History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 20

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 1134

USA > Washington > Benton County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 20
USA > Washington > Kittitas County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 20
USA > Washington > Yakima County > History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I > Part 20

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infinite sorrow shows vividly what strength may be imparted by the real Chris- tian spirit.

Both Doctor Whitman and Mr. Spalding were indefatigable workers and quickly created civilized conditions upon the beautiful places where they had planted their missions.

Doctor Whitman was a man of powerful physique and familiar from boyhood with the practical duties of farm and mill. He could turn his hand to almost anything in the way of construction. The same was true of Mr. Gray, who spent part of his time at Waiilatpu and part at Lapwai, though he returned in 1837 to the east in search of new helpers.

But within a few months the Whitmans were comfortably housed, and every year saw some. improvement about the buildings and land. Seed for grain and fruit trees was secured at Vancouver, and stock was provided also. The Waiilatpu farm consisted of a fertile belt of bottom land of about three hundred acres between the Walla Walla River and Mill Creek, with unlimited range of low hill and bench land covered with bunch grass which furnished the finest of stock feed almost the whole year round. Doctor Whitman was himself a practical millwright and soon had a small saw-mill equipped about twenty miles up Mill Creek, while adjoining the mission house he laid out a mill dam, the lines of which can still be seen. The mill was a grist mill and located at the western side of the pond and within a few steps of the mission house and the "Mansion," as they called the large adobe building erected a few years after their arrival for the accommodation of the frequent visitors, especially after American immigrants began to come.

Toiling incessantly the missionary-doctor and hero was rewarded by seeing his mission brought in a surprisingly brief time to a condition of profitable cul- tivation. T. J. Farnham who came with the so-called "Peoria party" in 1839 says of Whitman's place: "I found 250 acres enclosed and 200 acres in good cultivation. I found forty or fifty Indian children between the ages of seven and eighteen years in school, and Mrs. Whitman an indefatigable instructor. It appeared to me quite remarkable that the Doctor could have made so many improvements since the year 1836; but the industry which crowded every hour of the day, his untiring energy of character, and the very efficient aid of his wife in relieving him in a great degree from the labors of the school, enabled him, without funds for such purposes, and without other aid than that of a fellow missionary for short intervals, to fence, plow, build, plant an orchard, and do all the other laborious acts of opening a plantation on the face of that distant wilderness, learn an Indian language, and do the duties, meanwhile of a physi- cian to the associate stations on the Clearwater and Spokane." Joseph Dray- ton of the Wilkes exploring expedition of the United States Navy visited Waiilatpu in 1841. He says of the mission : "All the premises looked comfort- able, the garden especially fine, vegetables and melons in great variety. The wheat in the fields was seven feet in the tassel."

Had not Dr. Whitman possessed great physical strength, as well as deter- mination and energy, he could not have endured the excessive toil which was the price of his rapid progress. Senator Nesmith who came to Oregon in the

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immigration of 1843, said in the hearing of the author of this work, "Whitman had a constitution like a saw mill." Another pioneer said of him that he had. the energy of a Napoleon.

Some old timer has said that Whitman used to ride in a day to the present site of Lewiston from Waiilatpu, about ninety miles. He would do it by chang- ing horses several times. He was hard on horses, and when some one remon- strated on the ground of cruelty, the Doctor replied, "My time is worth more than the horse's comfort."

As has been stated, Mr. W. H. Gray went east in 1837 for reinforcements. The next year he came again to Oregon with a valuable addition. Besides the addition to his own life of a bride, Mary Dix (who was one of the choice spirits of old Oregon and during many years a center of life and light in the new country) there were three missionaries, each also with a newly wedded wife. These were Revs. Elkanah Walker, Cushing Eells, and A. B. Smith. Mr. Cor- nelius Rogers accompanied the party. Reaching Walla Walla the new arrivals. were assigned to new stations: Messrs. Eells and Walker to Tshimakain, near the present city of Spokane, while Mr. Smith went to Kamiah, about sixty miles east of the present site of Lewiston. Mr. Rogers and the Grays went to Lapwai. There seemed never to have been more faithful and devoted missionaries than were these of the four missions of Waiilatpu, Lapwai, Tshimakain and Kamiah. Yet it could not be said that they were successful in turning any considerable numbers of natives to Christianity. The Nez Perces at Lapwai and other sta- tions established by Mr. Spalding, notably the one at Alpowa, were most amen- able to Christian influences, while the Cayuses in the Walla Walla Valley were least so. In contemplation of the apparently scanty progress, the missionary board at Boston decided to discontinue the missions at Waiilatpu and Lapwai, to discharge Messrs. Spalding, Gray, Smith and Rogers, and to send Dr. Whit- man to the Spokane country.

