Page:History vs. the Whitman saved Oregon story.djvu/112

228 have since been distressed to learn that if a bar was at that time put up it has since been let down." Three months after writing this letter he was scribe of the seventh annual meeting of the mission, May 16 to June 8, 1842, when the seventh or eighth reconciliation was had, which occupied all the time of the meeting for eight days; and less than four months later he was again scribe of that special meeting, September 26 and 27, 1842, which, after two days of indecision as to what action to take on the order of the American board, discontinuing three of the four stations, finally authorized Whitman to go to the States, not on any political errand, but, as the only document he took with him from the three men who remained associated with him in the mission distinctly declared, "to confer with the committee of the A. B. C. F. M. in regard to the interest of this mission;" and when in his letter of May 28, 1866, he first indorsed the saving Oregon tale, and wrote that Whitman called that special meeting of September 26-27, 1842, to consider a long-formed purpose to go to the States to save Oregon, and that they discussed it for two days, and that "according to the understanding of the members of the mission, the single object of Dr. Whitman in attempting to cross the continent in the winter of 1842-43 was to make a desperate effort to save this country to the United States," he stated what was absolutely and unqualifiedly untrue.

Ben: Perley Poore, soon after the article appeared in the Atlantic, in reply to my letter of inquiry, wrote that he had no personal knowledge of the matter, but had depended on Spalding's and Atkinson's statements.

As to the school histories: It is now not quite two years since I decided that the most practical and valuable piece of historical work that one of my limited ability could accomplish would be to drive this story from our schoolbooks, and to keep it from gaining admission where not already in, and, as may be seen from the following letters, that task is practically accomplished with the leading ones, as soon as they can be revised, and other authors will within the next six months no doubt follow the example. McLaughlin's, Channing's, Fiske's, Eggleston's, Ellis's and Barnes's school histories have never mentioned the tale, and Dr. Eggleston, in a courteous reply to my letter calling attention to a few little errors on