Page:The Early Indian Wars of Oregon.djvu/113

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.



employed, the young woman as assistant teacher. There were besides, engaged for different service, Mr. and Mrs. Kimball, with five children, the elder a girl of seventeen years; William D. Canfield, a blacksmith, his wife Sally Ann, and five children, the elder a girl of sixteen; Peter D. Hall, his wife and five children, the elder a daughter of ten ; Josiah Osborne, a carpenter, and his wife Margaret, with three young children; Mrs. Rebecca Hays, and one young child; Mr. Marsh, and daughter aged eleven; Jacob Hoffman, and Amos Sales in all fifty-four persons.

Besides these there were the mission family consisting of the Dr. and Mrs. Whitman ; their seven adopted chil dren; Andrew Rogers, teacher; Eliza, daughter of H. H. Spalding, aged ten years; two half-caste children, girls, daughters of James Bridger and Joseph L. Meek; two sons of Donald Manson of the Hudson's Bay Company, who were attending school; Joseph Stanfield, a Frenchman; a half-breed tramp, named Joe Lewis, whom Dr. Whitman had taken in and given employment; and another man of mixed blood, named Nicholas Finlay, making together seventy-two persons at the mission and mill, thirteen of whom were American men, besides several boys able to bear arms.

It is evident that so many people were not needed at the mission, where nothing was being done but preparing to build the mill. The school at this time, excepting the children of the immigrants themselves, consisted only of the few half-caste children already named, and the Sager family, adopted by the Whitmans.

About the time Dr. Whitman engaged these people to remain with him until spring, he had a fresh cause of dis quiet in the arrival of a party of Catholic priests in his neighborhood, one of whom was invited by Tauitowe, the Catholic chief, to settle among the Cayuses. At the very time he was bringing up his mill machinery from The Dalles, he encountered the Rev. A. M. A. Blanchet at Fort Walla Walla, and with his usual straightforwardness,