps and depressions, to be reached only by going hundreds of miles out of the direct course. Well, now, what are you going to do in such a case? How are you going to apply steam? Have you made an estimate of the cost of a railroad to the mouth of the Columbia? Why the wealth of the Indies would be insufficient. Of what use would it be for agricultural purposes? I would not, for that purpose, give a pinch of snuff for the whole territory. I wish the Rocky Mountains were an impassable barrier. If there was an embankment of even five feet to be removed I would not consent to expend five dollars to remove it and enable our population to go there. I thank God for his mercy in placing the Rocky Mountains there."

Will the reader please take notice that the speech was delivered on the 25th day of January, 1843, just about the time that Whitman, in the ever-memorable ride, was floundering through the snow drifts of the Wasatch and Uintah Mountains, deserted by his guide and surrounded by discouragements that would have appalled any man not inspired by heroic purpose.

It was at this same session of 1843, prior to the visit of Whitman, that Linn, of Missouri, had offered a bill which made specific legal provisions for Oregon, and he succeeded in passing the bill, which went to the House and as usual was defeated. The prevailing idea was that which was expressed by General Jackson to President Monroe, and before referred to, in which Jackson says, "It should be our policy to concentrate our population and confine our frontier to proper limits until our country, in those limits, is filled with a dense population. It is the denseness of our population that gives strength and security to our frontier." That "interminable desert," those "arid plains," those "impassable mountains," and "the impossibility of a wagon road from the United States," were the burdens of many speeches from the statesmen of that time. And then they emphasized the whole with the clincher that, after overcoming these terrible obstacles that intervened, we reached a land that was "worthless," not even worth a "pinch of snuff."

Senator Dayton, of New Jersey, in 1844, in the discussion of the Oregon boundary question, said: "With the exception of land along the Willamette and strips along other water courses, the whole country is as irreclaimable and barren a waste as the Desert of Sahara. Nor is this the worst; the climate is so unfriendly to human life that the native population has dwindled away under the ravages of malaria."

The National Intelligencer, about the same date, republished from the Louisville Journal and sanctioned the sentiments, as follows:

"Of all the countries upon the face of the earth Oregon is one of the least favored by heaven. It is the mere riddlings of creation. It is almost as barren as Sahara and quite as unhealthy as the Campagna of Italy. Russia has her Siberia and England has her Botany Bay and if the United States should ever need a country to which to banish her rogues and scoundrels, the utility of such a region as Oregon would be demonstrated. Until then, we are perfectly willing to leave this magnificent country to the Indians, trappers and buffalo hunters that roam over its sand banks."

In furtherance of the Jackson sentiment of "a dense population," Senator Dayton said: "I have no faith in the unlimited extensions of this government. We have already conflicting interests, more than enough, and God forbid that the time should ever come when a state on the shores of the Pacific, with its interests and tendencies of trade all looking toward Asiatic nations of the east, shall add its jarring claims to our already distracted and over-burdened confederacy. We are nearer to the remote nations of Europe than to Oregon."

The Hudson Bay Company had done its educating work well. If they had graduated American statesmen in a full course of Hudson Bay training and argument and literature, they could not have made them more efficient. Our statesmen did not doubt that the honest title of the property was vested in the United States; for they had gone on from time to time perfecting this title; yet they had no idea of its value and seemed to hold it only for diplomatic purposes or for prospective barter.

The United States had no contestant for the property except England, but in 1818 she was not ready to make any assertion of her rights. In 1828 she still postponed making any demand and renewed the treaty, well knowing that the little island many thousands of miles across the Atlantic, was the supreme ruler of all the vast territory.

Again, when the Ashburton Treaty was at issue, and the question of boundary which had been for forty-eight years a bone of contention, the government again ignored Oregon, and was satisfied with settling the boundaries between a few farms up in Maine.

But it requires no argument in view of this long continued series of acts, to reach the conclusion that American interests in Oregon were endangered most of all from the apathy and ignorance of our own statesmen.

That loyal old pioneer, Rev. Jason Lee, the chief of the Methodist Mission in Oregon, visited Washington in 1838 and presented the conditions of the country and its dangers forcibly. With funds contributed by generous friends he succeeded in taking back with him quite a delegation of actual settlers for Oregon. But neither Congress nor the people were aroused.

