Mrs. Hopkins, the daughter of Mr. Peter D. Hall, who perished near
Fort Walla Walla--Wallula--after escaping from the Whitman massacre,
is now living on the farm held by her first husband, Philander J.
Cone. Although past the age of fifty she is in good health, of
prepossessing appearance, and of very active habits. Her cosy farm
home, which is on the prairie, but at the edge of the grove, and
shaded by some oak trees in the dooryard, is ornamented also with
choice varieties of flowers, especially of roses, of which she has
many rare kinds.
She was but five years of age when the massacre occurred; and by the
terror of that event all previous recollections seem to have been
completely obliterated. She does not remember anything of her father;
but of the massacre itself, so far as her own observation went, she
still has a vivid picture in her mind. She recalls the upstairs room
where the women and children were huddled together after Whitman was
struck down, and where Mrs. Whitman came after she was shot in the
breast. Mrs. Whitman, she says, was standing, when wounded, at a
window, and was washing the blood from her hands, as she had been
dressing the wounds of her husband. Mrs. Hall was with her. It could
not have been apprehended that further murders would be committed, and
Mrs. Whitman must have been the equal object of the Indians
superstitious rage, as she was the only woman killed.
Mrs. Hopkins remembers the appearance of the upstairs room, and that
the Indians were kept back from coming up for a time by an old gun,
which was probably not loaded, but was laid so as to point across the
stairway. The savages would come to the stairway until within sight of
this gun barrel, and then afraid, or pretending to be afraid, of its
fire, would scamper back. Mr. Rogers was with the women and children.
As to the death of her father, who escaped and sought safety at old
Fort Walla Walla, on the bank of the Columbia River, but was refused
admission, Mrs. Hopkins believes he was killed near the fort. By Mr.
Osborne, who with his family, finally reached the fort, the clothes
of Hall were seen and recognized. It was said to him, when he
exclaimed, "those are Hall's clothes," that Hall had been drowned in
attempting to cross the Columbia.
Mrs. Hopkins considers the account of the massacre as given in the
June number of the _Native Son_ [1899], which was furnished by Mrs. O.
N. Denny, as the most accurate that she has seen. Mrs. Denny, Mrs.
Hopkins' older sister, who was about twelve years old at the time of
the tragedy, has a comprehensive recollection of the whole affair.