Marcus Whitman - The Way West

The Way West

On May 25, 1836, the couple, and a group of other missionaries including Henry and Eliza Spalding, joined a caravan of fur traders and traveled west. The fur company caravan was led by the mountain men Milton Sublette and Thomas Fitzpatrick. The fur traders had seven covered wagons, each pulled by six mules. An additional cart drawn by two mules carried Milton Sublette, who had lost a leg a year earlier and walked on a "cork" leg made by a friend. The combined group arrived at the fur-traders' annual rendezvous on July 6.

The group established several missions as well as Whitman's settlement at a Cayuse settlement called Waiilatpu (Why-ee-lat-poo, the 't' is half silent) in the Cayuse language, meaning "place of the rye grass". It was located just west of the northern end of the Blue Mountains. The present-day city of Walla Walla, Washington developed six miles to the east. The settlement was in the territory of both the Cayuse and the Nez Percé tribes. Whitman farmed and provided medical care, while Narcissa set up a school for the Native American children.

In 1843, Whitman traveled east, and on his return he helped lead the first large group of wagon trains west from Fort Hall, in southeastern Idaho. Known as the "Great Emigration", it established the viability of the Oregon Trail for later homesteaders. Not having much success with converting the Cayuse, the Whitmans gave more attention to the settlers. They took in children to their own home and established a boarding school for settlers' children.