Page:History vs. the Whitman saved Oregon story.djvu/62

56 16-page letter to which Cushing Eells had appended a note, stating that the subjects of the letter had been frequently discussed between Mr. Walker and himself, and its general plan mutually agreed upon, and that having heard all of it read once and parts of it more than once, "I have observed nothing of importance to which I cannot give a full assent." The endorsement by each of the other's letter made these in reality joint letters. Each was begun Oct. 3, 1842, and Walker's Journal—(perfectly well known to M. Eells for at least 18 years past)—states that his letter was not finished till October 8th, and Mrs. Whitman's letter, dated Oct. 17, 1842, (published in Trans. Or. Pi. Asscn., 1891, p. 167) explicitly declares that the letters from Messrs. Eells and Walker had only arrived that day, when Dr. Whitman had been gone two weeks. Rev. E. Walker's letter to D. Greene, Secretary, dated Feb. 28, 1843, complains bitterly that though they had sent their letters at the time agreed upon. Dr. Whitman had left before they arrived at Wailatpu, and so had gone without the letters from them which he had agreed to wait for; and Walker's Journal, under date of Nov. 1, 1842, reads. . . "We were writing when the Indians came up with letters. We learnt that Dr. W. left on the third of October for the States, without any letters from us." Yet in face of this contemporaneous evidence, all perfectly well known to him-, Rev. M. Eells, in the Oregonian, of Jan. 11, 1885, declared that Rev. C. Eells told him that "Their courier reached Walla Walla" seasonably, "before the 3d," while in this "Reply," p. 68, he says, "He (i, e., Whitman) "left his station October 3d, when the fifth was the day he told Messrs. Walker and Eells that he would go. Letters were to be prepared and forwarded accordingly. They reached his station Oct. 5th, but he was gone. One of these letters is now in the possession of the writer. It is a long, strong plea for the continuance of the Southern stations of the Mission. Why did he leave that letter (written by the Moderator of the meeting and endorsed by its clerk), which would have been of great help to him, if his main object had been to secure the rescinding of the above mentioned order?" But not one word of this 16-page letter of E. Walker, endorsed by C. Eells, and dated October 3, but not finished till Oct. 8, 1842, does M. Eells in his search for "truth wherever found" quote for the benefit of his readers, nor does he give its date, which would be enough of itself to disprove his assertion in 1885 that it arrived at Wailatpu (165 miles from Eells' and Walker's station), on October 3, as well as his assertion in the above quoted paragraph that it reached Whitman*s station on October 5th. It is also certain from Walker's letter of Fob. 28, 1843, and from his Journal of Nov. 1, 1842, and from Mrs. Whitman's letter of Oct. 17, 1842, that instead of October 5th being the