For all practical purposes Oregon was treated as a "foreign land." There was not even a show of a protectorate over the few American immigrants who had gathered there. The "American Board," which sent missionaries only to foreign lands, had charge of the mission fields, and carefully secured passports for their missionaries before starting them upon their long journey. The Rev. Myron Eells in his interesting volume entitled "Father Eells," gives a copy of the passport issued to his father. It records—

"The Rev. Cushing Eells, Missionary and Teacher of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions to the tribes west of the Rocky Mountains, having signified to this department his desire to pass through the Indian Country to the Columbia River, and requested the permission required by law to enable him so to do, such permission is hereby granted; and he is commended to the friendly attention of civil and military agents and officers and of citizens, if at any time it shall be necessary to his protection. Given under my hand and the seal of the War Department this 27th day of February, 1838.

"J. R. POINSETT,
"Secretary of War."

It is a truth so plain as to need no argument, that during all these earlier years the whole effort of the fur traders had been to deceive all nationalities as to the value of the Northwestern country. In their selfishness they had deceived England as well as America. Their idea and hope was to keep out emigration. But England had been better informed than the United States, for the reason that all the commerce was with England, and English capitalists who had large interests in the Hudson Bay Company, very naturally were better informed, but even they were not anxious for English colonization and an interference with their bonanza.

They controlled the English press, and so late as 1840 we read in the "British and Foreign Review," that "upon the whole, therefore, the Oregon country holds out no great promise as an agricultural field."

The London Examiner in 1843 wonders that "Ignorant Americans" were "disposed to quarrel over a country, the whole in dispute not being worth to either party twenty thousand pounds."

The Edinburgh Review, generally fair, said: "Only a very small portion of the land is capable of cultivation. It is a case in which the American people have been misled as to climate and soil. In a few years all that gives life to the country, both the hunter and his prey will be extinct, and their places will be supplied by a thin white and half-breed population scattered along the fertile valleys supported by pastures instead of the chase, and gradually degenerating into barbarism, far more offensive than backwoodsmen." Our English friends, it may be observed, had long had a poor opinion of "backwoodsmen."

The Edinburgh Review, in 1843, says: "However the political question between England and the United States as to their claim on Oregon shall be determined, Oregon will never be colonized overland from the United States. The world must assume a new phase before the American wagons make a plain road to the Columbia River."

In this educating work of the English press, we can easily understand how public opinion was molded, and how our statesmen were misinformed and misdirected. It was, no doubt, largely due to the shrewd work of the great monopoly in Oregon backed up by the English Government. Its first object was to keep it unsettled as long as possible, for on that depended the millions for the Hudson Bay Company's treasury, but beyond that, the government plainly depended upon the powerful organization to hold all the land as a British possession.

In the war of 1812, one of the first moves was to dispatch a fleet to the Columbia, with orders, as the record shows, "to take and destroy everything American on the northwest coast."

The prosperous people of Oregon, Washington and Idaho are in a position now to enjoy such prophetic fulminations, but they can easily see the dangers that were escaped. It was a double danger, danger from abroad and at home, and of the latter most of all. The Nation had been deceived. It must be undeceived.

The outlook was not hopeful. The year 1843 had been ushered in. The long-looked-for and talked-of treaty had been signed, and Oregon again ignored. There was scarcely a shadow cast of coming events to give hope to the friends of far-away Oregon.

Suppose some watchman from the dome of the Capitol casting his eyes westward in 1843, could have seen that little caravan winding through valleys and over the hills and hurrying eastward, but who would dream that its leader was "a man of destiny," bearing messages to a nation soon to be aroused? Of how little or how much importance was this messenger or his message, turn to "The Ride to Save Oregon" and judge. But certain it is, a great change, bordering on revolution, was portending.

CHAPTER III.

THE ROMANCE OF THE OREGON MISSION.

These pages are mainly designed to show in brief the historical and political environments of Oregon in pioneer days, and the patriotic services rendered the nation by Dr. Marcus Whitman. But to attempt to picture this life and omit the missionary, would be like reciting the play of Hamlet and omitting Hamlet.

The mission work to the Oregon Indians began in a romance and ended in a great tragedy. The city of St. Louis in that day was so near the border of civilization that it was accustomed to see much of the rugged and wild life of the plains; yet in 1832 the people beheld even to them the odd sight of four Flathead Indians in Indian dress and equipment parading their principal streets.

