The Archeological Excavation of Waiilatpu Mission
1947 Report,
Part 1:
Introduction
THOMAS R. GARTH
Published in
Oregon Historical Quarterly June, 1948.
Volume XLIX, Number 2, pages 117-136.
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Table of Contents 1947 Archeological Report
The following report is based on excavations sponsored
by the National Park Service in the ruins of the historic Whitman
Mission, seven miles west of Walla Walla, Washington. The mission,
established in 1836 among the Cayuse Indians, became in later years
an important stopping place for immigrants following the Oregon
Trail. Here they obtained food, medical care, wagon repairs, fresh
oxen, and a chance to rest after completing the worst part of the
journey-the crossing of the Blue Mountains. The role played by the
mission and its founders, Dr. and Mrs. Marcus Whitman, in the settling
of the Northwest was of major importance.1
Their death and the destruction of the mission in 1847 led to Indian
wars that kept in land Oregon and Washington in turmoil for many
years. The mission site and the grave of the massacre victims is
now a National Monument, in the development of which the present
archeological work is the first step. Our primary objective has
been to locate the mission buildings which occupied about three
acres just north of a horseshoe bend of the Walla Walla River. Today
the river is a quarter of a mile south of this old channel. The
main buildings were the "T" shaped Mission House, the Mansion House
about 400 feet to the east, the Blacksmith Shop on a line between
the first two mentioned, the First House, and Grist Mill.
As archeologists we are particularly interested
in the period immediately before and after the destruction of the
mission, for much that we find will be determined by what happened
at that time. By November, 1847, the mission was badly crowded with
immigrants, many of whom were sick with measles and dysentery. Other
immigrants who had traveled on had stored goods at the mission,
intending to return for them after settling on the coast. The storehouse,
formerly a dwelling, was apparently so stocked with goods and foodstuffs
that families could not be quartered there. Late comers were quartered
instead in the drafty blacksmith shop. No doubt this abundance of
supplies stirred the cupidity of the Indians and was a strong secondary
motive for the massacre. The primary cause was the measles and dysentery
epidemic which, in spite of Dr. Whitman's ministrations, decimated
the Cayuse tribe and caused them to suspect him of evil sorcery.
In the massacre beginning November 29, 1847, the Doctor, his wife,
and twelve others perished. The Indians treated the survivors, mostly
women and children, as slaves until they were ransomed by the Hudson's
Bay Company a month later.
Immediately afterwards, the Indians learned that
an army was being organized in Oregon City to punish them and became
so incensed that they returned to the mission and set fire to it,
first piling goods, wagon parts, and other things which they wished
to destroy in the houses. They also hacked down the orchard and
burned the fences. When the soldiers arrived two months later they
found only the fire-gutted walls of the adobe buildings around which
were strewn books, letters, and other small articles. They converted
the mission into a fort, called Fort Waters, and repaired one or
more of the adobe buildings. 2
They also operated the grist mill, the only structure spared by
the Indians. Defeated in several engagements, the Indians fled the
valley, finally making peace in 1850 by giving up five men said
to be responsible for the murders at the mission.
Fort Waters was abandoned in September, 1848,
and the site seems to have been uninhabited, except perhaps by Indians,
until about 1852 when three stockmen used it as their base of operations.
They left in 1855, shortly before the second Cayuse War began. During
this war the reconstructed buildings were reburned, and it seems
likely that the walls were pushed over by the Indians.3
The site lay unoccupied until 1859, when Cushing Eells built a house
over the ruins of the Mission House, there apparently being nothing
left here and in the other adobe ruins but mounds of earth into
which the sun-dried brick had disintegrated. From this time until
1936 the site has served as a farm.
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The present report, which is based on only six
months of digging, half of the time with but a two-man crew, is
perforce incomplete. The conclusions offered are tentative and may
be radically changed later with the accumulation of new data. Although
the five major ruins were located and in all but the grist mill
the position of the wal1s established, in no case was there a complete
job of excavation. Efforts were bent toward the most important desideratum,
locating the walls, as it was feared funds were soon to be discontinued.
