How Marcus Whitman saved Oregon/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII.
WHITMAN SEMINARY AND COLLEGE.
Many institutions of learning have been erected and endowed by the generosity of the rich, but Whitman Seminary and College had its foundation laid in faith and prayer. Viewed from a worldly standpoint, backed only by a poor missionary, whose possessions could be packed upon the back of a mule, the outlook did not seem promising. During all the years of his missionary service in Oregon, none knew better the value of the patriotic Christian service of Dr. and Mrs. Whitman, than did the Rev. Dr. Cushing Eells and his good wife. After the massacre, Dr. Eells, and all his co-workers were moved under military escort to the Willamette, but he writes:
"My eyes were constantly turned east of the Cascade Range, a region I have given the best years of my life to."
It was not until 1859 when the country was declared open, that he visited Walla Walla, and 251 stood at the "Great grave of Dr. Whitman and his wife." Standing there upon the consecrated spot, he says:
"I believe that the power of the Highest came upon me." And there he solemnly vowed that he would do something to honor the Christian martyrs whose remains rested in that grave. He says: "I felt as though if Dr. Whitman were alive, he would prefer a high school for the benefit of both sexes, rather than a monument of marble."
He pondered the subject and upon reaching home, sought the advice of the Congregational Association. The subject was carefully canvassed by those who well knew all the sad history, and the following note was entered upon the record:
"In the judgment of this association, the contemplated purpose of Brother C. Eells to remove to Waiilatpui, to establish a Christian school at that place, to be called the Whitman Seminary, in memory of the noble deeds and great works and the fulfillment of the benevolent plans of the late lamented Dr. Whitman and his wife: And his further purpose to act as home missionary in the Walla Walla Valley, meets our cordial approbation and shall receive our earnest support."
Dr. Eells at once resigned from the Tualitin Academy, where he was then teaching, and in 1859 and '60 obtained the charter for the Whitman Seminary. Dr. Eells had hoped to be employed by 252 the Home Missionary Society, but that organization declined, as its object was not to build seminaries and colleges, but to establish churches. He bought from the American Board for $1,000 the farm of 640 acres where Dr. Whitman had toiled for eleven years.
It was Dr. Eells' idea to build a seminary directly upon this consecrated ground, and gather a quiet settlement about the school. But he soon found that it would be better to locate the seminary in the village, at that time made up of five resident families and about one hundred men. It, however, was in sight of the "Great grave."
Here the Eells family settled down upon the farm for hard work to raise the funds necessary to erect the buildings necessary for the seminary. He preached without compensation up and down the valley upon the Sabbath, and like Paul, worked with his hands during the week. His first Summer's work on the farm brought in $700; enough nearly to pay three-fourths of its cost; thus year after year Dr. Eells and his faithful wife labored on and on. He plowed and reaped, and cut cord wood, while she made butter, and raised chickens and saved every dollar for the one grand purpose of doing honor to their noble friends in the "Great grave" always in sight.
Rarely in this world has there been a more beautiful demonstration of loyalty and friendship, 253 than of Dr. and Mrs. Eells. They lived and labored on the farm for ten years, and endured all the privations and isolations common to such a life. An article in the "Congregationalist" says:
"Mother Eells' churn with which she made four hundred pounds of butter for sale, ought to be kept for an honored place in the cabinet of Whitman College."
It was by such sacrifices that the first $4,000 were raised to begin the buildings. Five years had passed after the charter was granted, before the seminary was located, and then only on paper. And this was seven years before the completion of the first school building; the dedication of which occurred on October 13, 1866.
The first principal was the Rev. P. B. Chamberlain, who also organized and was first pastor of the Congregational Church at Walla Walla. In 1880, under the new impulse given to the work by the Rev. Dr. G. H. Atkinson, of Portland, Whitman Seminary developed into Whitman College. This was finally accomplished in 1883. During that year, College Hall was erected at a cost of $16,000. During 1883 and 1884, in the same spirit he had at all times exhibited, Dr. Eells felt it his duty to visit New England in the interest of the institution. He says:
"It was the hardest year's work I ever did, to raise that sixteen thousand dollars." 254
The old pioneer would much rather have cut cord wood or plowed his fields, if that would have brought in the money for his loved college. The Christian who reads Dr. Eells' diary during the closing years of his life, will easily see how devoted he was to the work of honoring the memory of the occupants of the "Great grave." His diary of May 24, 1890, says:
"The needs of Whitman College cause serious thought. My convictions have been that my efforts in its behalf were in obedience to Divine Will."