General Clarke, who commanded the military post of that city, was promptly notified and took the strangers in charge. He had been an Indian commissioner for many years in the far West, knew the tribe well and could easily communicate with them. With it all he was a good friend to the Indians and at once made arrangements at the fort to make them comfortable. They informed him that they were all chiefs of the tribe and had spent the entire Summer and Fall upon their long journey. Their wearied manner and wasted appearance told the fact impressively, even had the general not known the locality where they belonged.

For a while they were reticent regarding their mission, as is usual with Indians; but in due time their story was fully revealed. They had heard of "The White Man's Book of Life," and had come "to hunt for it" and "to ask for teachers to be sent" to their tribe.

To Gen. Clarke this was a novel proposition to come in that way from wild Indians. Gen. Clarke was a devoted Catholic and treated his guests as a humane and hospitable man. After they were rested up he piloted them to every place which he thought would entertain and interest them. Frequent visits were made to Catholic churches, and to theaters and shows of every kind. And so they spent the balance of the Winter.

During this time, two of the Indians, from the long journey and possibly from over-eating rich food, to which they were unaccustomed, were taken sick and died, and were given honored burial by the soldiers. When the early Spring sun began to shine, the two remaining Indians commenced their preparations for return home.

Gen. Clarke proposed to give them a banquet upon the last evening of their sojourn, and start them upon their way loaded with all the comforts he could give. At this banquet one of the Indians made a speech. It was that speech, brimming over with Indian eloquence, which fired the Christian hearts of the Nation into a new life. The speech was translated into English and thus doubtless loses much of its charm.

The chief said: "I come to you over the trail of many moons from the setting sun. You were the friends of my fathers, who have all gone the long way. I came with an eye partly open for my people, who sit in darkness. I go back with both eyes closed. How can I go back blind, to my blind people? I made my way to you with strong arms through many enemies and strange lands that I might carry back much to them. I go back with both arms broken and empty. Two fathers came with us, they were the braves of many winters and wars. We leave them asleep here by your great water and wigwams. They were tired in many moons and their moccasins wore out.

"My people sent me to get the "White Man's Book of Heaven." You took me to where you allow your women to dance as we do not ours, and the book was not there. You took me to where they worship the Great Spirit with candles and the book was not there. You showed me images of the good spirits and the pictures of the good land beyond, but the book was not among them to tell us the way. I am going back the long and sad trail to my people in the dark land. You make my feet heavy with gifts and my moccasins will grow old in carrying them, yet the book is not among them. When I tell my poor blind people after one more snow, in the big council, that I did not bring the book, no word will be spoken by our old men or by our young braves. One by one they will rise up and go out in silence. My people will die in darkness, and they will go a long path to other hunting grounds. No white man will go with them, and no White Man's Book to make the way plain. I have no more words."

When this speech was translated and sent East it was published in the Christian Advocate in March, 1833, with a ringing editorial from President Fisk of Wilbraham College. "Who will respond to go beyond the Rocky Mountains and carry the Book of Heaven?" It made a profound impression. It was a Macedonian cry of "Come over and help us," not to be resisted. Old men and women who read this call, and attended the meetings at that time, are still living, and can attest to its power. It stirred the church as it has seldom been stirred into activity.

This incident of the appearance in St. Louis and demand of the four Flathead Indians has been so fully verified in history as to need no additional proof to silence modern sceptics who have ridiculed it. All the earlier histories such as "Gray's History of Oregon," "Reed's Mission of the Methodist Church," Governor Simpson's narrative, Barrow's "Oregon," Parkman's "Oregon Trail," with the correspondence of the Lees, verified the truth of the occurrence.

Bancroft, in his thirty-eight-volume history, in volume 1, page 579, says, "Hearing of the Christians and how heaven favors them, four Flathead Indian chiefs, in 1832, went to St. Louis and asked for teachers," etc. As this latter testimony is from a source which discredited missionary work, as we shall show in another chapter, it is good testimony upon the point. Some modern doubters have also ridiculed the speech reported to have been made by the Indian chief. Those who know Indians best will bear testimony to its genuineness.

Almost every tribe of Indians has its orator and story-teller, and some of them as famous in their way as the Beechers and Phillipses and Depews, among the whites, or the Douglasses and Langstons among the negroes.

