The real facts were in reach. Here were men and women educated, cultivated, exiles from home, engaged in the great work of civilizing and Christianizing savages, and without a fact to sustain the charge, it is openly asserted that they gave up their work and entered upon the race for political power and for wealth. Instead of the Missions of the American Board being "closed in 1844," they were at no time in a more prosperous condition; as the record of Dr. Eells, Dr. Spalding and Dr. Whitman all show.

There is not a particle of evidence that Dr. Whitman ever took any part in any political movement in Oregon; save and except as his great effort to bring in settlers to secure the country to the United States may be called political. As soon as he could leave the emigrants, he hurried home to his Mission, and at once took up his heavy work which he had laid aside eleven months before. He went on building and planting, and sowing and teaching; the busiest of busy men up to the very date of the massacre. In his young manhood he sacrificed ease in a civilized home, and he and his equally noble wife dedicated themselves and their lives to the Missionary service. At all times they were the same patient, quiet, uncomplaining toilers.

Why should the great historian of the Pacific States stand above their martyr graves and attempt to discredit their lives and dishonor their memories? Dr. Whitman exhibited as much patriotism and performed as grand an act of heroism as any man of this century, and yet, Mr. Bancroft devotes half a dozen volumes to "The Chronicle of the Builders," in which he presents handsome photographs and clear, well-written sketches of hundreds of men, but they are mainly millionaires and politicians. The historian seems to have had no room for a Missionary or a poor Doctor. They were only pretending "to save savage souls." And that "did not pay," and "they broke up their settlements in 1844 and thenceforth became a political clique" whose "chief aim was to acquire other men's property."

It is a slander of the basest class, not backed up by a single credible fact, wholly dishonorable to the author, and discredits his entire history. An old poet says:

The Christian and patriotic people who believe in honest dealing will, in the years to come, compel all such histories to be re-written and their malice expunged, or they will cease to find an honored place in the best libraries.

It is by such history that the modern public has been blinded, and the real heroes relegated to the rear to make room for favorites. But facts are stubborn things, "The truth is mighty and will prevail." The great public is honest and loves justice and honesty; and it will not permit such a record to stand. The awakening has already begun. The time is coming when the martyred heroes in their unhonored graves at Waiilatpui, will receive the reward due for their patriotic and heroic service.

It is also gratifying to be able to observe that this malevolence is limited to narrow bounds. It has originated and has lived only in the fertile brains of two or three boasters of historic knowledge, who have made up in noise for all lack of principle and justice. They seem to have desired to gain notoriety for themselves and imagined that the world would admire their courage. It was Mr. Bancroft's great misfortune that this little coterie in Oregon were entrusted with the task of writing the most notable history of modern times, and his great work and his honored name will have to bear the odium of it until his volumes are called in and the grievous wrong is righted. It will be done. Mr. E. C. Ross, of Prescott, says in the Oregonian in 1884:

"Time will vindicate Dr. Whitman, and when all calumnies, and their inventors, shall have been forgotten, his name, and that of his devoted, noble wife, will stand forth in history as martyrs to the cause of God and their Country."

Let the loyal, patriotic men and women of America resolve that the time to do this is now.

CHAPTER XI.

THE MASSACRE AT WAIILATPUI.

In all the years since the terrible tragedy at Waiilatpui, historians have been seeking to find the cause of that great crime.

Some have traced it to religious jealousies, but have, in a great measure, failed to back such charges with substantial facts. It seems rather to have been a combination of causes working together for a common purpose.

For nearly half a century, as we have seen in the history of Oregon, the Indians and the Hudson Bay Company had been working harmoniously together. It was a case in which civilization had accommodated itself to the desires of savage life. The Company plainly showed the Indians that they did not wish their lands, or to deprive them of their homes. It only wanted their labor, and in return it would pay the Indians in many luxuries and comforts. The Indians were averse to manual labor, and the great Company had not seen fit to encourage it. They did not desire to see them plant or sow, raise cattle, or build houses for themselves and their families. That would directly interfere with their work as fur gatherers, and break in upon the source of wealth to the Company. To keep them at the steel trap, and in the chase, was the aim of the Hudson Bay policy, and such was congenial to the Indian, and just what he desired.

The Jesuit priests who were attached to the Hudson Bay Company, seconded the interest of the Company, and attempted to teach religion to the Indian and still leave him a savage. Upon the coming of the Protestant Missionaries, the Indians welcomed them and expressed great delight at the prospect of being taught. They gave their choice locations to the Missions, and most solemn promise to co-operate in the work. But neither they nor their fathers had used the hoe or the plow, or built permanent houses in which to live. They were by nature opposed to manual labor. Squaws were made to do all the work, while Indian men hunted and did the fighting. The Missionaries could see but little hope of Christianizing, unless they could induce them to adopt civilized customs.

