was a man in the prime of life, of impulsive temper,
brave, headstrong, but conscientious. An immigrant of
1844, he was deeply imbued with the "fifty-four-forty or
fight" political ideas of the Polk presidential campaign,
and still cherished radical sentiments in regard to the
rights of the English occupants of the country. 6 He was,
in short, of that order of men who fought and prayed
with an equal degree of earnestness, the Oliver Crom wells
of the frontier states, and was quite capable of believing
the English fur company guilty of cherishing heinous
designs towards the American colony.
Just when public feeling was most sensitive, there had come to Oregon City the captives, with their wild conjec tures as to the cause of their fearful wrongs. Naturally, having a high respect and regard for Dr. Whitman and his calling as a missionary teacher, and feeling the deepest sorrow for his fate and that of Mrs. Whitman, they re called as "confirmation strong as proof of holy writ," every chance expression of sectarian aversion to, or sus picion of the Catholics which had been let fall in their hearing, and with Mr. Spalding s assistance, who had quickly forgotten his obligations to Rev. Brouillet, and the suggestions of other even more intolerant sectarians in the Wallamet, had convinced, themselves that religious bigotry had led the Catholics to instigate the crime of the massacre.
One of the strongest proofs in their view, was that none of the Catholics about the mission, or in the Cayuse coun try, were included in the slaughter; entirely ignoring the
6 Cornelius Gilliam was forty-nine years of age, and by birth a North Carolinian, though he had removed to Missouri while still a child. In 1830 he was commissioned sheriff of Clay county in that state. He served in the Black Hawk Indian war, begun in 1832, and in the Seminole war in Florida in 1835. In the campaign of 18S7-8, under General Taylor, he served as captain of a company, and was captain in the state militia used to expel the Mormons from Missouri, being raised to a colonelcy for meritorious conduct. Soon after he was elected to the legislature from 1 Andrew county. In 1844 he led a large company of immigrants to Oregon. Having been ordained to the work of the ministry in the Freewill Baptist denomination, on set tling in Polk county, he organized a church in the Gage settlement on the North Luckiamute, and officiated as it
