and its arrival was reported by Whitman without comment or concern.[1]
In an ordinary case the irreconcilable divergences between the unimpeachable contemporary testimony and the narratives of Spalding and Gray would be enough to prove their utter untrustworthiness as witnesses. In this case, however, there is so much disposition to save every feature of the Spalding story that is not specifically disproved that It seems to be necessary by additional examples to show the absolute unreliability of these sponsors of the legend. The most conclusive proof of Spalding's untrustworthiness if not dishonesty in matters relating to this missionary history can be found in his Executive Document 37, where he constantly garbles and interpolates his quotations. An example may be given by means of parallel columns. While Dr. Whitman was absent from his mission on his journey east in 1842–1843 his mill was burned by the Indians. Elijah White, the United States sub-Indian Agent, made a special investigation of the circumstances and reported them in his letter of April 1, 1843, to Commissioner Crawford at Washington.
- ↑ Letter to the Secretary of the Am. Board, Nov. 1841, in Trans. of the Oregon Pioneer Assoc. 1891, 158.
À la fin de 1841, il en est arrivé trente de la colonie de la Rivière Rouge; près de la moitié s'est établi au Ouallamet." Du Flot de Mofras, Explorations du Territoire de l'Orégon, etc., pendant les Années 184O, 1841, et 1842, Paris, 1844, II, 209. Cf. Bancroft's Oregon, I, 252; also Myron Eells, History of Indian Missions on the Pacific Coast, Philadelphia, 1882, 166, and his pamphlet Marcus Whitman, M. D., in which Spalding's own diary is quoted under date of Sept. 10, 1841. "Arrived at Colville. Mr. McDonald's brother is here from a party of twenty-three families from the Red River, crossing the mountains to settle on the Cowlitz, as half servants of the company," p. 18. It is not improbable that the missionaries in 1841–2 may have talked over the bearing of this immigration upon the future of Oregon, and that Spalding's dramatic scene at Fort Walla Walla may have been suggested to his imagination by the hazy recollection of some such discussion. The mistake in the date of the immigration was not discovered until the Whitman controversy arose. This may be accounted for by the fact that a similar mistake was made by Gustavus Hines in his Oregon: Its History, Condition, and Prospects, etc., Buffalo, 1851, 387. This book was written while Hines was in the east (cf. Bancroft, Oregon, I, 225, note) and the mistake was a not unnatural slip of the memory. Gray, who used Hines as a source, gives an account of this colony on pp. 212-213, under the date 1842.