It was right there that the breach between the Indians and the Missionaries began to widen. They were willing to accept a religion which did not interfere with savage customs, which had become a part of their lives. It was the custom of the Hudson Bay Company, by giving modest bribes, to win over any unruly chief. It was the best way to hold power; but the Missionaries held the tribes which they served up to a higher standard of morals.

The Cayuse Indians made a foray upon a weaker tribe, and levied on their stock in payment for some imaginary debt. Dr. Whitman gave the Chiefs a reprimand, and called it thieving, and demanded that they send back everything they had taken. The Indians grew very angry in being thus reminded of their sins.

We mention these little incidents as illustrations of the strained conditions which speedily made their appearance in the government of the Indians, and made it easy work for the mischief-makers and criminals, later on. It was the boast of English authors that "The English people got along with Indians much better than Americans." This seems to be true, and it comes from the fact that they did not antagonize savage customs. As long as their savage subjects filled the treasury of the Hudson Bay Company, they cared little for aught else. As a matter of policy and self defense, they treated them honestly and fairly in all business transactions. They were in full sympathy with the Indians in their demand to keep out white immigration, and keep the entire land for fur-bearing animals and savage life.

Dr. Whitman's famous ride to the States in the Winter of 1842-43, and his piloting the large immigration of American settlers in 1843, made him a marked man, both with the Indians and the Hudson Bay Company. When the Treaty was signed in 1846, and England lost Oregon, Whitman was doubtless from that hour a doomed man. Both the Hudson Bay Company and the Indians well knew who was responsible.

First, "The great white-haired Chief," Dr. McLoughlin, was sacrificed because he was a friend of Whitman and the Missionaries. There was no other reason. If Dr. McLoughlin could have been induced to treat the Protestant Missionaries as he treated the American fur traders, his English Company would have been delighted to have retained him as Chief Factor for life. But with them it was a crime to show kindness to a Protestant Missionary, and thus foster American interests. If McLoughlin had not resigned and got out of the way, he would doubtless have lost his life by the hands of an assassin.

The Treaty was signed and proclaimed August 6th, 1846, and the massacre did not occur until the 29th of November, 1847. In those days the news moved slowly and the results, and the knowledge that England and the Hudson Bay Company had lost all, did not reach the outposts along the Columbia until late in the Spring of 1847. If the English and Hudson Bay Company had nothing to do in fanning the flame of Indian anger, it was because they had changed and reformed their methods. How much or how little they worked through the cunning and duplicity of Jesuit priests has never been demonstrated. After the Revolutionary War, England never lost an opportunity to incite the Indians upon our Northern frontier to make savage assaults. Her humane statesmen denounced her work as uncivilized and unchristian.

General Washington, in a published letter to John Jay, in 1794, said: "There does not remain a doubt in the mind of any well-informed person in this country, not shut against conviction, that all the difficulties we encounter with the Indians, their hostilities, the murders of helpless women and children along our frontiers, result from the conduct of the agents of Great Britain in this country."

At no time then had the English as much reason for anger at American success and prosperity as in the case of Oregon, where a great organization, which has been for well-nigh half a century in supreme control, was now compelled to move on. To have shown no resentment would have been unlike the representatives of England in the days of Washington.

Undoubtedly the sickness of the Indians, that year, and the charge that the Americans had introduced the disease to kill the Indians off and get their land, was a powerful agent in winning over to the murderers many who were still friendly to the Missionaries. The Indians had fallen from their high mark of honesty of which Mrs. Whitman in her diary, years before, boasted, and had invaded the melon patch and stolen melons, so that the Indians who ate them were temporarily made sick. With their superstitious ideas they called it "conjuring the melon," and the incident was used effectually to excite hostilities.

There is no evidence that white men directly instigated the massacre or took a part in its horrors. While there is evidence of a bitter animosity existing among the Jesuit priests toward the Protestant Missionaries, and their defense of the open charges made against them is lame; yet the historical facts are not sufficient to lay the blame upon them.

Nor is it necessary to hold the leading officials of the Hudson Bay Company responsible for the crime as co-conspirators. There are always hangers-on and irresponsible parties who stand ready to do the villain's work.

