We were most agreeably surprised yesterday by a call from
Doctor Whitman from Oregon, a member of the American
Presbyterian Mission in that territory. A slight glance at
him when he entered our office would convince any one that
he had seen all the hardships of a life in the wilderness.
He was dressed in an old fur cap, that appeared to have seen
some ten years' service, faded, and nearly destitute of fur;
a vest whose natural color had long since faded, and a
shirt--we could not see that he had any--an overcoat, every
thread of which could be easily seen, buckskin pants,
etc.--the roughest man we have seen this many a day--too
poor, in fact, to get any better wardrobe. The doctor is one
of those daring and good men who went to Oregon some ten
years ago to teach the Indians religion, agriculture,
letters, etc. A noble pioneer we judge him to be, a man
fitted to be chief in rearing a moral empire among the wild
men of the wilderness. We did not learn what success the
worthy man had in leading the Indians to embrace the
Christian faith, but he very modestly remarked that many of
them had begun to cultivate the earth and raise cattle.
He brings information that the settlers on the Willamette
are doing well; that the Americans are building a town at
the Falls of the Willamette; that a Mr. Moore of Mr.
Farnham's party, some sixty years of age, was occupying one
side of the Falls, in the hope that [the] government would
make him wealthy by the passage of a preëmption law; that
the old man Blair, another member of the same party, was
living comfortably a short distance above, as all who have
read Mr. Farnham's travels will know that he deserves to do.
Doctor Whitman left Oregon six months ago; ascended the
banks of the Snake or Laptin River to Fort Hall, and was
piloted thence to Santa Fé by the way of the Soda Springs,
Brown's Hole, the Wina, and the waters of the del Norte.
From Santa Fé he came through the Indians that have been
removed from the States to Missouri. The doctor's track
among the mountains lay along the western side of the
Anahuac Range; and he remarks that there is considerable
good land in that region.
We give the hardy and self-denying man a hearty welcome to
his native land. We are sorry to say that his first
reception, on arriving in our city, was but slightly
calculated to give him a favorable impression of the morals
of his kinsmen. He fell into the hands of one of our vampire
cabmen, who, in connection with the keeper of a tavern house
in West Street, three or four doors from the corner near the
Battery, fleeced him out of two of the last few dollars
which the poor man had.
[This editorial was quoted in full by the Boston
_Advertiser_ of March 31st.]
* * * * *
From the _New York Spectator_, Wednesday evening, April 5,
1843.