THOMAS R. GARTH

Table of Contents 1948 Report

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: Archeological Procedure

Part 3: Framing

Part 4:

Appearance of the Mission House in the Light of Historical Evidence

Mission Period Artifacts

Endnotes (1948 Report, Part 4)






Part 5: Fort Waters & Conclusions

Other Archeology Reports

APPEARANCE OF THE MISSION HOUSE IN THE LIGHT OF HISTORICAL EVIDENCE

We have as yet failed to present any description of the over-all appearance of the building. Archeological evidence has been used to reconstruct the appearance of the various rooms from floor level down, but for the upper part we must depend largely on historical data. The exterior of the large T-shaped structure must have resembled smooth white plaster, as the walls had been smoothed down and a coating of mud plaster applied, followed by whitewash made by burning fresh-water mussel shells.

Catherine Sager tells of seeing the building for the first time:

We expected to see a log house, occupied by Indians and such
people as we had seen about the Forts. Instead, we saw a large
white house surrounded by palisades.¹⁷

Palisade is a term applied to a high picket fence. The outside appearance would no doubt be pleasing by modern standards were it not for the dirt roof supported by poles and prevented from sifting through by a layer of rye grass.¹⁸ The eaves probably projected two feet or more beyond the walls to afford protection from the rains. The front door and probably all outside doors, as well as the shutters for the windows, were painted a bright green, the floors and pantry shelves were yellow, and the woodwork inside was a light slate color.

Much of our information on the interior of the building comes from an inventory of mission property destroyed in the massacre prepared by the Reverend H. H. Spalding, missionary associate of Dr. Whitman.¹⁹ Though Spalding was stationed near what is now Lewiston, he frequently visited Waiilatpu and had a good knowledge of its circumstances. The inventory was made up in 1849, and, according to Spalding, its accuracy was checked with members of the Whitman household who escaped the massacre. The inventory is probably accurate on the whole, although dimensions of rooms and walls and like detail are probably not reliable. According to the inventory the walls of the front (west) part of the house were 10 feet (1 1/2 stories) high, and the walls of the east wing (rooms E, F, G, and H) were 8 feet high with a low attic or loft above. It was here that some of the children hid during the massacre. It is likely that Spalding refers to floor-to-ceiling height. Otherwise, subtracting the 18-inch height of the floors above the ground would leave only 6 1/2 feet for the height of the rooms. The ceiling height for B, C, and D was probably also 8 feet, with 2 feet of adobe wall projecting above the ceiling to form the walls of the chamber above, i.e., this was called a half-story -- the roof serving as the ceiling. Stairs along the north side of room C led to this chamber. According to Miles Cannon, who published his book in 1915 and so could have obtained information from survivors of the massacre, this chamber room was at the center of the landing of the stairs.²⁰ There was a closet under the stairs for medicines, Indian goods, etc. A sash door with 12 lights (panes) was at the southeast corner of room C. Four windows in rooms B and C, according to Spalding, had 20 lights each, and two had 6 lights apiece. Both windows in D had 20 lights. These windows with their small and numerous lights are characteristic of early American houses.²¹ The older part of the Jason Lee House in Salem has such windows, though the lights are set in lead rather than with wood (rails and muttons) and putty as were the Whitman Mission House windows.

The doors in rooms B, C, and D seem all to have been panel doors, probably with two or more panels. One of the doors to room C, probably the front door, could be locked with a key and so must have had one of the large rectangular locks of the period. There were probably beamed ceilings at least in the front of the house, as the flooring for the upstairs chamber would, to conserve lumber, also be the ceiling of the room below.

