Page:Whitman's Ride through Savage Lands.djvu/223

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The Memorials to Whitman
183

dollar, and the president of the college evidently thought my proposition preposterous, for he never even replied to my letter." It was in the dark days of the college. President Eaton was a good man, but he had lost the strong faith of his predecessors, and soon after resigned. Just then the Yale Band of Missionaries invaded Washington, and Rev. S. B. L. Penrose, a man of Eells faith and Whitman's courage and perseverance, was chosen president. He at once visited Dr. Pearsons, thanked him for his generous offer, and set about his task of raising the money. The difficulty was in getting a start. On June 20, 1895, the book "How Marcus Whitman Saved Oregon" was published in Chicago, and on the Fourth of July, Sunday, two weeks later, forty ministers in Chicago and neighboring places took Marcus Whitman as a patriotic text. Many of them took up collections for the memorial college, and the Congregational Club gave its check for one thousand dollars. Virginia Dox, an eloquent and enthusiastic pleader, took up the work, carrying it through Michigan, along northern and central Ohio and all New England from Maine to Massachusetts, and the one hundred and fifty thousand was raised, and the Doctor's fifty thousand added. The Doctor, in the meanwhile has paid off the mortgage debt of thirteen thousand five hundred dollars. Every-