The leader of the massacre was the half-breed, Joe Lewis, whose greatest accomplishment was lying. He seems to have brought the conspiracy up to the killing point by his falsehoods. He was a half Canadian and came to Oregon in company with a band of priests, and strangely enough, dropped down upon Dr. Whitman and by him was clothed and fed for many months. The Doctor soon learned his real character and how he was trying to breed distrust among the Indians. Dr. Whitman got him the position of teamster in a wagon train for the Willamette, and expressed a hope that he was clear of him. But Joe deserted his post and returned to Waiilatpui, and as events showed, was guided by some unseen power in the carrying out of the plans of the murderers.

To believe that he conceived it, or that the incentives to the execution of the diabolism rested alone with the Indians, is to tax even the credulous. They were simply the direct agents, and were, doubtless, as has been said, wrought up to the crime through superstitions in regard to Dr. Whitman's responsibility for the prevailing sickness, which had caused many deaths among the Indians. For all the years to come, the readers of history will weigh the facts for themselves, and continue to place the responsibility upon this and that cause; but, for a safe standing point, will always have to drop back upon the fact that it was the "irrepressible conflict" between civilization and savagery, between Christianity and heathenism, backed up by national antagonisms, which had many times before engendered bad spirit.

It has been the history of the first settlement of every State of the Union, more or less, from the landing upon Plymouth Rock up to the tragedy at Waiilatpui. Only it seems in the case of the massacre at the Whitman Mission, to be more coldblooded and atrocious, in the fact that those killed had spent the best years of their lives in the service of the murderers.

Those who had received the largest favors and the most kindness from the Doctor and his good wife, were active leaders in the great crime. The Rev. H. H. Spalding, in a letter to the parents of Mrs. Whitman, dated April 6, 1848, gives a clear, concise account of the great tragedy.

He says: "They were inhumanly butchered by their own, up to the last moment, beloved Indians, for whom their warm Christian hearts had prayed for eleven years, and their unwearied hands had administered to their every want in sickness and distress, and had bestowed unnumbered blessings; who claimed to be, and were considered, in a high state of civilization and Christianity. Some of them were members of our Church; others, candidates for admission; some of them adherents of the Catholic Church; all praying Indians.

"They were, doubtless, urged on to the dreadful deed by foreign influences, which we have felt coming in upon us like a devastating flood for the last three or four years; and we have begged the authors, with tears in our eyes, to desist, not so much on account of our own lives and property, but for the sake of those coming, and the safety of those already in the country. But the authors thought none would be injured but the hated Missionaries—the devoted heretics; and the work of Hell was urged on, and has ended, not only in the death of three Missionaries, the ruin of our Mission, but in a bloody war with the settlements, which may end in the massacre of every adult.

"The massacre took place on the fatal 29th of November last, commencing at half-past one. Fourteen persons were murdered first and last; nine the first day. Five men escaped from the Station, three in a most wonderful manner, one of whom was the trembling writer, with whom, I know, you will unite in praising God for delivering even one.

"The names and places of the slain are as follows: The two precious names already given—my hand refuses to write them again; Mr. Rogers, young man, teacher of our Mission School in the Winter of '46, who since then has been aiding us in our Mission work, and studying for the ministry, with a view to be ordained and join our Mission; John and Francis Sager, the two eldest of the orphan family, ages 17 and 15; Mr. Kimball, of Laporte, Indiana, killed the second day, left a widow and five children; Mr. Saunders, of Oskaloosa, Iowa, left a widow and five children; Mr. Hall, of Missouri, escaped to Fort Walla Walla, was refused protection, put over the Columbia River, killed by the Walla Wallas, left a widow and five children; Mr. Marsh, of Missouri, left a son grown and young daughter; Mr. Hoffman, of Elmira, New York; Mr. Gillan, of Oskaloosa, Iowa; Mr. Sails, of the latter place; Mr. Bewley, of Missouri. The two last were dragged from their sickbeds, eight days after the first massacre, and butchered; Mr. Young, killed the second day. The last five were unmarried men.

"Forty women and children fell captives into the hands of the murderers, among them my own beloved daughter, Eliza, ten years old. Three of the captive children soon died, left without parental care, two of them your dear Narcissa's adopted children. The young women were dragged from the house by night, and beastly treated. Three of them were forced to become wives of the murderers of their parents, who often boasted of the deed, to taunt their victims."

"Monday morning the Doctor assisted in burying an Indian; returned to the house and was reading; several Indians, as usual, were in the house; one sat down by him to attract his attention by asking for medicine; another came behind him with a tomahawk concealed under his blanket and with two blows in the back of the head, brought him to the floor senseless, probably, but not lifeless; soon after Telaukaikt, a candidate for admission in our Church, and who was receiving unnumbered favors every day from Brother and Sister Whitman, came in and took particular pains to cut and beat his face and cut his throat; but he still lingered till near night.