The finding of numerous fragments of smooth adobe plaster with a uniform light grey color in rooms G and H, probably from the interior walls, indicates that soot must have been mixed with the whitewash to give a light grey texture to the walls. Very likely the ceilings as well as the walls were whitewashed (after being plastered with mud?), this being a common Hudson's Bay Company practice.²² In the front part of the building the plaster fragments found were white or near white in color, indicating that the interior walls were probably whitewashed. Very likely all the fireplaces had mantels, though only in room D is one mentioned in the records. The chimney which ran up the partition wall between rooms G and H probably served fireplaces in both rooms, although no fireplace is shown for H in the 1840 ground plan. Both Spalding and Catherine Sager mention a fireplace in room H. Certainly some source of heat was needed here, as this was the schoolroom. Four batten doors as well as four panel doors are listed for the east wing, the former more than likely being used as outside doors. Every room in the east wing of the building had its own outside entrance, and two entrances are shown for room H. One of these must actually have been the entrance to the cellar below.

With a proper complement of furniture (mentioned in the inventory) including clothes presses, settees, rough tables and chairs made of alder, numerous rocking chairs, several bedsteads of alder, wash stands, a spinning wheel or two, in the parlor (B) a bookcase with numerous books and a curio cabinet, pictures here and there on the walls (one of these is now at the Oregon State Library in Salem), we can achieve a fair conception of the probable appearance of the house. It had many refinements found only in the better homes in the East. In fact, Spalding may have had some justification for a complaint he made to the Mission Board in 1842 as follows:

One [dwelling) completed by an accomplished workman with
large windows & green window blinds &c richly painted doors,
floors &c many nice tables, setees [sic] &c &c, richly painted &
varnished --servants &c . . . .²³

Mrs. Whitman's refined tastes and indefatigableness were no doubt, responsible in large part for the excellent appearance of the house, which she may well have had a major share in designing.²⁴ For instance, she apparently felt the dirt roofs to be a major defect in the otherwise attractive exterior of the house, and besides they sometimes leaked mud during heavy rains. It was apparently upon her insistence that Dr. Whitman sought to replace them with board roofs. A sawmill was built in 1846 to supply the necessary lumber, and by the fall of 1847, 50,000 board feet of lumber was on hand. The crude alder chairs were also to be replaced. A wood lathe powered by the water wheel of the gristmill had been used to turn enough seasoned wood for 84 chairs. ²⁵ Mrs. Whitman was fond of nice things. Possibly they compensated in some part for her feeling of loneliness in being so far from her family and from civilization. She enjoyed immensely her two sojourns at Fort Vancouver, at that time the center of cultural life in the Northwest.²⁶ Botany was one of her main interests, and she cultivated a fine flower garden, the red poppies from which grew wild around the mission site even as late as 1872.²⁷ Her refined taste is well expressed in her selection of chinaware, at least half of which is beautiful English pictorial wares- Spode, Staffordshire, Copeland and Garret, etc. There was very little plain, undecorated earthenware or utility china. What must have been the everyday ware had an attractive blue border.

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MISSION PERIOD ARTIFACTS

The artifacts recovered from the ashes of the Mission House add immensely to our knowledge of the material aspects of life at the mission. A much wider variety of tools, household objects, and the like were recovered than had been found previously. Many of these items have a personal significance, being traceable as property of Dr. Whitman or his wife or others at the mission. In rooms B, C, and D and just outside the front door more than twenty peg-type false teeth were found. These are individually molded of fine porcelain and include eye teeth, incisors, and canines, but no molars.²⁸ It is highly probable that these teeth (which had never been used) were in Dr. Whitman's medical kit, and were scattered about the floor when the Indians plundered the house after the massacre. Doctors in the early nineteenth century also practiced dentistry. Dr. Whitman is known to have filled teeth for Cushing Eells and other associates. Other medical supplies include two fragments of a fever (?) thermometer tube, what is probably the handle of a surgical knife with the blade (which folded) missing, a small bronze weight for scales possibly used in weighing medicines, numerous fragments of medicine bottles, and one bottle intact with some of the medicine (a crude type of iodine) still in it. The glass stopper evidently created a near-perfect seal. On the base of the bottle is a pontil mark, indicating that it was hand blown. The iodine was probably used to cauterize wounds, etc.