While these difficulties were harassing the missionaries, very important events were taking place in national life. The slavery and the tariff questions had become fire brands in domestic politics. The questions of annexation of Texas, of occupation of Oregon, of possible trouble with Mexico over the former and with England over the latter, were threatening corresponding chaos in foreign affairs. Doctor Whitman, reticent and sagacious, saw clearly that his chosen aim of leading the natives to civilization and Christianity was rapidly sinking in importance in comparison with the question of the white race in the new land, and of the ownership of this great region. In 1842 the Ashburton Treaty with England settled the northeastern boundary and the sup- position was that it would also settle the Oregon Question.

But when the treaty was signed on August 9, it appeared that the ques- tion of Oregon was left unsettled. In a message of August 11, President Tyler explained to the Senate that so little probability of agreement existed that it was thought not expedient to make that subject a matter of negotiation.

While the Ashburton Treaty was pending the first real immigration, though a small one of a hundred and twelve persons, came to Oregon. In it, among several of the most notable of the Old Oregonians, was A. L. Lovejoy,.

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a young New England lawyer, a man of energy and ambition, destined to play a conspicuous part in Oregon history.

When the party reached Whitman's station on the Walla Walla they deliv- ered to him letters from the States and discussed with him the pending treaty and the danger that it might draw the line so as to leave Oregon to Great Brit- ain, or at least to make the Columbia River the boundary, placing the entire Puget Sound basin and the mountains and plains eastward to the river in pos- session of Great Britain. Seeing the imminence of the danger, Whitman deter- mined upon a supreme effort. He decided to make a mid-Winter journey east with three aims in view: to present to the Government the situation and the. vital need of preserving Oregon for the United States; to try to aid in form- ing and guiding an immigration to Oregon; and to settle affairs of the mission with the board at Boston. He asked Lovejoy to go with him. It looked like a desperate undertaking, but Lovejoy, an athletic, ambitious young man, agreed to go.

THE WHITMAN CONTROVERSY

At this point comes in the bitterly disputed "Whitman Controversy." It is not within the scope of this work to undertake an argumentative treatment of this question. The question at issue, if rationally considered, is rather the extent of the services of Dr. Whitman in "saving Oregon to the United States."

Mrs. F. F. Victor, Elwood Evans, Prof. E. G. Bourne, and Principal W. I. Marshall have, more than others, presented arguments in favor of the con- tention that Dr. Whitman had no important part in the great political drama of Oregon, while the claim that he had large political aims and bore a conspicuous. part in influencing the final result has been supported in books written by Dr. O. W. Nixon, Rev. William Barrows, Professor William Mowry, and Rev. Myron Eells. The final book by the last named, the life of Marcus Whitman, is in the judgment of the writer, the final and unanswered and indeed unan- swerable, word on the subject.

The author of this history has given in the Washington Historical Quar- terly of April, 1917, his reasons for thinking the statements of Professors Bourne and Marshall inaccurate and their arguments inconclusive.

The fact acknowledged by all is that Whitman made a ride during the Fall and Winter of 1842 and succeeding months of 1843 which for daring, hero- ism and fortitude, has few parallels in history.