Thus, in each case as soon as the walls had been located we moved
on to search for another ruin. Only when all five had been located
did we attempt to complete excavations in any one ruin. Considerable
reliance was placed on a rich body of documentary material. Voluminous
correspondence by the missionaries to the mission board in Boston
is intact. 4 Also the
facts that the missionaries were martyred and that Dr. Whitman not
thirty years later was acclaimed by some as ... The Savior of Oregon"
caused a large quantity of personal correspondence by the missionaries
to be treasured by their friends and relatives and so preserved
for our use. Probably the most helpful single item is the inventory
of mission property drawn up after the massacre by the Rev. H. H.
Spalding. 5 What we
most lack is a contemporary drawing of the mission. The six or seven
drawings in existence were made some years after the massacre from
descriptions of survivors and so exhibit inaccuracies. None, for
example, show the location of the First House.
Having only 100 years to reckon with we have been
able to find out many of the events which physically affected the
mission ruins after 1848. Most such information came from local
residents long familiar with the area. I am particularly indebted
to Mr. Ray Shelden for information regarding events during the past
fifty years. For the earlier period Mr. William Reser, who has been
in the valley since 1864, has given much valuable information. We
know the various inhabitants of the site, where they built many
of their buildings, when major floods occurred, the various farming
operations carried on here, etc. This information is of considerable
value in interpreting and dating phenomena encountered during excavation,
such as fence lines, ditches, barbecue pits, and the like.
Ostensibly one would expect a 100-year period
to be entirely too short to yield much in the way of stratification
and dating. The location of the mission in rather low bottom land
has fortunately caused the situation to be much the reverse. In
some areas there is fourteen inches or more of deposition over the
ruins-with. less in places higher and less subject to flooding.6
A second factor of inestimable importance is that the site is in
the main unplowed.. This was not through lucky chance or through
the foresight of persons who inhabited the area in later years,
but because the mission was built on alkali ground which would not
grow crops and so has served as pasture. 7
Plowing would certainly have destroyed much of the stratification,
the adobe wall lines, and other like features. The only major disturbances
since 1848 have come in the mission house and mansion house ruins.
In the former case three successive houses have been put over the
old ruin and cellars were dug through the ruin deposit. Nevertheless,
the presence of a farm house did discourage mutilation of the area
by relic hunters. We are not so fortunate in the mansion house ruin,
where digging for relics has occurred sporadically since the nineties.
The locations of the remaining ruins were unknown, so that they
were spared such destructive action.
The system of measurement and recording used is
essentially the same as that employed at the Jamestown Archeological
Project by J. C. Harrington. 8
The area was divided into 100-foot square lots, which were redivided
into ten-foot 'squares. In order not to miss recognizing certain
horizontal features such as the pattern of post holes and the indications
of wall lines, several adjacent squares were excavated at the same
time. Each square was taken down in 3-inch layers, the square being
cleaned of loose dirt after each layer was removed and then examined
for wall lines and other features. By so doing we were able to locate
adobe walls, which were of earth almost identical to that which
surrounded and covered them and thereby difficult to recognize in
many instances.
As conditions
in each of the ruins are quite different, partly due to the soil
chemical content, moisture in the soil, soil overburden, and historical
affectives before and since the massacre each will be considered
by itself, as an individual problem.
Next: Part 2
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Endnotes
1For
an interesting account of life at the mission during the eleven
years of its existence see: Clifford M. Drury, Marcus Whitman, M.D.,
Pioneer and Martyr (Caldwell, Ida., 1937); also A. B. Hulbert and
Dorothy P. Hulbert, Marcus Whitman, Crusader (Deaver, 1936).
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2T. R. Garth, "Waiilatpu after the
Massacre," Pacific Northwest Quarterly, XXXVIII (October,
1947), 315-318.
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3 Ibid.
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4Archives of the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions, Boston. Copies of important letters are in
the Whitman National Monument collection; copies of most of the
correspondence relating to the mission is in the library of the
Oregon Historical Society.
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5In M. M. Richardson, The Whitman
Massacre (Walla Walla, 1940), 149-155.
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6Wind deposition has also been a factor.
Dust storms from the west have been a frequent occurance, probably
since the beginning of the recent geological period.
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7Its very name, "Waiilatpu"-"place of
the rye grass" -is indicative of this. Rye grass tends to grow in
alkali soil. The ground west of the buildings was farmed by the
missionaries and was extremely rich, being said to produce wheat
seven feet high and enormous vegetables.
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8J. C. Harrington, "Field and Laboratory
Guide for Recording Archeological Data." Jamestown Archeological
Project, Colonial National Historical Park. (National Park Service,
1940).
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