Page:History vs. the Whitman saved Oregon story.djvu/45

Rh migration had not crossed the south fork of the Platte and had not traveled one-fourth of the way to the settlements in Oregon. These letters were reprinted in the Oregon Historical Quarterly, December, 1902, with certain editorial comments, which, as far as they reflect on Wilkes' character and treatment of the Burnett account, seem to me wholly unwarranted by the facts in the case.

A careful comparison, sentence by sentence, of the Herald letters with the narrative in Wilkes covering the same part of the journey shows that every fact of the slightest importance in the Herald letters is also in the account in Wilkes, while a similar comparison of every statement of any fact of the slightest importance in the rest of the narrative in Wilkes, with contemporaneous letters, and with parts of Fremont's report covering the same facts shows the account in Wilkes to be correct on every point of the slightest consequence.

This matter is fully discussed in the chapter on "The Truth About the Discovery of Routes Practicable For and the Development of the First Transcontinental Wagon Road as Shown by the Original Documents" in my forthcoming book on "The Acquisition of the Old Oregon Territory and the Long Suppressed Evidence About Marcus Whitman" and space will not permit farther discussion of it here.

Turning now to the account in Wilkes, we find that Burnett says (p. 67, George Wilkes), "A meeting was held in the latter part of the day" (May 18, 1843) "which resulted in appointing a committee to return to Independence, and make inquiries of Dr. Whitman, missionary, who had an establishment 1 on the Walla Walla, respecting the practicabilities of the route."

Although this account in Wilkes does not say another word about Whitman, or about any information received from or services rendered by him till September 23, 1843 (when the migration was 31 miles west of Fort Boise), Dr. Mowry enlarges (p. 193) on what he imagines Whitman told this committee.

(Page 85, George Wilkes). Under date of September 23, 1843, after stating that they were obliged to make a most uncomfortable camp, with no water except in a puddle in the bed of a dry creek, Burnett continues: "Two miles further on would have taken us to a good encampment, with plenty of fine range and water, but the Indian pilot who had been employed for us by Dr. Whitman was ahead, and out of reach, with the foremost wagons,"

There is not another mention of Whitman, directly or indirectly, in the whole narrative, till (George Wilkes, p. 89) it describes their arrival at his mission station, October 8, 1843, and their purchase from him of wheat at $1 and potatoes at 40