After 2 years of wandering and hardships, the Cayuse gave up five of their men in an effort to make peace with the whites. These five were arrested for murder and tried by jury in Oregon City. All five were found guilty (although one of them probably took no part in the massacre) and were hanged in 1850. There is bitter irony in the fact that the hangman was Joe Meek, the father of Helen Mar. The Indians’ problems were not solved by the hanging. In fact, the time of troubles was just starting. For the next generation intermittent Indian wars plagued the Pacific Northwest; but the Cayuse were never again a source of real trouble.
At the time that he dispatched the Oregon Volunteers, Governor Abernethy and the provisional legislature sent emissaries to Washington (led by Joe Meek) to call attention to the state of affairs in Oregon. News of the massacre moved Congress to act, and in August 1848 a bill was passed creating the Territory of Oregon. Thus did Marcus and Narcissa Whitman serve the Pacific Northwest and their country after death.
Alive, they had striven to prepare the Cayuse for the civilization that was sure to engulf them. When the emigrants did arrive, the Whitman mission became a haven in the wilderness for these weary wanderers. The Whitmans’ deaths had the immediate result of creating the first formal American territorial government west of the Rocky Mountains. Today, the story of the Whitmans serves to inspire all people who would pursue the way of high principles and ideals. Events at Waiilatpu were climaxed with disaster, but from this tragedy there shines a rare courage, dedication, and strength that men will ever need.
Preservation of the Past
For a brief time in 1848, the Oregon Volunteers occupied the mission in their unsuccessful campaign to punish the Cayuse. Building an adobe wall around the mission house, they named it Fort Waters. In 1859 the Reverend Cushing Eells, the former associate of Dr. Whitman, established a claim on the former mission site and lived there until 1872, when his house burned down. His great achievement during these years was the founding of Whitman Seminary (now Whitman College) in the new community of Walla Walla, 6 miles east of the mission site.
For the next few generations the land that Dr. Whitman first tilled continued to be farmed by a number of owners. In 1897, on the 50th anniversary of the massacre, Mr. and Mrs. Marion Willard Swegle donated about 8 acres, including the site of the Great Grave and the Memorial Shaft Hill, to a group of citizens interested in perpetuating that historic spot. As the 100th anniversary of the Whitmans’ arrival at Waiilatpu approached, public-spirited citizens initiated efforts to acquire and preserve the land on which the mission itself had been located. In 1936 the Whitman Centennial Co. acquired 37½ additional acres of land, which included the building sites. These two tracts were donated to the Nation, and on January 20, 1940, Whitman National Monument was formally established.
In 1961 an additional 45 acres of land were purchased by the Federal Government, pursuant to an Act of Congress, to permit the proper development of the monument. In 1962 Congress changed the name of this area to Whitman Mission National Historic Site.
The great grave today.