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34 Lovejoy's reply failed to substantiate the essentials of the Spalding story.

Among the other publications of 1869 which gave currency to the story may be mentioned Mrs. F. F. Victor's The River of the West, an article by her in the Overland magazine, and Dr. Rufus Anderson's Foreign Missions, their Relations and their Claims.

The first elaborate presentation in book form of the legend of Marcus Whitman will be found in Gray's History of Oregon, Portland, 1870. William H. Gray, as has been said, was originally the mechanic and helper at the Whitman mission, from which he resigned in September 1842. As a contemporary of Whitman, his testimony was naturally regarded from the first as an important corroboration of Spalding's narrative. His account, although professedly based upon his own knowledge and interviews with Whitman, was derived from Spalding, whose articles in the Pacific he quotes. Like Spalding, Gray was equally vindictive towards the Hudson's Bay Company and the Catholics, and made repeated use of the Whitman story to create public opinion against them both.

In the following year, 1871, Spalding's compilation, Early Labors of Missionaries in Oregon, which has already been