"As soon as the firing commenced at the different places, Mrs. Hayes ran in and assisted Sister Whitman in taking the Doctor from the kitchen to the sitting-room and placed him upon the settee. This was before his face was cut. His dear wife bent over him and mingled her flowing tears with his precious blood. It was all she could do. They were her last tears. To whatever she said, he would reply 'no' in a whisper, probably not sensible.

"John Sager, who was sitting by the Doctor when he received the first blow, drew his pistol, but his arm was seized, the room filling with Indians, and his head was cut to pieces. He lingered till near night. Mr. Rogers, attacked at the water, escaped with a broken arm and wound in the head, and rushing into the house, shut the door. The Indians seemed to have left the house now to assist in murdering others. Mr. Kimball, with a broken arm, rushed in; both secreted themselves upstairs.

"Sister Whitman in anguish, now bending over her dying husband and now over the sick; now comforting the flying, screaming children, was passing by the window, when she received the first shot in her right breast, and fell to the floor. She immediately arose and kneeled by the settee on which lay her bleeding husband, and in humble prayer commended her soul to God, and prayed for her dear children who were about to be made a second time orphans and to fall into the hands of her direct murderers. I am certain she prayed for her murderers, too. She now went into the chamber with Mrs. Hayes, Miss Bewley, Catharine, and the sick children. They remained till near night.

"In the meantime the doors and windows were broken in and the Indians entered and commenced plundering, but they feared to go into the chamber. They called for Sister Whitman and Brother Rogers to come down and promised they should not be hurt. This promise was often repeated, and they came down. Mrs. Whitman, faint with the loss of blood, was carried on a settee to the door by Brother Rogers and Miss Bewley.

"Every corner of the room was crowded with Indians having their guns ready to fire. The children had been brought down and huddled together to be shot. Eliza was one. Here they had stood for a long time surrounded by guns pointed at their breasts. She often heard the cry, "Shall we shoot?" and her blood became cold, she says, and she fell upon the floor. But now the order was given, "Do not shoot the children," as the settee passed by the children, over the bleeding, dying body of John.

"Fatal moment! The settee advanced about its length from the door, when the guns were discharged from without and within, the powder actually burning the faces of the children. Brother Rogers raised his hand and cried, "My God," and fell upon his face, pierced with many balls. But he fell not alone. An equal number of the deadly weapons were leveled at the settee and the discharge had been deadly. She groaned, and lingered for some time in great agony.

"Two of the humane Indians threw their blankets over the little children huddled together in the corner of the room, and shut out the sight as they beat their dying victims with whips, and cut their faces with knives. It was Joe Lewis, the Canadian half-breed, that first shot Mrs. Whitman, but it was Tamtsaky who took her scalp as a trophy."

An old Oregon friend of the author, Samuel Campbell, now living in Moscow, Idaho, spent the Winter of '46 and '47 at the Whitman Mission, and never wearied in telling of the grandly Christian character of Mrs. Whitman, of her kindness and patience to all, whites and Indians alike. Every evening she delighted all with her singing. Her voice, after all her hard life, had lost none of its sweetness, nor had her environments in any sense soured her toward any of the little pleasantries of every-day life.

Says Mr. Campbell, "You can imagine my horror in 1849, when at Grand Ronde, old Tamtsaky acknowledged to me that he scalped Mrs. Whitman and told of her long, beautiful, silky hair." Soon after the United States Government, by order of General Lane, sent officers to arrest the murderers. Old Tamtsaky was killed at the time of the arrest and escaped the hangman's rope, which was given to five of the leaders, after trial in Oregon City, May, 1850. The names of the murderers hanged were Tilwkait, Tahamas, Quiahmarsum, Klvakamus and Siahsalucus.

The Rev. Cushing Eells says, "The day before the massacre, Istikus, a firm friend of Dr. Whitman, told him of the threats against his life, and advised him to 'go away until my people have better hearts.' He reached home from the lodge of Istikus late in the night, but visited his sick before retiring. Then he told Mrs. Whitman the words of Istikus. Knowing how true a friend Istikus was, and his great courage, the situation became more perilous in the estimation of both, than ever before. Mrs. Whitman was so affected by it that she remained in her room, and one of the children, who took her breakfast up to her room, found her weeping. The Doctor went about his work as usual, but told some of his associates that if it were possible to do so, he would remove all the family to a place of safety. It is the first time he ever seems to have been alarmed, or thought it possible that his Indians would attempt such a crime."

