Position:Home>History> Why did the Spaldings and Whitman's come to Washington State?

The eternal search for land to establish a working farm and along the way they hoped to bring Christianity to the natives see link and snippets below!.
http://www!.endoftheoregontrail!.org/road2!.!.!.
"""The first American missionaries to Oregon were Methodists sent west with the blessing of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in New England!. The Methodist-Episcopal Mission Board, which sometimes coordinated its efforts with the larger and better-known ABCFM, sponsored Jason Lee in 1834!.

Two months after Lee was appointed to Oregon, the ABCFM sent Rev!. Samuel Parker to Oregon to scout locations for its own missions!. Parker might have arrived in Oregon before Lee, except that he traveled only as far as St!. Louis and waited there to catch the outbound fur caravans of 1835!.

He was joined in St!. Louis by the Presbyterian lay physician Dr!. Marcus Whitman, who had been chosen to lead one of the missions for which Parker was scouting locations!. They attended the annual fur trappers' rendezvous in Wyoming, and Whitman returned to Boston carrying a plea for spiritual assistance from the Nez Perce Indians!. Reverend Parker went ahead to the lands of the Cayuse, Walla Wallas, Spokanes, and Nez Perce, where he chose sites for missions at Tshimakain, Waiilatpu, and Lapwai (near the present-day cities of Spokane, Walla Walla, and Lewiston, respectively)!. After paying visits to Fort Vancouver and Lee's mission in the Willamette Valley, Parker returned to Boston by ship via the Sandwich Islands and collected his knowledge of the West in a map for future travelers!.

The ABCFM had a policy of preferring married missionaries, so Dr!. Whitman married Narcissa Prentiss, who wanted to come to Oregon badly enough to marry a man she had never met!. Whitman enlisted Reverend Henry Harmon Spalding, just out of seminary, Spalding's wife, and Rev!. William Gray to join him!. The Whitman party came overland with the fur caravans of 1836, making Mrs!. Whitman and Mrs!. Spalding the first white women on the Oregon Trail!. A two-wheeled cart brought along for Mrs!. Spalding, who could not ride a horse, was the first wheeled vehicle on the Oregon Trail!. The party was able to get the cart as far as Fort Boise before being forced to abandon it due to the unimproved stretches of trail ahead of them!. Upon their arrival in the Oregon Country, the women were sent ahead to Fort Vancouver while the menfolk built the Whitman Mission at Waiilatpu, near the Walla Walla River!. The following spring, they went on to Lapwai along the Clearwater River to build Spalding's mission before retrieving their wives!.

Whitman's mission was among the comparatively warlike Cayuse, while the Spaldings were among the Nez Perce, who were more favorably inclined toward whites!. Unfortunately, Spalding's fiery temper soon destroyed their cooperative spirit!. Both missions tried to teach the Indians to use grist mills but could not convince them to become farmers!. The third mission scouted by Parker, at Tshimakain, was built in 1838 when the ABCFM reinforced the Presbyterian Whitman and Congregationalist Spalding with fellow Congregationalists Rev!. Cushing Eells and Rev!. Elkanah Walker!. This was the only reinforcement Whitman and Spalding would receive!.

The difficult circumstances of the missions were not at all understood by the American Board!. Indians had well-established religions of their own and could not be rushed into conversion, and the missionaries were repeatedly insulted for their low success rates!. Whitman's and Spalding's calls for reinforcements in 1841 and 1842 instead resulted in the ABCFM's decision to close Waiilatpu and Lapwai!.

Immediately upon receiving the message to close the missions and transfer everyone to Tshimakain, a decision was made to send Marcus Whitman back to New York with a petition from Spalding and others asking the Board to reconsider!. He was accompanied on a rare midwinter journey by Asa Lovejoy, an emigrant of 1842!. They averaged a remarkable sixty miles a day for 150 days despite resting on Sundays and often being forced to take refuge from snowstorms!. Rather than follow the Oregon Trail back to Missouri, they cut south by way of Taos to skirt around warring Indians!. There, Whitman joined up with a Santa Fe Trail caravan bound for St!. Louis!.
In Boston, Whitman was censured by the ABCFM for abandoning his post despite the backing of the respected Rev!. Samuel Parker, who had sited the missions!. The Board did, however, decide to withdraw their order closing the missions!.-------------------------------!.!.!.
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