WHITMAN. Marcus, American mission ark and pioneer: h. Rushville, N. Y., 4 Sept. ISM; d near Walla Walla, Ore., 29 Nov. 18C After studying medicine at the Berk shire Medical Institution, Pittsfield, Mass., he practised in Canada for four years. He offered his services as a missionary (1834) to the American Board of Commissioners for Fo Missions, and in 1835 went with Samuel P tr explore the region of the Oregon, bu • not go beyond Green River. In 1836, married. with his wife and three fello.. nonaries he set out to work among the of the upper Columbia. The party scut plains by wagon, being the first .1.
reach the Pacific Coast by this 1 May they reached the Columbia 's d located themselves near the site o NValla Walla, Wash. They were s foll by a large number of emigrants h6 sct ed in '11 hat was then known as Or , adald forms the States of Oregon, ' ineb Idaho. At this time the Hud T'Uo was using es ery possinie means ro secure rpm territory to the English. Wile this' evident to Whitman he d tQ 4f1& every precaution to forestall it. r ton Treaty was then before Congress, and was expected to settle the Oregon question. In 1812-43 %Vhitman traveled over 3,000 miles to the East on horseback, enduring all the hard ships of a Western winter in the mountains, and according to the statement of H. H. Spald ing, one on hi, mpanions, he reached Washington (3 NI.licl. 1843) only to find that the treaty had been sl.;ned, hut that the Oregon question had not included. Whitman, a I version represents, at once went to work to show the government the salve of the land it had deemed worthless, demonstrated to the people the fertility of the soil of Oregon, and the fact that it could he reached by wagon, and then returned at the head of a large body of emigrants. By his
daring ride and earnest endeavors Whitman, m this view of the matter, won this great sec tion for the United States and the results of his work were secured by the treaty of 1846. This claim. however, has been the subject of much controversy, and to the satisfaction of some students has been disproved. Whatever its merits, there is no doubt that Whitman's ride (he reached Boston 30 March 1843) re salted in the reversal of the missionary board's purpose to discontinue the southern branch of the mission in which he was engaged; and his work and that of his companions has a historical relation to the American settlement of the Oregon country. Whitman, his wife, and 12 of their companions were massacred by the Cayuse Indians. Consult Nixon, 'Life of Marcus Whitman' (1895); Mowry, 'Marcus %%human' (1901); and Bourne, 'Essays in His torical Criticism' (1901), in which the •hit man claims are examined and discredited; and Marshall, W. J.. 'The Acquisition of Oregon arid the Long Suppressed Evidence about Mar as) Whitman' (Seattle 1911). See OREGON ; OREGON QUESTION, Tit E.