Page:History vs. the Whitman saved Oregon story.djvu/22

16 of the various members of the mission, (and especially of the Whitmans and Spalding, and himself,) to the attention of the American Board, and prior to her husband's return in September, 1843.

Of this there will be found about 42,000 words in the Trans. Ore. Pioneer Associaticm, 1891 and 1893, and to fairly present the relation of the Hudson's Bay Company to the Spalding-Whitman mission at least 20,000 more words of earlier and later dates should be carefully studied and summarized to the extent of fully 1,000 words, while fully 1,000 words more should be quoted from these 20,000. Of the 42,000 above mentioned fully 2,000 should be quoted.

Of these 42,000 words, Dr. Mowry only quotes the following 42 words (p. 122) in a letter to her husband, dated Oct. 22, 1842: "Indeed, much as I shall and do want to see you, I prefer that you stay just as long as it is necessary to accomplish all your heart's desire respecting the interest of this country, so dear to us both, our home."

This brief extract Dr. Mowry declares "Showed what she understood to be the object of his journey."

But how this shows "What his heart's desire was," he fails to explain. He nowhere informs his readers where they can find this letter (which is in Trans. Ore. Pioneer Assn., 1891, p. 167).

Between September 29, 1842, and May 18, 1843, Mrs. Whitman wrote five letters, as follows, to her relatives and her husband, in the first two of which she explicitly stated that his journey was on missionary business, and in the other three stated what amounted to the same thing.

Sept. 29, 1842 (the next day after her husband first proposed the journey), she wrote as follows to her brother, at Quincy, Ill.:

"My beloved husband has about concluded to start next Monday to go to the United States. ... If you are still in Quincy you may not see him until his return, as his business requires great haste. He wishes to reach Boston as early as possible so as to make arrangements to return next summer if prospered. The interests of the missionary cause in this country calls him home." Sept. 30, 1842, she wrote to "My Beloved Parents, Brothers and Sisters: You will be surprised if this letter reaches you to learn that the bearer is my dear husband, and that you will after a few days have the pleasure of seeing him. May you have a joyful meeting. He goes upon important business as connected with the missionary cause, the cause of Christ in this land, which I will leave for him to explain when you see him, because I have not time to enlarge. He has but yesterday fully made up his mind to go, and he wishes to start Monday, and this is Friday.