claim against the government for $20,000 for the land, and later of $4,000 for the improvements, which in their best days had been sold to Whitman for $600. Congress, by the advice of Major G. J. Raines, then in command at Fort Dalles, and through the efforts of politicians who knew the strength of the society, allowed both claims;[1] and it would have been seemly if this liberal indemnity for a false claim had satisfied the greed of that ever-hungry body of Christian ministers. But they still laid claim to every foot of ground which by their survey of 1850 fell without the boundaries of the military reserve, taking enough on every side of it to make up half of a legal mission donation.[2]
The case came before three successive surveyor-generals and the land commissioners,[3] and was each time decided against the missionary society, until, as I have said, congress was induced to pay damages to the amount of $24,000, in the expectation, no doubt, that this would settle the claims of the missionaries forever. Instead of this, however, the methodist influence was strong enough with the secretary of the interior in 1875 to enlist him in the business of getting a deed in fee simple from the government of the land claimed by the missionaries,[4] although the prop-
- ↑ Bill passed in June 1860. See remarks upon it by Or. Statesman, April 26, 1859; Id., March 15, 1859; Ind. Aff. Rept, 1854, 284–6.
- ↑ They made another point—that Waller had left The Dalles and taken land at Salem, where he had but half a claim, which he wanted to fill up at The Dalles. Fulton's Eastern Or., MS., 7. Deady says notwithstanding that Roberts had declared the sale to Whitman cancelled in 1849, a formal deed of quitclaim was not obtained till Feb. 28, 1859; and further, that on the 3d of November, 1858, Walker and Eells, professing to act for the American board, had conveyed the premises to M. M. McCarver and Samuel L. White, subject only to the military reservation. Portland Oregonian, Dec. 4, 1879; Or. Statesman, Aug. 25 and Sept. 8, 1855.
- ↑ U. S. H. Ex. Doc., 1, vol. v. 5, 38th cong. 2s sess.; Land Off. Rept, 1864, 2; Portland Oregonian, Jan. 23, 1865.
- ↑ Portland Advocate, May 6, 1875; Vancouver Register, Aug. 6, 1875; N. Y. Methodist, in Walla Walla Statesman, May 1, 1875. Fulton says James K. Kelly told him that Delano had himself been a methodist minister, which may account for the strong interest in this case. Eastern Or., MS., 6.
would have been the mission claim if adhered to as originally occupied. This also they claimed, managing so well that to make out their section they went all around the reserve.' Eastern Or., MS., 3–5.