In 1851 the writer of this book was purser upon the steamer Lot Whitcomb, which ran between Milwaukee and Astoria, Oregon. One beautiful morning I wandered a mile or more down the beach and was seated upon the sand, watching the great combers as they rolled in from the Pacific, which, after a storm, is an especially grand sight; when suddenly, as if he had arisen from the ground, an Indian appeared near by and accosted me. He was a fine specimen of a savage, clean and well dressed. He evidently knew who I was and my position on the steamer and had followed me to make his plea. With a toss of his arm and a motion of his body he threw the fold of his blanket across his left shoulder as gracefully as a Roman Senator could have done, and began his speech. "Hy-iu hyas kloshe Boston, Boston hy-iu steamboat hy-iu cuitan. Indian halo steamboat, halo cuitan." It was a rare mixture of English words with the Chinook, which I easily understood.

The burthen of his speech was, the greatness and richness and goodness of white men; (they called all white men Boston men); they owned all the steamboats and horses; that the Indians were very poor; that his squaw and pappoose were away up the Willamette river, so far away that his moccasins would be worn out before he could reach their wigwam; that he had no money and wanted to ride.

I have heard the great orators of the nation in the pulpit and halls of legislation, but I never listened to a more eloquent plea, or saw gestures more graceful than were those of that wild Wasco Indian, of which I alone was the audience.

Another interesting historical scrap of the romantic history of these Flathead chiefs is furnished in the fact that the celebrated Indian artist, George Catlin, was on one of his tours in the West taking sketches in the spring of 1833. Soon after their leaving St. Louis he dropped in with the two Indians on their return journey and traveled with them for some days, taking pictures of both, and they are now numbers 207 and 208 in his great collection.

Upon his return east he read the Indian speech, and of the excitement it had caused, and not having been told by the Indians of the cause of their journey, and wishing to be assured that he had accidentally struck a great historic prize in securing the pictures, he sat down and wrote Gen. Clarke at St. Louis, asking him if the speech was true and the story correct. Gen. Clarke promptly replied, "The story is true; that was the only object of their visit." Taken in connection with the after history, no two pictures in any collection have a deeper or grander significance.

We may add here that within a month after leaving St. Louis, one of the Indians was taken sick and died, and but one reached his home in safety.

When I reached Oregon in 1850, the first tribe of Indians I visited in their home was the Flatheads. But whether the story is true in all its minutiae or not, it matters but little. It was believed true, and produced grand results. It can hardly be said, from the standpoint of the Christian missionary, that the work in Oregon was a grand success. And yet, never were missionaries more heroic, or that labored in any field with greater fidelity for the true interests of the Indian savages to whom they were sent.

They were great, warm-hearted, intelligent, educated, earnest men and women, who endured privation, isolation and discomfort with cheerfulness, that they might teach Christianity and save souls. There was no failure from any incompetency of the teachers, but from complications and surroundings hopelessly beyond their power to change.

They brought with them over their long, weary journey the Bible, Christianity and civilization, and the school. They were met at first with a cordial reception by the Indians, but a great corporation, dependent upon the steel trap and continuous savage life, soon showed its hand. It was a foreign un-American opposition. It had met every American company that had attempted to share in the business promoted by savage life, and routed them. The missionaries were wide-awake men and were quick to see the drift of affairs.

Dr. Whitman early foresaw what was to happen. He saw the possibilities of the country and that the first battle was between the schoolhouse and civilization, and the tepee and savagery. He resolved to do everything possible for the Indian before it began. In a letter to his father-in-law, dated May 16, 1844, from Waiilatpui, he says:

"It does not concern me so much what is to become of any particular set of Indians, as to give them the offer of salvation through the Gospel, and the opportunity of civilization, and then I am content to do good to all men as I have opportunity. I have no doubt our greatest work is to be to aid the white settlement of this country and help to found its religious institutions. Providence has its full share in all those events. Although the Indians have made, and are making rapid advance in religious knowledge and civilization, yet it cannot be hoped that time will be allowed to mature the work of Christianization or civilization before white settlers will demand the soil and the removal both of the Indians and the Missions.

"What Americans desire of this kind they always effect, and it is useless to oppose or desire it otherwise. To guide as far as can be done, and direct these tendencies for the best, is evidently the part of wisdom. Indeed, I am fully convinced that when people refuse or neglect to fill the design of Providence, they ought not to complain at the results, and so it is equally useless for Christians to be over-anxious on their account.