Perhaps the most interesting fact about the medicine bottle is the place in which it was found. This was in the Indian Room, where the Osborn family was staying shortly before the massacre. When the massacre began, the parents had presence of mind enough to lift up loose floor boards and crawl underneath with their three children. It would be most natural for Mrs. Osborn, who had been sick; to take a bottle of medicine with her when she hid. In the darkness and excitement of leaving their hiding place that night to escape, the bottle could easily have been misplaced and left behind. Its being under the floor explains why it was not broken (exploded) by the heat of the fire or by the impact of the falling roof, or by the Indians in the month between the time of the massacre and the burning of the building. The Indians were superstitious about Dr. Whitman's medicines and believed that they contained poison. More than likely they purposely broke most of the medicine bottles.²⁹

In Figure 2, Q marks the location of a cabinet for curios and geology specimens. Spalding's inventory lists a "cabinet consisting [of] Geology specimens, with specimens of shells-minerals, Indian curiosities." Dr. Whitman was much interested in geology and collected odd specimens on his frequent trips throughout the region.³⁰ We found several unusual crystals and pieces of petrified wood, particularly in room C and just outside the front door. Adjacent to a petrified wood specimen near the door was a broad bone needle with most of the eye missing, and less than fifteen feet away was the lower half of a basalt spear point. These may have been part of the collection of Indian curiosities mentioned above. However, no trace was found of the shells or of most of the other items that were probably in the cabinet.

It is likely that most of the broken plates, bowls, milk pitchers, and other crockery found belonged in Mrs. Whitman's kitchen. In no case was a complete piece found, although enough of three plates and one bowl were recovered so that they could be mostly reconstructed.³¹ Much of the broken chinaware was in the area in and near the pantry, although it was found in some degree in all parts of the ruin. The only cooking utensils unearthed were a flat pan-like sifter and the copper lid to a pot. This dearth of cooking utensils is to be expected, as the Indian women must have taken everything they thought they could use. Also in the pantry were two spoons, one of pewter and the other of silver with the initials "S.C.P." engraved on the handle. These more than likely stand for the names Stephen and Clarissa Prentiss, Mrs. Whitman's parents. The spoon may have been part of a wedding gift of family silverware given the newly-wed Mrs. Whitman and her husband before they came west in 1836. Other finds that apply particularly to the mission household include a steel table knife,³² portions of two or three large glass tumblers with thick bases and thin side walls, the bone handle of a toothbrush,³³ a child's shoe sole 5 1/2 inches long which must have belonged to a two or three-year- old child,³⁴ the iron hook part of a coat hanger (no doubt from one of the clothes presses mentioned in the inventory), several flints and steels for starting fires, fragments of extremely thin glass from what may have been a lamp chimney, a few fragments of glass jars probably used for preserving,³⁵ a few fragments of dark brownish-green bottle glass, and one hand-soldered tin can.

Our findings in the textile category consist of a bone shuttle about two- thirds intact, a blade from a pair of sheep shears, the skull of a sheep in near- perfect condition, and several samples of charred cloth at least one of which appears to be homespun. The Whitmans taught the Indians to weave and introduced sheep from Hawaii in 1838. By 1845 they had 80 head. Spalding's inventory of mission property lists "two spinning wheels, 8 spinning heads, 4 pair of wool cards and 200 lbs. of wool." There was also a loom at the mission.

Spalding's inventory also mentions a cook stove with pipe and two box stoves with pipe. One of the box stoves may have been in the Mansion House 400 feet to the east. We found nothing we could identify as part of a box stove, but we did find several half-inch-thick fragments of what was probably a heavy cast-iron cook stove. It must have broken under the impact of the falling roof. We also found portions of a stove lid or lids and two pieces of 6-inch stove pipe, as well as a stove leg with a diagonal hatchure design. Matilda Sager described the stove in the following words:

... [it] was a Hudson's Bay cook stove of a very small and primitive make;
the oven was directly over the firebox and two kettles which were of
an oblong shape sat in on the side, something like the drum on the
sides of a stove.³⁶

