Madera Mercury, Number 174, 1 November 1925 — How Une Woman Saved Three States for Union [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

How One Woman Saved Three States for Union

Three states were won for the Union by a woman. This wonan, one of the greatest figures of Pioneer America, is almost unknown to the present generation. How many people know that the vast territory of Oregon, originally comprising what are now the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and part of Wyoming would have been British territory but for the work of Narcissa Whitman, the first white woman to enter Oregon? She and her husband, Dr. Marcus Whitman, were Presbyterian missionaries who went into Oregon in 1836 to save Indians and ended by saving the great Northwest for the United States. The Hudsons Bay Company then ruled Oregon. It feared American immigration and had determined that Oregon should become part of the British Empire. On the border, in the night, the gaunt cattle of the missionaries were driven off by secret order of a company factor. Undaunted, the little band, including Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and Henry and Eliza Spaulding, announced its determination to proceed on foot. By chance Narcissa discovered the Company's treachery and caused the return of the horses and live stock. Surmounting vast difficulties, enduring hardships of which the modern mind can barely conceive, the Whitmans established the little missionary post of Wai-Lat-Pu on the banks of the Columbia. They lived in a mud hovel and every waking hour they taught or doctored the hostile Indians, or struggled with the stubborn soil of the wilderness. Narecssa Whitman was beautiful, gently bred, a superb musician with a glorious voice. Yet no more Indomitable spirit ever pioneered for the United States. She had married, through disappointment, Dr. Marcus Whitman, a missionary, simple, uncouth—a man of power and two dominating ideas. The leaned one was the saving of souls in Oregon. The flaming one was the winning of Narcissa’s love which he had never had. When they had been a year in the wilderness, a girl child was born to Narcissa and Marcus; a child so beautiful and bright that the Indians, in an awed devotion, adopted her Into their tribe. Even Umtippe, the unfriendly chief, loved this first white child of Oregon. He tried

to take her from her mother. And Narcissa, by her golden song, softened the hearts of the savages; convinced them, however dim their understanding of it, of the sanctity ol mother-love, and kept her child. The child was drowned. Old Umtippe, the Indian Chief, as distraught as the parents, brought up the little body from a snag in the river. Narcissa's great spirit was almost broken, but she fought on to convert the hostile Indians and to outwit the hostile Hudsons Bay Company. Oregon most be won for the United States. It is with this background and these heroic figures that Honore Willsie Morrow, the famous novelist, has written "We Must March," the true story of the winning of Oregon —epic in its Intensity and power. As a last resort Narcissa spurred her husband on to make the awful winter trip across the country to Washington. He found the President and Congress apathetic. In despair b\he organized and led a great expedition back to Oregon. By this act Oregon was finally won for the United States. Narcissa greeted Marcus with a new light in her eyes. Love, long awaited, flooded her heart.

"We Must March* Is Indeed the great epic of one of the most stirring times of pioneer America. Its heroine, Nardssa Whitman, appears upon its vast canvas as one of the greatest women of all time.