[298] Ceillio Falls and the Upper and Lower Dalles, now charted as Ten and Five Mile Rapids.
[299] Three Mile Rapids.
[300] Upper Cape Horn. See note 6.
[ELIZA AND THE NEZ PERCE INDIANS]
Seventy-six years ago a little six-months old baby sat in her mother's lap in an humble home in the eastern part of what was then known as Oregon. (Oregon then comprised all that section of country lying west of the Rocky Mountains and north of the California line.) The baby was a dark-haired, dark-eyed little girl, and was the joy of her parents, who had peculiar reasons for being attached to her. She was not different from other children of like age, but had the distinction of being the second white American child born on this Northwest Coast, and the first who grew to years of maturity. She is still living, and has been for years a resident of this state, though now living in Idaho.
Her parentage and environment were unusual. On the banks of a swiftly running stream, called Lapwai, which empties into the Clearwater river a dozen miles or so east of the City of Lewiston, in the State of Idaho, was the place of her birth. Their home was a nondescript building, made of logs, eighteen feet wide and forty-eight feet long. A partition, also made of logs, divided it into two rooms, one eighteen feet square in which the family lived, and the other eighteen by thirty feet, which was used for a school and assembly room. It had been a great task to erect that house. There were no teams, and all the logs had to be carried four miles by the Indians. It took thirty men to carry one log. The parents were missionaries, and had lived there about eighteen months, with no white neighbors nearer than one hundred and twenty miles and the only means of communication between them was on horseback.
Now let us go back thirty years or more. In the spring of 1806, when Lewis and Clark were returning back across the continent in their most wonderful exploring expedition, they passed through this section of the country. On arriving at a place called Kamiah, sixty miles east of Lapwai, they found the snow too deep to allow of their crossing the mountains, and were obliged to remain there about a month. They found the Indians of this tribe very friendly and accommodating. They were really a superior race of people. Most of them had never seen any white people before, and none of them had ever seen a black man, like York of that party. Their curiosity was greatly aroused. They even tried to wash the black off from his face. The thirty days or more spent there was mutually very enjoyable, and the memory of it was treasured up in their minds for very many years. It is not known that there were any very religiously inclined men among them, but all knew of the existence of a God, and Mr. Clark at least is said to have been a church member. It is more than probable that some seeds of Divine truth were dropped into their darkened minds at the time, for twenty-five years later they sent a delegation of four men to St. Louis to get further knowledge of the white man's God, and the book or guide to Heaven. Two of these were elderly men, and two were younger. On arriving at St. Louis, then the emporium of the West, they were cordially received by General Clark who was then Superintendent of Indian Affairs, having charge of all Indians living in the far West. He remembered well the hospitality he and his company had received at the hands of their tribe a quarter of a century before, and took great pleasure in requiting it in a fitting manner. They arrived in the fall. During the following winter the two elderly men sickened and died. There is a tradition, that just before starting, one of the survivors made the following speech: "I came to you over the trail of many moons from the setting sun. I came with one eye partly open for more light for my people who dwell in darkness. I made my way to you through many enemies and strange lands that I might carry back much to them. I go back with both arms broken and empty. The two fathers, who came with us, the braves of many winters and wars,—we leave them here asleep by your great waters and wigwams. My people sent me to get the book of Heaven from the white men. You make my feet heavy with the burden of gifts, but the book is not among them. When I tell my poor blind people after one more snow that I did not get the book, no word will be spoken. One by one they will arise and go out in silence. My people will die in darkness. No book from the white men to make the way plain. That is all."
There has some doubt been expressed whether the Indian used this exact language. But Mr. Catlin, the Government painter of Indian portraits, and who traveled with them on the steamer going up the Missouri river, and who painted their portraits which are now in the museum at Washington City, is authority for the statement that this was their object. At any rate, their very unusual mission became known among the missionary societies in the east, then in their infancy, and awakened a deep interest in their call for help.
In 1834 the Methodist denomination sent out four single men, two ministers, the Reverends Lee, uncle and nephew, and two laymen, Messrs. Shepherd and Edwards. These men established a mission in the Willamette Valley nine or ten miles from where the City of Salem now stands. Two years later Messrs. Spalding and Whitman followed in their footsteps. They were accompanied by their brides, who, with indomitable pluck, heroism and devotion faced that long and terrible journey from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and accomplished it successfully. Of their privations and sufferings on that long and toilsome journey there is not now time to dwell. Week after week, and month after month, they traveled on horseback, sleeping on the ground at night, with no house but a tent, and no mattress but skins and blankets; fresh buffalo meat their principal diet, and through tribes of Indians who had never seen a white woman. After many delays and dangers, in November, 1836, Mr. and Mrs. Spalding located among the Nez Perce Indians, the tribe who had sent the messengers east. Doctor and Mrs. Whitman had settled in the Walla Walla Valley, among the Cayuse Indians.
For the first three weeks the Spaldings lived or rather camped in an Indian lodge, the poles of which were covered with buffalo skins with the hair taken off, called parfleches, until their cabin was prepared. The two missionary couples were one hundred and twenty miles from each other; and neither woman saw the other or any other white woman for a year after their separation.