"The Indians have in no case obeyed the command to multiply and replenish the earth, and they cannot stand in the way of others doing so. A place will be left them to do this as fully as their ability to obey will permit, and the more we do for them the more fully will this be realized. No exclusiveness can be asked for any portion of the human family. The exercise of his rights are all that can be desired. In order for this to be understood to its proper extent, in regard to the Indians, it is necessary that they seek to preserve their rights by peaceable means only. Any violation of this rule will be visited with only evil results to themselves."

This letter from Dr. Whitman to his wife's father, dated about seven months after his return from his memorable "Ride to Save Oregon," is for the first time made public in the published transactions of the State Historical Society of Oregon in 1893. It is important from the fact that it gives a complete key to the life and acts of this silent man and his motives for the part he took in the great historic drama, in which the statesmen of the two nations were to be the actors, with millions of people the interested audience.

In another place we will show how Whitman has been misrepresented by modern historians, and an attempt made to deprive him of all honor, and call attention to the above record, all the more valuable because never intended for the public eye when written.

In the same letter Whitman says, "As I hold the settlement of this country by Americans, rather than by English colonists, most important, I am happy to have been the means of landing so large an immigration on the shores of the Columbia with their wagons, families and stock, all in safety."

Such sentiments reveal only the broad-minded, far-seeing Christian man, who, though many thousand miles away from its protecting influence, still loved "The banner of beauty and glory." He had gone to Oregon with only a desire to teach savages Christianity; but saw in the near future the inevitable, and, without lessening his interest in his savage pupils, he entered the broader field.

Who can doubt that both were calls from a power higher than man? Or who can point to an instance upon historic pages where the great work assigned was prosecuted with greater fidelity? Having accomplished a feat unparalleled for its heroism and without a break in its grand success, he makes no report of it to any state or national organization, but while he talked freely with his friends of his work it is only now, after he has rested for forty-seven and more years, that this modest letter written to his wife's father at the time, strongly reveals his motives.

Having accomplished his great undertaking, he was still the missionary and friend of the Indians, and at once dropped back to his work, and the drudgery of his Indian mission.

Again we find him enlarging his field of work, teaching his savage friends, not only Christianity, but how to sow, and plant, and reap, and build houses, and prepare for civilization. He took no part in the new political life which he had made possible. He was a stranger to all things except those which concerned the work he was called to do. In his letter he speaks of earnestly desiring to return East and bring out the second company of immigrants the coming Spring, but the needs of his mission, his wasted fields, and his mill burned during his absence, seemed to demand his presence at home.

The world speaks of this event and that, as "It so happened." They will refer to the advent of the Flathead Indians in St. Louis in 1832, as "It so happened." The more thoughtful readers of history find fewer things "accidental." In this great historic romance the Flathead Indians were not an accident. The American Board, the Methodist Board, Dr. Whitman and Jason Lee, and their co-workers, were not accidents. They were all men inspired to a specific work, and having entered upon it, the field widened into dimensions of unforeseen grandeur, whose benefits the Nation has never yet befittingly acknowledged.

CHAPTER IV.

THE WEDDING JOURNEY ACROSS THE PLAINS.

The romance of the Oregon Mission did not end with the call of the Flathead Indians. This was savage romance, that of civilization followed.

The Methodists sent the Lees in 1834, and the American Board tried to get the right men for the work to accompany them, but failed. But in 1835 they sent Dr. Marcus Whitman and the Rev. Samuel Parker to Oregon upon a trip of discovery, to find out the real conditions, present and prospective.

They got an early start in 1835 and reached Green River, where they met large bodies of Indians and Indian traders, and were made fully acquainted with the situation. The Indians gave large promises, and the field seemed wide and inviting. Upon consultation it was agreed that Dr. Whitman should return to the States and report to the American Board, while Dr. Parker should go on to the Columbia. Two Indian boys from the Pacific Coast, Richard and John, volunteered to return with Dr. Whitman and come back with him the following year.

The Doctor and his Indian boys reached his home in Rushville, New York, late on Saturday night in November, and not making known the event to his family, astonished the congregation in his church by walking up the aisle with his Indians, and calling out an audible exclamation from his good old mother, "Well, there is Marcus Whitman."

Upon the report of Dr. Whitman the American Board resolved to at once occupy the field. Dr. Whitman had long been engaged to be married to Miss Narcissa Prentice, the daughter of Judge Prentice, of Prattsburg, New York, who was as much of an enthusiast in the Oregon Indian Mission work as the Doctor himself. The American Board thought it unwise to send the young couple alone on so distant a journey, and at once began the search for company. The wedding day, which had been fixed, was postponed, and valuable time was passing, and no suitable parties would volunteer for the work, when its trials and dangers were explained.