The question of controversy is, what did he make such a journey for. His critics say that it was in consequence of the decision of the missionary board to discontinue his mission on the Walla Walla. Mrs. Victor and Principal Marshall are the only ones among these critics who have achieved the distinc- tion of attributing base or selfish motives to Whitman. They have held forth the idea that he, foreseeing the incoming of immigrants, wanted to maintain the station at Waiilatpu, in order to raise vegetables and other supplies to sell at a high price. Whether a motive of that sort would lead a man of Whitman's type to take that desperate ride in mid-Winter through the Rocky Mountains, at peril of life a dozen times over from Indians, freezing, and starvation, is a question which different people would view differently, according to their way

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of estimating the motives which determine men's actions. Perhaps people whose estimate of human nature, based possibly on their own inner conscious- ness of motives, is that selfish gain is the leading motive, would agree that the hope of cornering the vegetable market at Waiilatpu was an adequate cause of Whitman's ride. To some other people it would seem likely that the main- spring of his action was some great national and patriotic aim and that while he wished to maintain the mission his great aim was to convince the Govern- ment of the value of Oregon and to help organize an immigration which would settle the ownership of Oregon in favor of his country. At any rate, he went. That much is undisputed.

Practically the only account of that memorable mid-Winter ride from Waiilatpu to St. Louis is from A. L. Lovejoy, the sole white companion of Whitman. Whitman himself was, like most heroes, a man of few words.

He told various friends something of his experiences in Washington and Boston and told to associates and wrote a few letters to friends about the im- migration of 1843, but he seems to have been very reticent about the "Ride." Mr. Lovejoy wrote two letters about that journey, one dated November 6, 1869, which is found in W. H. Gray's History of Oregon, and one addressed to Dr. G. H. Atkinson and used by him in an address on February 22, 1876. This letter so vividly portrays the character of this undertaking, as it comes from the only witness besides Whitman himself, that we deem it suitable to incor- porate it here.

LOVEJOY'S LETTER.

Mr. Lovejoy says: "We left Waiilatpu October 3, 1842, traveled rapidly, reached Fort Hall in eleven days, remained two days to recruit and make a few purchases. The doctor engaged a guide, and we left for Fort Unita. We had terribly severe weather. The snows retarded our progress and blinded the trail, so we lost much time. After arriving at Fort Uinta, and making some pur- chases for our trip, we took a new guide and started for Taos. After being out some four or five days we encountered a terrific snowstorm, which forced us to seek shelter in a deep ravine, where we remained snowed in for four days, at which time the storm had somewhat abated, and we attempted to make our way out upon the highlands, but the snow was so deep and the winds so piercing and cold, we were compelled to return to camp and wait a few days for a change of weather. Our next effort to reach the highlands was more successful; but, after spending several days wandering around in the snow without making much headway, our guide told us that the deep snow had so changed the face of the country that he was completely lost and could take us no further. This was a terrible blow to the doctor, but he was determined not to give it up with- out another effort.

"We at once agreed that the doctor should take the guide and return to Fort Uncompahgre and get a new guide, and I remain in camp with the ani- mals until he could return, which he did in seven days with our new guide, and we were now on our route again. Nothing of much import occurred but hard and slow traveling through deep snow until we reached Grand River, which was frozen on either side about one-third across. Although so intensely cold,

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the current was so very rapid that about one-third of the river in the center was not frozen. Our guide thought it would be dangerous to attempt to cross the river in its present condition,' but the doctor, nothing daunted, was the first to take the water. He mounted his horse; the guide and myself shoved the Doctor and his horse off the ice into the foaming stream. Away he went, completely under water, horse and all, but directly came up, and after buffeting the rapid foaming current, he reached the ice on the opposite shore a long way down the stream. He leaped from his horse upon the ice and soon had his noble animal by his side. The guide and myself forced in the pack animals, and followed the Doctor's example, and were soon on the opposite shore, drying our frozen clothes by a comfortable fire. We reached Taos in about thirty days, having suf- fered greatly from cold and scarcity of provisions. We were compelled to use mule meat, dogs, and such other animals as came in our reach. We remained at Taos a few days only, and started for Bent's and Savery's Fort, on the head- waters of the Arkansas River. When we had been out some fifteen or twenty days we met George Bent, a brother of Governor Bent, on his way to Taos. He told us that a party of mountain men would leave Bent's Fort in a few days for St. Louis, but said we would not reach the fort with our pack animals in time to join the party. The Doctor, being very anxious to join the party so he could push on as rapidly as possible to Washington, concluded to leave myself and guide with the animals, and he himself, taking the best animal, with some bedding and a small allowance of provision, started alone, hoping by rapid travel to reach the fort in time to join the St. Louis party, but to do so he would have to travel on the Sabbath, something we had not done before. Myself and guide traveled on slowly and reached the fort in four days, but imagine our astonishment when on making inquiry about the Doctor we were told that he had not arrived nor had he been heard of. I learned that the party for St. Louis was camped at the Big Cottonwood, forty miles from the fort, and at my request Mr. Savery sent an express, telling the party not to proceed any farther until we learned something of Doctor Whitman's whereabouts, as he wished to accompany them to St. Louis. Being furnished by the gentlemen of the fort with a suitable guide, I started in search of the Doctor, and traveled up the river about one hundred miles. I learned from the Indians that a man had been there who was lost and was trying to find Bent's Fort. They said they had directed him to go down the river and how to find the fort. I knew from their description it was the Doctor. I returned to the fort as rapidly as pos- sible, but the Doctor had not arrived. We had all become very anxious about him.

