Tag Archives: Whitman Massacre

Remembering Marcus Whitman

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For pretty much the past century, we have lived in a world where Glenn Curtiss was the most famous Steuben County person… though there were spells in there where Margaret Sanger gave him a run for his money.

*But for the PREVIOUS century, the winner hands-downs would have been Marcus Whitman.

*After practicing medicine in Wheeler from 1828 to 1835, Whitman traveled out as far as today’s Idaho as a medical missionary. Such a journey was extremely unusual… very few white Americans had been out that far west since Lewis and Clark… but Whitman would soon top that.

*Returning home he married Narcissa Prentiss of Prattsburgh, and with another local couple the two set off for Oregon, where they made homes and began missionary work, along with medical practice and business ventures.

*Whitman went to St. Louis on mission business in 1843, and when he headed back he guided the first large wagon train of settlers, establishing the Oregon Trail as a viable route. His cross-country journeys were remarkable, but he and his wife had their fame solidified when they and 12 others were killed by Cayuse Indians in 1847. (While we can regret the atrocity, we need to also remember that the Cayuse themselves had been VICTIMS of atrocities, and that the region was teeming with conflict between Indian and European, British and American, Catholic and Protestant… not to mention the Mexican War and fierce conflicts over Mormonism.)

*Besides being remembered in the name of the “Whitman Massacre,” Marcus Whitman has numerous memorials across the country.

*The Whitman Mission National Historic Site was established (under different nomenclature) in 1936.

*Whitman College in Walla Walla was established in 1859, and now has some 1500 undergrads. Alumni include “Batman” actor Adam West and Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.

*Marcus Whitman Central School District and Marcus Whitman High are in Rushville; Whitman once lived nearby.

*Wallowa-Whitman National Forest straddles the Idaho-Oregon state line. Theodore Roosevelt established it, under different nomenclature, in 1908.

*Whitman Glacier, and the Whitman Crest, are on Mount Rainier.

*A bronze tablet in Wheeler commemorates his service as a doctor.

*A plaque at Franklin Academy in Prattsburgh honors alumna Narcissa Prentiss, and also mentions Marcus. A historical marker at the Narcissa Prentiss House also mentions him.

*A plaque at DeWitt Park in Ithaca memorializes the commissioning of the Whitman-Spalding mission party.

*Whitman’s birthplace in Rushville has a New York State Historic marker.

*In Washington state, September 4 is Marcus Whitman Day.

*In 1977, Marcus Whitman was named to the Steuben County Hall of Fame.

*Each state gets to donate two statues to the National Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol, and Washington donated a statue of Marcus Whitman. (There’s a duplicate at Whitman College.) His “colleague” from Washington is Mother Joseph, a Roman Catholic nun who established schools, orphanages, hospitals, and shelters throughout the region. Given the attitudes of their own day, probably they would each be horrified, if not enraged, to be paired with a “heretic.” But the times, and the mores, both march on.

“Crossing the Rockies” to Oregon – AND to the Comic Books

I enjoy comic books, and I collect comic books. A few years ago I reported in this space about a Classics Illustrated Special Edition, To The Stars! This is because that issue has a major feature on the 200-inch telescope at Mount Palomar, including creation of the glass disc in Corning in 1935.
There’s also an issue called Crossing the Rockies, which I’d never seen, but which I figured HAD to mention Marcus and Narcissa (Prentiss) Whitman. I finally took the plunge a few weeks ago and ordered a used copy available on Amazon.
And just about the whole first chapter, nineteen pages, is dedicated to the Whitmans.
So to tell the tale as the comic tells it… [with editorial comments from me in square brackets]…
The chapter’s entitled “The Oregon Trail,” and it opens with several Oregon Indians asking for missionaries. “The greatest of these missionaries was Doctor Marcus Whitman,” and he’s introduced in the third panel.
Whitman accompanies Reverend Samuel Parker to the far west, at first sneered at by mountain men when he falls sick. Before long, though, he’s nursing them through cholera and performing surgery on Jim Bridger, compelling the scoffers and scorners to change their tune.
Sent back east to recruit more settlers, he startles the folks in his home town of Rushville (who weren’t expecting him) by stalking into church in mountain-man mode, accompanied by two Indians. [This is the only area community actually named in the story. Rushville’s Marcus Whitman High School honors this native son.]
Whitman persuades four others to join him in Oregon, including Henry and Eliza Spalding and Narcissa Prentiss, whom he marries. [Marcus lived and doctored for a while in Wheeler, where a stone marker commemorates his stay. Narcissa and Bath-born Henry were from Prattsburgh, where they knew each other from town, church, and school. In fact, Narcissa had declined a marriage proposal from Henry – no clue how it affected the close-knit party knowing that Eliza was Henry’s second choice and Henry was Narcissa’s second choice. Franklin Academy has a monument to its famed alumni, and a plaque in Ithaca commemorates their commissioning service. The Narcissa Prentiss home is now a museum in Prattsburgh.]
Against all advice they take the women into the Great Prairie and up the Rocky Mountains; indeed, the women insist upon it, and carry on gamely with the men through snowstorms and raging rivers. After a 96-day trip they reach Walla Walla on September 1, 1836, hailed as the first white women to cross the continent. [Well, maybe. Seems to me it depends on how you slice it. Certainly Spanish-American and Mexican-American women had crossed in the Texas-New Mexico-Arizona-California region.]
Whitman returns to the east on business. When hard times combine with reports of a wonderful setting in Oregon, nearly a thousand emigrants itch to leave Missouri in 1843, and they hire the returning Marcus Whitman as their guide. No other wagon train has ever made the trip, but he wins them through, and within two years 4000 more have joined them.
This of course puts extreme pressure on the local Indians, who start to push back. Two panels straightforwardly tell how Cayuse Indians killed Marcus, Narcissa, and a dozen more on November 19, 1847. [All of which is factual. The story sticks to the facts, doesn’t make it too bloody, and does not portray the attacking Cayuse as savages.] Following this two Oregon men cross the continent to Washington and demand that the government provide for protection and organization in the territory, which soon comes to pass.
While the 1958 comic never questions the white “westward expansion,” it also does not demean the Indians. They all speak in full grammatical sentences, and they are not portrayed as bloodthirsty or unreasonable.
The Whitmans and the Spaldings were remarkable people – Marcus crossed the five times, under grave dangers and mostly on foot or horseback, in a day when most people never went twenty miles from their homes. He was a missionary, a doctor, a pioneer, and a developer… mixing up those roles may have contributed to his death. One thing he never dreamed of being was a comic book hero.