Just
before the second war with England, John Jacob Astor had attempted to
carry out a far-reaching plan for the development of the country and the
securing of its great fur trade, but the outbreak of the war had stopped
all efforts in that direction, and Astor never took them up again.
Meanwhile through Canada, the Hudson Bay Company, a great English
concern engaged in the fur trade, had extended its stations to the
Pacific coast, and was quietly taking possession of the country.
In 1834, the American board of missions, learning of the need for a
missionary among the Oregon Indians, appointed Marcus Whitman to the
work. Whitman was at that time thirty-two years of age and was just
about to be married. His betrothed agreed to accompany him on his
perilous mission, and, after great difficulty, he secured an associate
in the person of Rev. H.H. Spalding, also just married. What a bridal
trip that was! At Pittsburg, George Catlin, who knew the western Indians
better than any living man, having spent years among them, warned them
of the folly of attempting to take women across the plains; at
Cincinnati, they were greeted by William Moody, only forty-five years of
age and yet the first white man born there; at the frontier town of St.
Louis, they joined a hunting expedition up the Missouri, and by June 6,
1836, were at Laramie.
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