85 Church. But the fact remains that his memory and the acts of his grand life are amply sufficient to interest both these great denominations.
Mrs. Whitman joined the Presbyterian Church when a young girl of eleven.
Dr. Whitman was born at Rushville, N. Y., September 4, 1802, and was thirty-three years old when he entered upon his work in Oregon. When first converted he resolved to study for the ministry, but a chain of circumstances changed his plans and he studied medicine. The early hardships and privations educated him into an admirable fitness for the chosen work of his life.
Picture that little missionary band as they stood together at Fort Walla Walla in September, 1836, and consulted about the great problems to solve. It was all new. There were no precedents to guide them. They easily understood that the first thing to do was to consult the ruling powers of Oregon—the Hudson Bay Company officials at Fort Vancouver. This would require another journey of three hundred miles, but as it could be made in boats, and the Indians were capital oarsmen, they resolved to take their wives with them, and thus complete the wedding journey.
The gallant Dr. McLoughlin, Chief Factor of the Hudson Bay Company, was a keen judge of