The Board had received word that the Rev. H. H. Spalding, who had recently married, was then with his wife on his way to the Osage Mission to enter upon a new field of work. It was in January and Whitman took to the road in his sleigh in pursuit of the traveling missionaries. He overtook them near the village of Hudson and hailed them in his cheery way:

"Ship ahoy, you are wanted for the Oregon Mission."

After a short colloquy they drove on to the hotel of the little village. There the subject was canvassed and none of its dangers hidden. Mr. Spalding promptly made up his mind, and said:

"My dear, I do not think it your duty to go, but we will leave it to you after we have prayed."

Mrs. Spalding asked to be left alone, and in ten minutes she appeared with a beaming face and said: "I have made up my mind to go."

"But your health, my dear?"

"I like the command just as it stands," says Mrs. Spalding, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel, with no exceptions for poor health."

Others referred to the hardships and dangers and terrors of the journey, but Dr. Spalding says: "They all did not move her an iota."

Such was the party for the wedding journey. It did look like a dangerous journey for a woman who had been many months an invalid, but events proved Mrs. Spalding a real heroine, with a courage and pluck scarcely equaled, and under the circumstances never excelled. Having turned her face toward Oregon she never looked back and never was heard to murmur or regret her decision.

This difficulty being removed, the day was again set for the marriage of Dr. Whitman and Miss Prentice, which took place in February, 1836. All authorities mark Narcissa Prentice as a woman of great force of character.

She was the adored daughter of a refined Christian home and had the love of a wide circle of friends. She was the soprano singer in the choir of the village church of which she and her family were members.

In the volume of the magazine of American History for 1884, the editor, the late Miss Martha J. Lamb, says:

"The voice of Miss Prentice was of remarkable sweetness. She was a graceful blonde, stately and dignified in her bearing, without a particle of affectation." Says Miss Lamb: "When preparing to leave for Oregon the church held a farewell service and the minister gave out the well-known hymn:

"The whole congregation joined heartily in the singing, but before the hymn was half through, one by one they ceased singing and audible sobs were heard in every part of the great audience. The last stanza was sung by the sweet voice of Mrs. Whitman alone, clear, musical and unwavering."

One of the pleasant things since it was announced that these sketches would be written, is the number of people, that before were unknown, who have volunteered charming personal sketches of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman.

A venerable friend who often, he fears, attended church more for the songs of Miss Prentice than for the sermons, was also at their wedding. The venerable J. S. Seeley, of Aurora, Illinois, writes: "It was just fifty-nine years ago this March since I drove Dr. and Mrs. Whitman from Elmira, N. Y., to Hollidaysburg, Pa., in my sleigh. This place was at the foot of the Allegheny Mountains (east side) on the Pennsylvania canal. The canal boats were built in two sections and were taken over the mountains on a railroad.

"They expected to find the canal open on the west side and thus reach the Ohio River on the way to Oregon. I was with them some seven days. Dr. Whitman impressed me as a man of strong sterling character and lots of push, but he was not a great talker. Mrs. Whitman was of medium size and impressed me as a woman of great resolution."

A younger sister of the bride, Mrs. H. P. Jackson, of Oberlin, Ohio, writes: "Mrs. Whitman was the mentor of her younger sisters in the home. She joined the church when eleven years old, and from her early years expressed a desire to be a missionary. The wedding occurred in the church at Angelica, N. Y., to which place my father had removed, and the ceremony was performed by the Rev. Everett Hull. I recollect how deeply interested the two Indian boys were in the ceremony, and how their faces brightened when the doctor told them that Mrs. Whitman would go back with them to Oregon. We all had the greatest faith and trust in Dr. Whitman, and in all our letters from our dear sister there was never a word of regret or repining at the life she had chosen."

The two Indian boys were placed in school and learned to read and speak English during the Winter.

The journey down the Ohio and up the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers was tedious, but uneventful.

Those who navigated the Missouri River, fifty years ago, have not forgotten its snags and sand bars, which caused a constant chattering of the bells in the engineer's room from morning until evening, and all through the night, unless the prudent captain tied up to the shore. The man and his "lead line" was constantly on the prow singing out "twelve feet," "quarter past twain," then suddenly "six feet," when the bells would ring out as the boat's nose would bury in the concealed sandbar.