June 11, 1890. "During intervals of the night I was exercised in prayer for Whitman College. I am persuaded that my prayers are prevailing. In agony I pray for Whitman College."
October 2d. "Dreamed of Whitman College and awoke with a prayer."
His last entry in his diary was: "I could die for Whitman College."
The grand old man went to his great reward in February, 1893. Will the Christian people of the land allow such a prayer to go unanswered?
In 1884 Mrs. N. F. Cobleigh did some very effective work in canvassing sections of New England in behalf of the college, succeeding in raising $8,000.
Dr. Anderson, after his efficient labors of nine years, with many discouragements, resigned the 255 Presidency in 1891, and the Rev. James F. Eaton, another scholarly earnest man, assumed its duties. In the meantime the struggling village of Walla Walla had grown into the "Garden City," and the demands upon such an institution had increased a hundred fold in the rapid development of the country in every direction. The people began to see the wisdom of the founder, and cast about for means to make the college more efficient. The Union Journal of Walla Walla, said:
"It is our pride. It is the cap sheaf of the educational institutions of Walla Walla, and should be the pride and boast of every good Walla Wallan. It has a corps of exceptionally good instructors, under the guidance of a man possessing breadth of intellect, liberal education and an enthusiastic desire to be successful in his chosen field of labor, with students who rank in natural ability with the best product of any land. But it is deficient in facilities. It lacks room in which to grow. It lacks library and apparatus, the tools of education."
President Eaton and the faculty saw this need and the necessity of a great effort. It was under this pressure, and the united desire of the friends of the college that the Rev. Stephen B. L. Penrose, of the "Yale band" assumed the duties of President in 1894, and began his plans to raise an endowment fund and place the college upon a sound 256 financial basis, as well as to increase its educational facilities and requirements.
It was the misfortune of these educators to enter the field for money at a time of great financial embarrassment, such as has not been experienced in many decades; but it was at the same time their good fortune to enlist the aid of Dr. D. K. Pearsons of Chicago in the grand work with a generous gift of $50,000, provided that others could be induced to add $150,000 to it.
With such a start and with such a man as Dr. Pearsons, there will be no such word as fail. He is a man of faith like Dr. Eells and has long been administering upon his own estate in wise and generous gifts to deserving institutions. With such a man to encourage other liberal givers, the endowment will not stop at $200,000. If Whitman College is to be the Yale and Harvard and Chicago University of the Far West, it must meet with a generous response from liberal givers. Its name alone ought to be worth a million in money. When the people are educated in Whitman history, the money will come and the prayers of Dr. Eells will be answered.
The millions of people love fair play and honest dealing and can appreciate solid work, and they will learn to love the memory of the modest hero, and will be glad to do him honor in so practical a method. It will soon be half a century since 257 Dr. Whitman and his noble wife fell at their post of duty at Waiilatpui. Had Dr. Whitman been a millionaire, a man of noble birth, had he been a military man or a statesman, his praise would have been sung upon historic pages as the praise of others has. But he was only a poor missionary doctor, who lost his life in the vain effort to civilize and Christianize savages, and an army of modern historians seem to have thought, as we have shown in another chapter, that the world would sit quietly by and see and applaud while they robbed him of his richly won honors. In that they have over-reached themselves. The name of Dr. Marcus Whitman will be honored and revered long after the names of his traducers have been obliterated and forgotten.
It is a name with a history, which will grow in honor and importance as the great States he saved to the Union will grow into the grandeur they naturally assume. There is not a clearer page of history in all the books than that Dr. Whitman, under the leading of Providence, saved the States of Oregon, Washington and Idaho to the Union. There is a possibility that by a long and destructive war we might have held them as against the claims of England. There were just two men who prevented that war and those two men were Drs. Whitman and McLoughlin. The latter indirectly by his humane and civilized 258 treatment of the missionaries when he might have crushed them, and the former by his unparalleled heroism in his mid-winter ride to Washington, and his wisdom in piloting the immigrations to Oregon just the year that he did.