The following list of hardware and tools was recovered from the mission level (floor 4): a door hasp and several hinges, ³⁷ a drawer or cupboard pull of cast iron, a 3-inch-diameter cast-iron weight for scales, 3 meat hooks (in the cellar), a crow bar (mentioned in the inventory), a barrel hoop with portions of the staves adhering, and a 7-inch diameter cast-iron burr for a coffee mill. This last could conceivably have been used in the first water-powered mill at the mission in 1839,³⁸ or it may have been used by the Oregon Volunteers or stockmen (1853-55) for grinding coffee, as floors 4 and 3A are undifferentiated in the area (outside the walls) where the burr was found. Verifying the historically recorded fact that the Indians piled wagons or wagon parts in the house before setting fire to it,³⁹ we found portions of the strap-iron reinforcing for a wagon bed or beds with some of the charred hardwood adhering, the king bolt with strap-iron reinforcing for attachment of the front axle to the wagon bed, portions of a wagon tire, and the metal collars for the hub, the long hasp for locking the end-gate on a wagon, ox shoes, the U-shaped coupling in the center of an ox yoke, a horse bit and shoes, etc. Most of the wagon parts were found in the cellar, indicating that wagons or parts thereof were piled in room H before the building was set on fire. An interesting array of foodstuffs was preserved in a charred state by the falling dirt roof of the house. These were mostly found in the ashes of room C along with numerous buckshot, beads, buttons, pins, musket balls, and the like. Charred wheat, beans, peas, and a very small type of corn cob with a few kernels adhering, as well as one squash seed, were thus preserved. Also found were several small peach pits. The mission peach orchard had only been bearing for a few years before the massacre. Scattered throughout most of the house from the cellar west were numerous charred bones of cattle and other stock, attesting to the orgy of feasting by the Indians on the mission food supplies and stock. During the month-long period after the massacre the survivors worked as slaves for the Indians, preparing a nightly feast. Much of this feasting must have occurred in the Mission House, where the food was no doubt prepared and cooked.⁴⁰ When the house was set on fire the floors must have been littered with bones of all sorts. Also recovered were the jaws of a hog, the nearly complete skeleton of a chicken, and the skull of a coyote or Indian dog.⁴¹ The skull was in an out-house pit and so the animal may have met its demise some years before the massacre.

Probably the most spectacular of our finds occurred on the cellar floor. This was a large pile of gun hammers, springs, triggers, and other tools for gunsmithing. The following quotation from a letter by W. J. Berry, a gunsmith, to Governor Joseph Lane explains how it came to be at the mission.

Besides the usual outfit, I had with me, a full and valuable set of
tools and implements for the manufacture of Rifles and other fire
Arms; together with a large and valuable assortment of materials
used in said business you know is my trade.... On arriving at
the "Umatilla," and proceeded to "Wailatpu" the Station of the
Rev. Dr. Whitman; with the intention of wintering there- . . .
we therefore concluded to go on -- But as our load was too heavy
for our horses I left all the before mentioned tools material &c &c,
in charge of the Rev. W Rodgers, of said Missionary station,
with whom I made an arrangement, to have them sent down the
Columbia in the spring.... In the month following; the
memorable Massacree [sic] took place at said "Wailatpu" - You are
aware that after committing the murders, the Indians pillaged and
then burnt, the buildings, thereby destroying all the property
which I had left there -- . . . . I estimate the loss of my property
and the difficulties and inconveniences to which I have consequently
been subjected at not less than five Thousand Dollars
($5000.00).⁴²

The majority of the pieces found are gun hammers for percussion-type (cap and ball) guns of the period. These hammers were of cast iron and not infrequently broke. Consequently a gunsmith would have a large number of replacements in stock.

Other items found include large fragments of slate (there was a blackboard in the Indian Room), gun flints, a piece of printing type,⁴³ a drafting tool for making dotted lines, etc. Many of the objects are too corroded or too strange in type to identify readily, though identification may ultimately be made. Most of the nails from the house were hand forged with irregular shaped heads. Some of the flat-headed "cut" nails were also used, however. There are said to have been 300 pounds of nails at the mission in 1847. Many of these may have been used by the Volunteers when they reconstructed the building. Most of the bolts are square- shanked and threaded at the ends. The nuts are larger than modern types and have obviously been made by hand.

