Whitman.[1] Drury notes that Mrs. Victor appeared to be the first to contradict the Whitman Saved Oregon story publicly, but does not develop fully her part and influence in the controversy.
In her first historical writing for the Overland Monthly and in The River of the West Mrs. Victor had accepted much of the Whitman legend, though she did express doubt that he exercised any real influence in Washington, D. C. And she never did accept the idea that he was the moving force in the emigration of 1843. Later she repudiated the entire story and stated that she had been misled by following W. H . Gray's account of Whitman's acts and motives in the Astoria Marine Gazette.[2] When Professor Edward Gaylord Bourne of Yale entered the controversy he wrote of her reversal of opinion that "it is but justice to say that Mrs. Victor enjoys the lonely distinction of being the only writer, as far as I know, who, having once published the legend, upon a more careful study of the evidence has had the open mindedness to see and declare its legendary character."[3] Mrs. Victor first became suspicious of the story in 1870, but is was not until she began sifting the evidence on Oregon history in the Bancroft Library that she fully realized her error. Gradually she convinced Elwood Evans of the legendary nature of the Spalding-Gray account, and together they later fought the opposition in the newspaper columns. In December I879 she wrote Evans that "Dr. Whitman and his wife should have a monument ... but the Daniel Webster story, and the Codfishery story and all the rest is bosh. I have read all the diplomatic correspondence, and the United States had no intention at any time to give up any foot of ground south of the 49th parallel."[4]
- ↑ Drury, Marcus Whitman, M.D., Pioneer and Martyr (Caldwell, 1937).
- ↑ F. F. Victor to Elwood Evans, January 7, 1880, in Evans, correspondence and papers, Western Americana Collection, Yale University Library.
- ↑ E. G. Bourne, "The Legend of Marcus Whitman," American Historical Review, VI (January, 1901), 288n.
- ↑ Victor to Evans, December 9, 1879, in Evans, correspondence and papers, Yale University Library.
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