Rev. Mr. Eells gives a detailed account of the massacre and its horrors, but in this connection we only desire to give the reader a clear view without dwelling upon its atrocities. "The tomahawk with which Dr. Whitman was killed, was presented to the Cayuse Indians by the Blackfeet upon some great occasion, and was preserved by the Cayuse as a memorable relic long after the hanging of the Chiefs. In the Yakima War it passed to another tribe, and the Chief who owned it was killed; an Indian agent, Logan, got possession of it and presented it to the Sanitary Society during the Civil War. A subscription of one hundred dollars was raised and it was presented to the Legislature of Oregon, and is preserved among the archives of the State."

This narrative would be incomplete without recording the prompt action of the Hudson Bay Company officers in coming to the relief of the captive women and children. As soon as Chief Factor Ogden heard of it, he lost no time in repairing to the scene, reaching Walla Walla December 12th. In about two weeks he succeeded in ransoming all the captives for blankets, shirts, guns, ammunition and tobacco, and at an expense of $500. No other man in the Territory, and no army that could have been mustered could have done it.

The Americans in Oregon promptly mustered and attacked the Indians, who retreated to the territory of a different tribe. But the murderers and leaders among the Indians were not arrested until nearly two years after the crime.

While some have charged that the officials of the Hudson Bay Company could have averted the massacre, this is only an opinion. Their humane and prompt act in releasing the captive women and children from worse than death, was worthy of it, and has received the strongest words of praise.

Thus was ended disastrously the work of the American Board which had given such large promise for eleven years. While its greatest achievement was not in saving savage souls, but in being largely instrumental in peacefully saving three great States to the American Union, yet there is good evidence, years after the massacre, that the labors of the Missionaries had not been in vain. After the Treaty of 1855, seven years after the massacre, General Joel Palmer, who was one of the Council, says, "Forty-five Cayuse and one thousand Nez Perces have kept up regular family and public worship, singing from the Nez Perces Hymn Book and reading the Gospel of Matthew, translated into Nez Perces, the work of Dr. and Mrs. Spalding."

Says General Barloe, "Many of them showed surprising evidences of piety, especially Timothy, who was their regular and faithful preacher during all these years. Among the Cayuse, old Istikus, as long as he lived, rang his bell every Sabbath and called his little band together for worship."

Twelve years after leaving his Mission, Rev. Mr. Spalding returned to his people and found the Tribe had kept up the form of worship all the years since. Upon opening a school, it was at once crowded with children, and even old men and women, with failing eyesight, insisted upon being taught; and the interest did not flag until the failing health of Mr. Spalding forced him to give up his work. The Rev. Dr. Eells' experience was much the same; all going to prove that the early work of the American Board was not fruitless in good, and emphasizing the fact that good words and work are never wholly lost, and their power only will be known when the final summing up is made.

There have been few great men that have not felt the stings of criticism and misrepresentation. The wholly unselfish life of Dr. Marcus Whitman, from his young manhood to the day of his death, it would seem, ought to have shielded him from this class, but it did not. In justice to his contemporaries, however, it is due to say, every one of them, of all denominations except one, was his friend and defender.

That one man was a French Jesuit priest, by the name of J. B. A. Brouillett. He was Acting Bishop among the Indians, of a tribe near to the Cayuse, where Dr. Whitman had labored for eleven years, and where he perished in 1847. After the massacre, there were some grave charges made against Brouillett, and in 1853 he wrote a pamphlet, entitled, "Protestantism in Oregon," in which he made a vicious attack upon the dead Whitman, and the living Dr. Spalding, and the other Protestant Missionaries of the American Board.

It naturally called out some very pointed rejoinders, yet attracted but little attention from the Christian world. Patriotic American Catholics took but little stock in the clamor of the French priest, and the matter was in a fair way to be forgotten, when interest was suddenly renewed in the subject by the appearance of an executive document, No. 38, 35th Congress, 1st Session, signed J. Ross Browne, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and dated at San Francisco, December 4, 1867, which contained a few sentences from J. Ross Browne and all of the Brouillett pamphlet.

The idea of getting so slanderous a paper published as an official public document by the United States Congress, was an unheard-of challenge that called for a reply. And it came promptly and pointedly. From all parts of the country, Members of Congress were flooded with letters to find out how such a thing could be accomplished. None of them seemed able to answer. But the mischief was done and many of them expressed a willingness to help undo it.

The Old School and New School, and the United Presbyterians in their Presbyteries, resented the outrage, both in the Far West and in the East, and none more vigorously than did that of the Illinois Presbytery at the meeting in Chicago in 1871. The Methodists and Baptists and Congregational Conferences in Oregon and Washington, cordially united in the work, and demanded that an address, defending the Missionaries and the American Board, should be printed just as conspicuously to the World as had been the falsehoods of Brouillett.