History correctly written, will truthfully say, "When Whitman fell at Waiilatpui, one of the grandest heroes of this century went to his great reward." The State of Washington has done well to name a great county to perpetuate his memory; Dr. Eells did a noble act in founding Whitman Seminary, and the time is coming and is near at hand, when the young men and women of the country will prize a diploma inscribed with the magic name of Whitman. Endow the college and endow it generously. Make it worthy of the man whose love of country felt that no task was too difficult and no danger so great as to make him hesitate.
After the endowment is full and complete, a great College Hall should be erected from a patriotic fund, and upon the central pillar should be inscribed: "Sacred to the memory of Dr. Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. While lifting up the banner of the cross in one hand to redeem and save savage souls, they thought it no wrong to carry the flag of the country they loved in the other."
There is no such thing as dividing the honors. 259 They are simply Whitman honors; they lived and labored and achieved together; the bride upon the plains and in the mission home was a heroine scarcely second to the hero who swam icy rivers and climbed the snow-covered mountains in 1842 and 1843, upon his patriotic mission. It is a work that may well engage the patriotic women of America; for true womanhood has never had a more beautiful setting than in the life of Narcissa Whitman. At the death, by drowning, of her only child, that she almost idolized, she bowed humbly and said: "Thy Will be done!" And upon the day of her death, she was mother to eleven helpless adopted children, for whose safety she prayed in her expiring moments.
What an unselfish life she led. In her diary she says, but in no complaining mood: "Situated as we are, our house is the Missionaries' tavern, and we must accommodate more or less all the time. We have no less than seven families in our two houses; we are in peculiar and somewhat trying circumstances; we cannot sell to them because we are missionaries and not traders."
And we see by the record that there were no less than seventy souls in the Whitman family the day of the massacre.
Emerson says: "Heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of individual character, and the 260 characteristics of genuine heroism is its persistency."
Where was it ever more strongly marked than in Dr. Whitman? We are told that "History repeats itself." Going back upon the historic pages, one can find the best illustration of Dr. Whitman in faithful old Caleb. Their lives seem to run along similar lines. Both were sent to spy out the land. Both returned and made true and faithful reports. Both were selected for their great physical fitness, and for their fine mental and moral worth; and both proved among the finest specimens of unselfish manhood ever recorded. Turning to the Sacred Record we read that a great honor was ordered for Caleb; not only that he was permitted to enter the promised land, but it was also understood by all, that he should have the choice of all the fair country they were to occupy. His associates sent with him forty years before were terribly afraid of "the giants," and now they had reached "The land of promise," and Joshua had assembled the leaders of Israel to assign them their places. Just notice old Caleb. Standing in view of the meadows and fields and orchards, loaded with their rich clusters of purple grapes, everybody expected he would select the best, for they knew that it was both promised and he deserved it; but Caleb, lifting up his voice so that all could hear, said: 261
"Lo, I am this day four score and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me; as my strength was then, even so is my strength now for war, both to go out and to come in. Now, therefore, give me this mountain whereof the Lord spoke in that day; for thou heardest in that day how the Anakims were there, and that the cities were great and fenced. If so be, the Lord will be with me, then I shall be able to drive them out as the Lord said."
Noble, unselfish old Caleb! And how wonderfully like him was our hero thirty-four and a half centuries later. It mattered not that he had saved a great country, twice as large as New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois combined, or thirty-two times as large as Massachusetts. It mattered not that it was accomplished through great peril and trials and sufferings that no man can over-estimate, he never once asked a reward. "Give me this mountain," and he went back to his mission, and resumed his heavy burden, and let others gather the harvest, and "the clusters of purple grapes." There he was found at his post of duty, and met death on that fatal November the 29th, 1847.
When a generous people have made the endowment complete, and built the grand Memorial Hall, they should build a monument at the "Great Grave" at Waiilatpui. Americans are patriotic. They build monuments to their men of science, to 262 their statesmen and to their soldiers. It is right to do so. They are grand object lessons, educating the young in patriotism and virtue and right living. The monument at no grave in all the land will more surely teach all these, than will that at the neglected grave at Waiilatpui. Build the monument and tell your children's children to go and stand uncovered in its shadow, and receive its lessons and breathe in its inspirations of patriotism.