Serving Whitman County since 1877
Serving Whitman County since 1877
Whitman County’s founder slain
WALLA WALLA — The Great American Frontier was a time of prosperity, farming, growth, and exploration. Two missionaries gave Whitman County its name in 1871.
This was long after their grizzly murders in 1847 when the two missionaries, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, were killed by the Cayuses and Umatillas people, after being accused of poisoning 200 Cayuse in their medical care during a measles outbreak, including the Whitman household.
On November 29, 1847, Marcus, his wife Narcissa, and eleven other men served in a medical tent to aid locals. The killings occurred at the Whitman Mission at the junction of the Walla Walla River and Mill Creek near Walla Walla.
An attack broke out involving sixty Cayuses and Umatillas as they killed the Whitmans and eleven other people at the mission. The attackers took fifty-three people, hostage.
According to testimonies of the assault, the assailants used tomahawks and left Marcus battered beyond recognition. Reports say Narcissa was shot.
Marcus Whitman was a physician, and he and his wife Narcissa were missionaries sent west from New England by the joint Presbyterian, Congregational, and Dutch Reformed American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM).
The hostages were released during the Cayuse War of 1847, which lasted until 1850.
The Whitman’s martyrdom became a turning point in settling the Pacific Northwest.
Not too long after, the Cayuses moved on the Umatilla Reservation, east of Pendleton, in 1855. Many believe that the expansion still would have occurred but at a much slower pace, as the murder of the Whitmans and others inspired an outcry from the American frontier.
Olivia Harnack is a Journalist at the Whitman County Gazette. Olivia is enrolled at University of Idaho and is majoring in digital film studies. She serves in the United States Army National Guard and is proud to serve Whitman County.
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