The Presbyterian General Assembly at Chicago, May 18, 1871, led by the Rev. F. A. Noble, summed up the case under seven different counts of falsehoods, and demanded that Congress should, in simple justice, publish them in vindication of the Protestant Church. The Oregon Presbytery was still more positive and aggressive and made their specifications under twelve heads. The Congregationalists and the Methodists in Oregon were equally pointed and positive. It resulted in "A Committee on Protestantism in Oregon," drawing up a reply.

In this they say: "The object of Brouillett's pamphlet appears to be to exculpate the real instigators of that terrible tragedy, the massacre at Waiilatpui, and to cast the blame upon the Protestant Missionaries who were the victims." They go on to declare that the paper "Is full of glaring and infamous falsehoods," and give their reasons concisely, and wholly exonerate Dr. Whitman from all blame.

They close their address thus: "With these facts before us, we would unite with all lovers of truth and justice, in earnestly petitioning Congress, as far as possible, to rectify the evils which have resulted from the publication, as a Congressional Document, of the slanders of J. Ross Browne, and thus lift the cloud of darkness that 'Hangs over the memory of the righteous dead and extend equal justice to those who survive.'" The Rev. Dr. Spalding prepared the matter and it was introduced through Secretary Columbus Delano, and the Indian Agent, N. B. Meacham, and passed Congress as "Ex-Document No. 37 of the 41st Congress."

Forty thousand copies were ordered printed, the same as of Brouillett's pamphlet. It is reported that less than fifty copies ever reached the public. They mysteriously disappeared, and no one ever learned and made public the manner in which it was done.

But the incident developed the fact, that the whole patriotic Christian people unitedly defended Whitman from the charges made.

CHAPTER XII.

BIOGRAPHICAL.—DR. MARCUS WHITMAN AND DR. JOHN McLOUGHLIN.

Dr. Marcus Whitman was a direct descendant of John Whitman of Weymouth, who came from England in the ship Confidence, December, 1638. Of him it is recorded that he feared God, hated covetousness and did good continually all the days of a long life.

Of the parents of Dr. Whitman, but little has been written. His father, Beza Whitman, was born in Bridgewater, Connecticut, May 13, 1775. In March, 1797, he married Alice Green, of Mumford, Connecticut. Two years later, with all of their worldly goods packed in an ox-cart, they moved to Rushville, New York, Mrs. Whitman making a large part of the tedious journey on foot, carrying her one-year-old babe in her arms.

Settled in their new home, with Indians for near neighbors and wilderness all about them, they began the struggle for life, and though no great success rewarded their efforts, it is known that their doors always swung open to the needy and their hands ministered to the sick.

Mr. Whitman died April 7, 1810, at the early age of 35 years, leaving his young wife to rear their family of four sons and one daughter. Mrs. Whitman, though not a professing Christian, was a woman of much energy and great endurance which, combined with strong Christian principle, enabled her to look well to the ways of her household. She lived to see every member of it an active Christian. She died September 6th, 1857, aged 79, and was buried beside her husband near Rushville, New York.

Dr. Marcus was her second son, and inherited from her a strong frame and great endurance. After his father's death he was sent to his paternal grandfather, Samuel Whitman, of Plainfield, Massachusetts, where he remained ten years for training and education. There he received a liberal training in the best schools the place afforded, supplemented by a thorough course in Latin, and more advanced studies under the minister of the place.

We know little of the boyhood spent there, as we should know little of the whole life of Whitman, had not others lived to tell it, for he neither told or wrote of it; he was too modest and too busy for that. But we know it was the usual life of the Yankee boy, to bring the cows and milk them, to cut the wood, and later to plow and sow the fields, as we afterward find he knew how to do all these things. The strong, sturdy boy of ceaseless activity and indomitable will who loved hunting and exploring, and a touch of wild life, must have sometimes given his old grandfather a trial of his mettle, but on the whole, no doubt, he was a great comfort and help to his declining years.

After the death of his grandfather, he returned to the home of his mother in Rushville. There he became a member of the Congregational Church at the age of nineteen, and it is said was very desirous of studying for the ministry, but by a long illness, and the persuasion of friends, was turned from his purpose to the study of medicine.

He took a three years' course, and graduated at Fairfield, in 1824. He first went to Canada, where he practiced his profession for four years, then came back to his home, determined again to take up the study for the ministry, but was again frustrated in his design, and practiced his profession four years more in Wheeler, N. Y., where he was a member and an elder in the Presbyterian Church. He and a brother also owned a saw-mill near there, where he assisted in his spare hours, and so learned another trade that was most useful to him in later life. In fact, as we see his environments in his Mission Station in Oregon, these hard lessons of his earlier years seem to have been, in the best sense of the word, educational.

