made by a colony of Methodists. One of the principal men among them was the late Mr. or Governor Abernethy, as he was called, as he was for a short time the prominent Governor of Oregon. He was the father-in-law of our genial Deputy Quartermaster-general Henry C. Hodges, an excclient man, and he must not be remembered as one of those who was responsible for the shocking proceedings which we are about to relate. A minister by the name of Whitman, we believe, had gone up to the Walla Walla region, where he was kindly received by the Cayuse and other friendly Indians, who, while they did not particularly desire to be converted to the Christian faith as expounded by one of Wesley’s followers, saw no special objection to the presence of the missionary. So they lived quietly along for a year or two; then the measles broke out among the Indians, and a large number of them were carried off. They were told by their medicine men that the disease was owing to the presence of the whites, and Mr. Whitman was notified that he must leave their country. Filled with zeal for the cause, and not having sense enough to grasp the situation, he refused to go.
“At this time the people of the Hudson's Bay Company had great influence with all the Indians in that region, and the good old Governor Peter Skeen Ogden was the chief factor of the Company at Fort Vancouver. He was apprised of the state of feeling among the Indians near the mission by the Indians themselves, and he was entreated by them to urge Whitman to go away, for if he did not he would surely be killed. The governor wrote up to the mission advising them to leave, for a while at least, until the Indians should become quiet, which they would do as soon as the measles had run its course among them. His efforts were useless, and sure enough one day in 1847, we believe, the mission was cleaned out, the missionary and nearly all of those connected with it being killed.
“An Indian war follows. This was carried on for some months, and with little damage, but sufficient for a claim by the territory upon the General Government for untold amounts of money. Two or three years later, when the country had commenced to fill up with emigration, and after the regiment of Mounted Riflemen and two companies of the First Artillery had taken post in Oregon, the people began to think that it would be well to stir up the matter of the murder of the Whitman family. General Joseph Lane had been sent out as governor in 1849, and he doubtless thought it would be a good thing for him politically to humor
