Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/414

404 page 82, he says: "The region we passed through from the thirtieth of July up to the twenty-ninth of August, comprised all the passes through to Rocky Mountains, and was by far the most arduous and difficult portion of the whole journey." Between these dates the emigration proceeded from the headwaters of the Sweetwater to Fort Hall; but Burnett, in his "Recollections," as explicitly affirms that the most difficult and arduous portion of the journey was not encountered until the emigration had passed Fort Hall. The editor thought it worth while to go into the question of the relation of these important sources, that are now being made generally accessible, to one that should be condemned. His conclusions have important applications to the Whitman controversy.

The conclusions are (A) that the more important contemporary sources, so far as known, of data on the migration of 1843 and of Doctor Whitman's services to it are (a) Burnett's Journal (unpublished) in the possession of his descendants; (b) the Burnett Herald letters given below; (c) the letter of Tallmadge B. Wood, printed for the first time in this number of the ; (d) a letter by M. M. McCarver, dated November 6, 1843, to Hon. A. C. Dodge, delegate to Congress from Iowa, printed in the Burlington Gazette and reprinted in the Ohio Statesman. This letter will be reproduced in the next number of the. (e) Excerpt from New Orleans Picayune, November 21, 1843, reprinted in, vol. I, pages 398–401. (B) The account given in Part II of Wilkes' History of Oregon, purporting to be a faithful rendering of a contemporary journal is a more or less garbled version of the Burnett manuscript sent from Linnton to James G. Bennett which fell into the hands of Wilkes.

[The editor is indebted to Professor Joseph Schafer for the data of this criticism.]