With but little help, he opened up and cultivated a great farm, and built a grist-mill and a saw-mill, and when his grist-mill was burned, built another, and, at the same time, attended to his professional duties that covered a wide district. It was the wonder of every visitor to the Mission how one man, with so few helpers, accomplished so much. At the time of the massacre, the main building of the Mission was one hundred feet in the front, with an L running back seventy feet, and part of it two stories high. Every visitor remarked on the cleanliness and comfort and thrift which everywhere appeared.

There are men who, with great incentives, have accomplished great things, but were utter failures when it came to practical, every-day duties. Dr. Whitman, with a genius to conceive, and the will and energy to carry out the most difficult and daring undertaking, was just as faithful and efficient in the little things that made up the comforts of his wilderness home. Seeing these grand results—the commodious house, the increase in the herds and the stacks of grain—seems to have only angered his lazy, thriftless Indians, and they began to make demands for a division of his wealth.

Dr. Whitman has been accused of holding his Indians to a too strict moral accountability; that it would have been wiser to have been more lenient, and winked at, rather than denounced, some of their savage ways. Those who have carefully studied the man, know how impossible it would have been for him, in any seeming way, to condone a crime, or to purchase peace with the criminal by a bribe. This was the method of the Hudson Bay Company, and was doubtless the cheap way.

By a series of events and environments, he seems to have been trained much as Moses was, but with wholly different surroundings from those of the great Lawgiver, whose first training was in the Royal Court and the schools of Egypt; then in its army; then an outcast, and as a shepherd, guiding his flocks, and finding springs and pasturage in the land where, one day, he was to lead his people.

King David is another man made strong in the school of preparation. As he watched his flocks on the Judean hills, he fought the lion and the bear, and so was not afraid to meet and fight a giant, who defied the armies of the living God. It was there, under the stars, that he practiced music to quiet a mad king, and was educated into a fitness to organize the great choirs, and furnish the grand anthems for the temple worship. After this, in self-defense, he became the commander of lawless bands of men, and so was trained to command the armies of Israel.

So it has been in our own Nation, with Washington and Lincoln, and Grant and Garfield; they had to pass through many hardships, and receive a many-sided training before they were fitted for the greater work to which they were called. So it was, this strong, conscientious, somewhat restless young man was being trained for the life that was to follow. The farmer boy, planting and reaping, the millwright planning and building, the country doctor on his long, lonely rides, the religious teacher who must oversee the physical and spiritual wants of his fellow church members, all were needed in the larger life for which he was longing and looking, when the sad appeal for the "Book of Life" came from the Indian Chiefs who had come so far, and failed to find it. His immediate and hearty response was, "Here am I, send me!"

Dr. Marcus Whitman, judged by his life as a Missionary, must ever be given due credit; for no man ever gave evidence of greater devotion to the work he found to do. He was doubtless excelled as a teacher of the Indians by many of his co-laborers. He was not, perhaps, even eminent as a teacher. His great reputation and the honor due him, does not rest upon such a claim, but upon his wisdom in seeing the future of the Great West, and his heroic rescue of the land from a foreign rule. That he heard a call to the duty from a higher source than any earthly potentate, none but the skeptic will doubt. The act stands out clear and bold and strong, as one of the finest instances of unselfish patriotism recorded in all history.

DR. JOHN McLOUGHLIN.

Any sketch of pioneer Oregon would be incomplete without an honorable mention of Dr. John McLoughlin. He was the Chief Factor of the Hudson Bay Company, an organization inimical to American interests, both for pecuniary and political reasons, and like Whitman, has been maligned and misunderstood. As the leading spirit, during all the stages of pioneer life, his life and acts have an importance second to none. Nothing could have been more important for the comfort and peace of the Missionaries than to have had a man as Supreme Ruler of Oregon, with so keen a sense of justice, as had Dr. McLoughlin.

Physically he was a fine specimen of a man. He was six feet, four inches, and well-proportioned. His bushy white hair and massive beard, caused the Indians everywhere to call him, the "Great White Head Chief."

He was born in 1784, and was eighteen years older than Dr. Whitman. He entered the Northwestern Fur Company's service in 1800. He afterward studied medicine, and for a time practiced his profession, but his fine business abilities were so apparent, that in 1824 we find him at the head of affairs in Oregon. His power over the rough men in the employ of the Company, and the savage tribes who filled their coffers with wealth, was so complete as to be phenomenal.

