Introduction - Garth, 1947 Archeological Report

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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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