Next: Part 5

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Endnotes

¹⁷Richardson, op. cit., 55.
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¹⁸Quantities of this charred rye grass were found in the course of the excavations.
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¹⁹Richardson, op. cit., 149-55.
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²⁰Miles Cannon, Waiilatpu, Its Rise and Fall (Boise, 1915), 112.
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²¹The windows probably had double-hung sashes that slid up and down to open similar to most present-day windows, though there is nothing to indicate this in the records.
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²²Spalding also finished some of his house interiors in this manner. See Spalding's Diary, MS, Whitman College.
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²³Spalding to Greene, October 15, 1842. Copy, Oregon Historical Society Collection.
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²⁴Her father, Stephen Prentiss, was a prominent "Master carpenter" in New York.
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²⁵The inventory. See Richardson, op. cit.
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²⁶For an excellent contemporary appraisal of Mrs. Whitman's character see the letter by Rev. H. K. W. Perkins to Jane Prentiss, October 19, 1849. Drury, op. cit., 458-60.
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²⁷She may have introduced the locust tree to eastern Washington, having requested locust seeds in one of her letters. "Locusts" are mentioned in the inventory of property at the mission. Richardson, op. cit., 149.
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²⁸In mounting such a tooth, the old tooth was cut off flush with the gum. Then the porcelain tooth was mounted on a metal peg cemented into the stump of the old tooth.
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²⁹A dance was held around one of the bottles, the Indian shamans performing to nullify its evil influence. Later the bottle was buried in a wooden box. See H. H. Spalding, "Early Oregon Missions," Walla Walla Statesman, February 9, 1866.
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³⁰Elkanah Walker wrote in his diary (State College of Washington Collection) on August 14, 1841, "The Dr. has been as full of Geology as if he had eaten some half dozen quarto volumes on this subject."
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³¹The only complete vessel found was a white china chamber.
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³²This was found near the medicine bottle and may also have been carried under the floor by the Osborns, so escaping covetous Indian eyes.
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³³The bristle part, which is missing, may have had a sheet-silver backing, as on one side of the handle is the word "silverware," and on the other is the name of the maker, "John Gosnell-London."
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³⁴The only child of this age living in the Mission House before the massacre was Alexander Osborn, age two.
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³⁵These are quite dissimilar from modern preserving jars, as the mouths are only 1 1/2 inches in diameter with a straight neck something like a bottle. They were sealed with a cork, which was wired on.
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³⁶Matilda J. Sager Delaney, A Survivor's Recollections of the Whitman Massacre (Spokane, 1920), 18.
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³⁷No door knobs or box-type door locks were found. This may indicate that most of the doors were secured by wooden latches and opened from the outside with a latchstring. It is known that some of the doors had wooden latches of the sort. Most of the six locks mentioned in the inventory were probably padlocks.
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³⁸Farnham, who visited the mission in 1839, wrote as follows: "And last to the grist-mill on the other side of the river. It consisted of a spherical wrought iron burr four or five inches in diameter, surrounded by counterburred surface of the same material. The spherical [circular?] burr was permanently attached to the shaft of a horizontal water-wheel. The surrounding burred surface was firmly fastened to timbers, in such a position that when the water-wheel was put in motion, the operation of the mill was similar to that of a coffee-mill." Farnham, op. cit., 337-38.
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³⁹H. H. Bancroft, History of Oregon (San Francisco, 1886), 1, 716.
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⁴⁰Some of the Indians moved in on the mission grounds and dug pits for their winter houses adjacent to the adobe walls of the Mission House (on the windward side) badly weakening the walls.
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⁴¹Coyotes and wolves plagued the mission, killing stock.
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⁴²Berry to Lane, March 1, 1852. MS, Oregon Historical Society.
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⁴³The mission printing press, which was used to print textbooks for the Indians in the Nez Perce language, is now at the Oregon Historical Society Museum in Portland.
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