Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/377

Rh pioneer party. On February 1, 1843, the Linn bill passed the senate. All the missionaries were sending back letters giving glowing accounts of the attractions of Oregon. The famous winter ride of Doctor Whitman from Oregon to Missouri was made in the winter of 1842-3. He did go to Washington and he urged the importance of American interests in Oregon upon President Tyler and some of the members of his cabinet. Returning west in the spring of 1843, he was at the Shawnee mission school, near Westport, Missouri, while the great migration of 1843 was forming and filing by. The sight reassured him that Oregon was to be occupied by American citizens. His thought seemed no longer mainly concerned with the pioneers getting to Oregon. There would be no trouble about that. His plans reached forward to include the conditions of a stable and progressive civilization there. His letters at this time, after mentioning the number of emigrants, turn to matters that would determine their condition as proposed settlers. He says: "A great many cattle are going, but no sheep, from a mistake of what I said in passing." And again: "Sheep and cattle, but especially sheep, are indispensable for Oregon. * * * I mean to impress the Secretary of War that sheep are more to Oregon's interests than soldiers." Doctor Whitman's influence had probably not been decisive with many of the pioneers, possibly not with any, in getting them started, but all the leaders of that great immigration testify that his services as pilot and counsellor were most valuable in getting them through.

The facts so far marshalled on the origin of the pioneer movement to Oregon disclose the existence of a people in the Mississippi Valley competent for the undertaking, and on general principles not disinclined towards it, whose thought, moreover, had been arrested by some