"Late in the afternoon he came in very much fatigued and desponding ; said that he knew that God had bewildered him to punish him for traveling on the Sabbath. During the whole trip he was very regular in his morning and evening devotions, and that was the only time I ever knew him to travel on the Sabbath.

"The Doctor remained all night at the fort, starting only on the following morning to join the St. Louis party. Here we parted. The Doctor proceeded to Washington. I remained at Bent's Fort until Spring, and joined the Doctor

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the following July near Fort Laramie, on his way to Oregon, in company with a train of emigrants."

In the life of Whitman by Myron Eells, there is a summary of the events which immediately followed, so well adapted to our purpose that we quote it here as resting upon the authority of Mr. Eells, whom we regard as a writer of undoubted candor and accuracy.

"When Doctor Whitman arrived at St. Louis he made his home at the house of Doctor Edward Hale, a dentist. In the same house was William Bar- rows, then a young school teacher, afterward a clergyman and author of Bar- rows' 'Oregon.'

"Reaching Cincinnati, he went to the house of Doctor Weed. Here, accord- ing to Professor Weed, he obtained a new suit of clothes, but whether he wore them all the time until he left the east or not is a question. Some writers speak of him as appearing in buckskins, or something akin to them, afterwards both at Washington and Boston. Some, as Dr. S. J. Parker, say he was not so dressed. It is just barely possible that both may be true-that he kept his buck- skins and buffalo coat and occasionally wore them. It is quite certain that he did not throw them away, as according to accounts he wore his buckskins in re- turning to Oregon the next Summer.

"The next visit on record was at Ithaca, New York, at the home of his old missionary friend and fellow traveler, Rev. Samuel Parker. Here, after the surprise of his arrival was over, he said to Mr. Parker: 'I have come on a very important errand. We must both go at once to Washington, or Oregon is lost, ceded to the English.' Mr. Parker, however, did not think the danger to be so great, and not for lack of interest in the subject, but because of other reasons, did not go, Doctor Whitman went alone, and reached Washington.

"The Doctor, or his brother, had been a classmate of the Secretary of War, James M. Porter. Through him the Doctor obtained an introduction to Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State, with whom he talked about Oregon and the saving of it to the United States, but Mr. Webster received him very coolly, and told him it was too late, as far as he was concerned, for he had considered it, decided it, and turned it over to the President, who could sign Oregon away or refuse to do so. Accordingly Doctor Whitman went to President Tyler, and for some time they talked about Oregon. Even the Cabinet were called to- gether, it is said, and an evening was spent on the subject. The objection was made that wagons could never be taken to Oregon and that consequently the country could never be peopled overland by emigrants, while the distance around Cape Horn was altogether too great to think of taking settlers to the country that way. In reply to this, Doctor Whitman told of the great value of the country and of his plans to lead an emigration through with their wagons the next Summer. He stated that he had taken a wagon into Oregon six years be- fore to Fort Boise, that others had taken one from Fort Hall to Walla Walla, and that with his present knowledge, having been over the route twice, he was sure he could take the emigrant wagons through to the Columbia. The Presi- dent then said that he would wait, before carrying the negotiations any further, until he could hear whether Doctor Whitman should succeed, and if he should,

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there would be no more thought of trading off Oregon. This satisfied the Doctor.

