On our way to Walla Walla yesterday we passed the Whitman Mission. I learned about Marcus and Narcissa Whitman in grade school, in 4th grade, when Oregon students learn Oregon history. The location of the mission was rather obscured in my memory, so it was with surprise and delight that I suggested (strongly) that we MUST stop and check it out.The story of the Whitmans and the Spaldings is a compelling tragedy, and a turning point in US history. Marcus and Narcissa traveled with the Spaldings west, on a mission from the Presbyterian church, with the hope to bring the native Americans to the knowledge of and belief in Jesus. Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spalding were the first white women to travel to the west, to Old Oregon. The land was yet to be called The Oregon Territory. The Spaldings set up a mission 127 miles to the east, among the Nez Perce nation.
Bickering, hardship, the accidental drowning of their only daughter, 27 month old Alice Clarissa and a measles outbreak followed in the next 7 years. The Cayuse Indians, a nomadic tribe in the area, blamed Marcus (also a physician) for the deaths of half their tribe (200 out of 400) due to the measles that the pioneer travelers brought with them. His medicine was not as effective on the natives, who had no natural immunities, as it was on the settlers moving west. Marcus knew well that the 'medicine man' could be killed if he could not heal. One day two Cayuse came to see him, and while one distracted him with a question about medicine, another used a tomahawk to strike him from behind. Narcissa dragged him into the parlor, where he died, and where she was shot. In all, eleven people died in the attack, the survivors were taken captive by the Cayuse, but were ransomed within a month by Peter Skeen Ogden . It took five years for the murderers to be brought to justice (they were hiding in the Bitteroot Mountains) and hung in Oregon City.
The great distances traveled in that time amazed us. We had just driven 4 hours from Oregon City, how long would that journey have taken on horseback or boat (on the Columbia River) in 1847?
The Whitmans had adopted 7 children, ranging from 3 months old to 12 years old, five years before the massacre. The Sager children's parents died along the Oregon Trail. The two oldest Sager boys were killed in the massacre, the younger five were taken by the Cayuse, and released. A nearby middle school honors John Sager with his name. Photographs of the girls (as grown women) are on display at the interpretive center.
The Oregon Trail (one of them) is replicated here where it traveled through the Whitman Mission. This is a 1840's replica of a wagon used for the more mountainous route. It is smaller than the Conestoga Wagon. It looked barely big enough to hold supplies for the journey, much less for settling new territory. Fort Vancouver was the place where Narcissa and Eliza shopped for china and other supplies.
Whitman College, Walla Walla, Washington
We explored a bit of Walla Walla after the sobering, poignant time at the Whitman Mission.
Dave found a music store and played all of the acoustic guitars (well, most of them). The store owner told him a story about a familiar looking English man coming in recently, asking to play guitars. Eventually his curiosity overcame his politeness and he asked the Englishman 'you're not from around here, are you?'....it was Eric Idle (a Python). His daughter was/is a student at Whitman.
We ate a fresh, delicious lunch at Graze, just off the main street in town.
After lunch we drove south to Milton-Freewater, Oregon, just to see what we could see. Not a whole lot!
We are enjoying the big sky, the 360 degree vistas, the sun, the brightness, and even the brisk wind here in Kennewick, where we are staying. We are downwind from the Hanford Nuclear site, something we try to not think about. The Kennewick Man was discovered on the banks of the Columbia River in 1996, on US Army Corps land. The native tribes believe the man to be theirs and want to give him a proper burial. Others believe the man is closest in ancestry to the Ainu (of Japan), at any rate, he is believed to be 8,000 years old.