But the party safely reached its destination, and was landed with all its effects, wagons, stock and outfit.

The company was made up of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, Rev. Mr. and Mrs. Spalding, H. H. Gray, two teamsters and the two Indian boys.

The American Fur Company, which was sending out a convoy to their port in Oregon, had promised to start from Council Bluffs upon a given date, and make them welcome members of the company. It was a large company made up of two hundred men and six hundred animals. On the journey in from Oregon, in 1835, cholera had attacked the company, and Dr. Whitman had rendered such faithful and efficient service that they felt under obligations to him. But they had heard there were to be women along and the old mountaineers did not want to be bothered with women upon such a journey, and they moved out promptly without waiting for the doctor's party, which had been delayed.

When Dr. Whitman reached Council Bluffs and found them gone, he was greatly disturbed. There was nothing to do but make forced marches and catch the train before it reached the more dangerous Indian country. Dr. Spalding would have liked to have found it an excuse to return home, but Mrs. Spalding remarked: "I have started to the Rocky Mountains and I expect to go there."

Spalding in a dressing gown in his study, or in a city pulpit, would have been in his element, but he was not especially marked for an Indian missionary. Early in the campaign a Missouri cow kicked him off the ferryboat into the river. The ague racked every bone in his body, and a Kansas tornado at one time lifted both his tent and his blanket and left him helpless. He seemed to catch every disaster that came along. A man may have excellent points in his make-up, as Dr. Spalding had, and yet not be a good pioneer.

He and his noble wife made a grand success, however, when they got into the field of work. It was Mrs. Spalding who first translated Bible truths and Christian songs into the Indian dialect.

It seemed a discouraging start for the little company when compelled to pull out upon the boundless plains alone. But led by Whitman, they persevered and caught the convoy late in May.

The doctor's boys now proved of good service. They were patient and untiring and at home on the trail. They took charge of all the loose stock. The cows they were taking along would be of great value upon reaching their destination, and they proved to be of value along the journey as well, as milk suppliers for the little party.

The first part of the journey Mrs. Whitman rode mainly in the wagon with Mrs. Spalding, who was not strong enough for horseback riding. But soon she took to her pony and liked it so much better, that she rode nearly all the way on horseback. They were soon initiated into the trials and dangers of the journey.

On May 9th Mrs. Whitman writes in her diary: "We had great difficulty to-day. Husband became so completely exhausted with swimming the river, that it was with difficulty he made the shore the last time. We had but one canoe, made of skins, and that was partly eaten by the dogs the night before."

She speaks of "meeting large bodies of Pawnee Indians," and says:

"They seemed very much surprised and pleased to see white women. They were noble looking Indians.

"We attempted, by a hard march, to reach Loup Fork. The wagons got there at eleven at night, but husband and I rode with the Indian boys until nine o'clock, when Richard proposed that we go on and they would stay with the loose cattle upon the prairie, and drive them in early in the morning. We did not like to leave them and concluded to stay. Husband had a cup tied to his saddle, and in this he milked what we wanted to drink; this was our supper. Our saddle-blankets with our rubber-cloaks were our beds. Having offered thanksgiving for the blessings of the day, and seeking protection for the night, we committed ourselves to rest. We awoke refreshed and rode into camp before breakfast."

Here they caught up with the Fur Company caravan, after nearly a month's traveling. These brave women, with their kindness and tact, soon won the good-will and friendship of the old plainsmen, and every vestige of opposition to having women in the train disappeared and every possible civility and courtesy was extended to them. One far-seeing old American trader, who had felt the iron heel of the English Company beyond the Stony Mountains, pointing to the little missionary band, prophetically remarked: "There is something that the Honorable Hudson Bay Company cannot drive out of Oregon."

In her diary of the journey, Mrs. Whitman never expresses a fear, and yet remembering my own sensations upon the same journey, I can scarcely conceive that two delicately nurtured women would not be subjected to great anxieties.

The Platte River, in that day, was but little understood and looked much worse than it really was. Where forded it was a mile wide, and not often more than breast deep to the horses. Two men, on the best horses, rode fifty yards in advance of the wagons, zig-zagging up and down, while the head-driver kept an eye open for the shallowest water and kept upon the bar. In doing this a train would sometimes have to travel nearly twice the distance of the width of the river to get across. The bed of the river is made of shifting sand, and a team is not allowed to stop for a moment, or it will steadily settle down and go out of sight.