In many of the sketches we have shown that his kindness to the pioneer Missionaries in another and a higher sense, proved his manhood. To obey the orders of his company, and still remain a humane man, was something that required tact that few men could have brought to bear as well as Dr. McLoughlin. While he did slaughter, financially speaking, traders and fur gatherers right and left, and did his best to serve the pecuniary interests of his great monopoly, he drew the line there, and was the friend and the helper of the missionaries.

If the reader could glance through Mrs. Whitman's diary upon the very opening week of her arrival in Oregon, there would not be found anything but words of kindness and gratitude to Dr. McLoughlin. In justice to his company, to which he was always loyal, he pushed the Methodist missions far up the Willamette, and those of the American Board three hundred miles in another direction. But at the same time he was a friend and brother and adviser, and anything he had was at their service, whether they had money or not.

After the immigration in 1842, and the larger immigration led by Whitman in 1843, the company in England became alarmed and sent out spies—Messrs. Park, Vavasaur and Peel, who were enjoined to find out whether McLoughlin was loyal to British interests. After many months spent in studying the situation, their adverse report is easily inferred from the fact that Dr. McLoughlin was ordered to report to headquarters. The full history of that secret investigation has never yet been revealed, but when it is, the whole blame will be found resting upon Whitman and his missionary co-workers, who wrested the land from English rule, and that Dr. McLoughlin aided them to success.

When the charge of "Friendship to the missionaries," was made, the old doctor flared up and replied: "What would you have? Would you have me turn the cold shoulder on the men of God who came to do that for the Indians which this company has neglected to do? If we had not helped the immigrants in '42 and '43 and '44, and relieved their necessities, Fort Vancouver would have been destroyed and the world would have treated us as our inhuman conduct deserved; every officer of the Company, from Governor down, would have been covered with obloquy, and the Company's business ruined!"

But it all resulted in the resignation of Dr. McLoughlin. The injustice he received at the hands of Americans afterward, is deeply to be regretted, and it is greatly to the credit of the thinking people of the State of Oregon that they have done their best to remedy the wrong. At many times, and in a multitude of ways, Dr. McLoughlin, by his kindness to the missionaries, won for himself the gratitude of thinking Americans in all the years to come. With a bad man in his place as Chief Factor, the old missionaries would have found life in Oregon well-nigh unbearable. While true to the exclusive and selfish interests of the great monopoly he served, he yet refused to resort to any form of unmanliness.

After his abuse by the English company and his severance of all connection with it, he settled at Oregon City and lived and died an American citizen. The tongue of slander was freely wagged against him, and his declining years were made miserable by unthinking Americans and revengeful Englishmen. His property, of which he had been deprived, was returned to his heirs, and to-day his memory is cherished as among Oregon's benefactors. A fine oil painting of Dr. McLoughlin was secured and paid for by the old pioneers and presented to the State.

The Hon. John Minto, in making the address at the hanging of the picture, closed with these words:

"In this sad summary of such a life as Dr. McLoughlin's, there is a statement that merits our attention, which, if ever proven true, and no man who ever knew Dr. McLoughlin will doubt that he believed it true, namely, that he prevented war between Great Britain and the United States, will show that two of the greatest nations on this earth owe him a debt of gratitude, and that Oregon, in particular, is doubly bound to him as a public benefactor. British state papers may some day prove all this.

"It is now twenty-six years since the Legislative Assembly of the State of Oregon, so far as restoration of property to Dr. McLouglin's family could undo the wrong of Oregon's Land Bill, gave gladness to the heart of every Oregon pioneer worthy of the name. All of them yet living, now know that, good man as they believed him, he was better than they knew. They see him now, after the strife and jealousies of race, national, business, and sectarian interests are allayed, standing in the center of all these causes of contention—a position in which to please all parties was impossible, to 'Maintain which, only a good man could bear with patience'—and they have adopted this means of conveying their appreciation of this great forbearance and patient endurance, combined with his generous conduct.

"Looking, then, at this line of action in the light of the merest glimpses of history, known to be true by witnesses living, can any honest man wonder that the pioneers of Oregon, who have eaten the salt of this man's hospitality, who have been the eye-witnesses to his brave care for humanity, and participators in his generous aid, are unwilling to go to their graves in silence—which would imply base ingratitude—a silence which would be eloquent with falsehood?

"Governor and Representatives of Oregon: In recognition of the worthy manner in which Dr. John McLoughlin filled his trying and responsible position, in the heartfelt glow of a grateful remembrance of his humane and noble conduct to them, the Oregon pioneers leave this portrait with you, hoping that their descendants will not forget the friend of their fathers, and trusting that this gift of the men and women who led the advance which has planted thirty thousand rifles in the Valley of the Columbia, and three hundred thousand, when needed, in the National Domain facing the Pacific Ocean, will be deemed worthy of a place in your halls."