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* WHITMAN". 490 WHITMAN. wooden boxes, etc. There is a j)nblic library with 10.000 volumes. The government is administered by town meetings. The water-works are owned and operated by the town. Whitman, originally a part of Abington, was separately incorporated as South Abington in 1875. Its present name was adopted in 1S8G. Population, in 1890, 4441: in 1900, 6155. WHITMAN, Charles Otis (1842—). An American zoiilogist, born in Woodstock, Maine, and educated at Bowdoin College (1808) and at Leipzig (1878). In 1880-81 he was professor of zoology at the Imperial University, Tokio, Japan. In 1882 he studied at the Naples Zoological Sta- tion. He was assistant in zoology at Harvai'd University from 1883 to 1885; director of the Allis Lake Laboratory at Milwaukee from 1886 to 1889: professor of zoology at Clark University from 1889 to 1892 ; and subsequentlj' head pro- fessor of zoology in the University of Chicago. In 1887, in connection with Edward Allis, he founded and afterwards edited the Journal of Morphology. In 1888 he became the director of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, ilass. His main work has been in the embry- ology, and he has published memoirs on the de- velopment and anatomy of certain leeches, worms, fishes, etc. He did much to advance methods of microscopical technique, including Methods of Research in Microscopical Anatomy and Em- bryology (1885). Among his more general re- searches are those entitled: The Kinetic Phe- nomena of the Egg During Maturation and Fe- cundation (Ookinesis) (1887) ; The Heat of For- mative and Regenerative Energy (1888); Sper- matophores as a Means of Hgpoderinic Impreg- nation (1891); The Inadequacy of the Cell Theory of Development (1893); Evolution and Epigcnesis (1894); Animal Behavior (1898). WHITMAN, M.-VRcr-s (1802-47). An Ameri- can pioneer and missionary, born at Rushville, X. Y. He studied medicine at the Berkshire Medical Institution at Pittsfield, Mass., and practiced for four years in Canada. In 1834 he offered himself for missionary work to the Ameri- can Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- sions. In 1835, with Samuel Parker, he was sent to explore the Oregon country, hut turned back at Green River. In 1836 he married, and with three other missionaries, H. H. Spalding and his wife, and W. II. (!ray. started westward. The party took the first wagon across the Kocky ilountains, reached the ('"lumbia River on May 21st, and located near the site of the present Walla Walla, Wash. Other missionaries came out and four stations were organized. Friction ensued, and numerous quarrels were reported to the board, which voted in 1842 to discontinue the southern branch of the work. Whitman immediately started East, through the dead of winter, and after suffering much inconvenience reached Bos- ton, Marcli 30, 1843. and secured a reversal of the board's resolution. On November 29, 1847, the Cayuse Indians attacked the station, nuir- dcred Whitman, his wife, and twelve other per- sons, and took the other residents prisoners. The prisoners were afterwards released by th(! influ- ence of the chief factor of the Hudson's Bay (om- pany. The massacre has been attributed to the instigation of the Hudson's Bny Company or of the Catholic missionaries; but the probable explanation is the prevalence of epidemic diseases, unknown before the coming of the whites, which the Indians attributed to poison. In 1804-65 the statement was made by H. H. Spalding that Whitman's visit to the East in 1842-43 was made for political reasons, and that by a visit to Washington and interviews with President Tyler. Secretary Webster, and others, he prevented the cession to England of the American claim to Oregon (q.v. ), and in fact prevented Oregon from being traded for a cod- fishery on Newfoundland. This belief has gained wide circulation, but Professor E. G. Bourne, in Essays in Historical Criticistn (New York, 1901), presented an elaborate documentary study which seems to disprove the claim. For the other side consult: Mowry, Marcus Whitman (New York, 1901); and Ni.xon, Life of Marcus ^y hit man (Chicago, 1895). WHITMAN, S.RAii Helen Power (1803- 78). An Aimrican poet, born in Providence, R. I. Her Hours of Life, and Other Poems ajipeared in 1853, and a posthumous volume of verse in 1879. She became best know'n. however, for her association with Poe. with whom, about 1848, she entered into a conditional engagement of marriage. In 1860 she published a work in his defense, entitled Edgar Allan Poe and Bis Critics. In 1828 she married -lohn W. Whitman, who died in 1838. WHITMAN, Walt (originally Walter) (1819-112 1. An American poet, l)orn at West- hills, L. I., and educated in tlu; public schools of Brooklyn and New York. He learned his father's trade, carpentry, and also printing, forming in the composition room associations with printers and journalists that continued through life. At the age of seventeen he was teaching in Long Isl- and and writing occasionally for newspapers and ma.L'azincs. Two years later (1839) lie was editor and publisher of a weekly at Hunting- ton, L. I. This enter]irise failing, he spent some years in various printing offices, contributing to periodicals, making long pedestrian tours, gen- erally following the lines of the great Western rivers, and extending his journe.ys to Canada. That he wrote fiction we know onl.v by the preservation of a title, Frank Evans, a temper- ance tale. For a year he edited the Brooklyn Eagle. This varied life f)roiight him in contact with all sorts and conditions of men, and he seems to have fraternized gladl.v with what he calls 'jiowerfiil uneducated persons' of every kind, being by instinct a democrat, ;ind entering hearti- ly into the life and feelings of the people. It is said that he drove an (imnilms for a time, though more from eharit.v than liking, and he achieved some local success as a political stump speaker. In 1850. returning from wanderings that had carried him to New Orleans, he started in Urooklyn The Freeman, a very short-lived organ of the Free-Soil Party. Then for three years he fried cai'iientrv. huililing and idling working- men's houses, and grailually accumulated the ma- terials flint made up the first collection of l.eavcs of Grass (1855). This was a modest little book of 94 pages, and. so far as it attracted attention, seems to have provoked mirth, until Emerson made it the occasion of glowing praise and chal- lenged for it the attention of the thoughtful pub- lic, which it has since held increasingly through-