"He then went to New York to see Mr. Horace Greeley, who was known to be a friend of Oregon. He went there dressed in his rough clothes, much the same that he wore across the continent. When he knocked at the door a lady came, Mrs. Greeley or a daughter, who, on seeing such a rough-looking person, said to his inquiries for Mr. Greeley, 'Not at home.' Doctor Whitman started away. She went and told Mr. Greeley about him and Mr. Greeley, who was of much the same style and cared but little for appearance, looked out of the window, and seeing him going away, said to call him in. It was done, and they had a long talk about this Northwest Coast and its political relations.

"From New York Doctor Whitman went to Boston, where the officers of the American Board at first received him coldly, because he had left his sta- tion for the east without permission from them, on business so foreign to that which he had been sent to Oregon to accomplish. Afterwards, however, they treated him more cordially.

"From Boston he went to New York State and visited relatives. Then taking with him his nephew, Perrin B. Whitman, he bade them good-by and left for Missouri. While there he did all he could to induce people to join the emigration for Oregon, then went with the emigration, assisting the guide, Cap- tain Gantt, until they reached Fort Hall, and aiding the emigrants very materi- ally. Fort Hall was as far as Captain Gantt had agreed to guide them, and from there the emigrants reached the Columbia River safely with their wagons."

The incoming of the immigration of 1843 was a determining factor in the settlement of the Oregon question. There can be no question that Doctor Whit- man performed a conspicuous service in organizing and leading that immigra- tion.

It is true, however, that many influences combined to draw that company of frontiersmen to the border of civilization and to give them the common pur- pose of the great march across the wilderness. The leading motives perhaps were the desire first to acquire land in what they thought would prove a para- dise and second to carry the American flag across the continent and secure ownership of the Pacific Coast for their country.

WHITMAN'S LETTER TO SECRETARY PORTER

Doctor Whitman himself wrote several valuable letters referring to the immigration. The most important of these was one to the Secretary of War enclosing a proposed bill for a line of forts across the plains to defend immi- grations. This letter has such an important bearing on the whole story of Whit- man and his connection with the immigration and the acquisition of Oregon that part of it is incorporated here. And we would submit to the reader the diffi- culty which we feel that any candid critic would experience in examining this letter and then denying Whitman's part in "Saving Oregon to the United States." Whitman's letter was found among the files of the War Department with the following endorsement :

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"Marcus Whitman, inclosing synopsis of a bill, with his views in reference to importance of the Oregon Territory, War. 383-rec. June 22, 1844."

Portions of the letter follow :

"To the Hon. James M. Porter,

Secretary of War.

"Sir: In compliance with the request you did me the honor to make last Winter, while in Washington, I herewith transmit to you the synopsis of a bill which, if it could be adopted would, according to my experience and observa- tion, prove highly conducive to the best interest of the United States generally, to Oregon, where I have resided for more than seven years as a missionary, and to the Indian tribes that inhabit the immediate country. The Government will now, doubtless for the first time, be apprised through you, or by means of this communication, of the immense immigration of families to Oregon which has taken place this year. I have, since our interview, been instrumental in piloting across the route described in the accompanying bill, and which is the only eligible wagon road, no less than three hundred families, consisting of one thousand persons of both sexes, with their 120 wagons, 694 oxen, and 773 loose~ cattle.

"The emigrants are from different States, but principally from Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois and New York. The majority of them are farmers, lured by the prospect of bounty in lands, by the reported fertility of the soil, and by the desire to be first among those who are planting our institutions on the Pacific Coast. Among them are artisans of every trade, comprising, with farmers, the very best material for a new colony. As pioneers, these people have under- gone incredible hardships, and having now safely passed the Blue Mountain Range with their wagons and effects, have established a durable road from Mis- souri to Oregon, which will serve to mark permanently the route of large num- bers each succeeding year, while they have practically demonstrated that wagons drawn by horses or oxen can cross the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River, contrary to all the sinister assertions of all those who pretended it to be impossible.

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History of the Yakima Valley, Washington; comprising Yakima, Kittitas, and Benton Counties, Vol. I, Part 20

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920 Publication date: 1919 Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke Number of Pages: 1134

Author: Lyman, William Denison, 1852-1920
Publication date: 1919
Publisher: [Chicago] S.J. Clarke
Number of Pages: 1134