Submitted By: Chizu Wright Whitman, Marcus (1802-1847), was an American pioneer, doctor, and missionary among the Indians. Appointed as a Presbyterian missionary physician to Oregon by the American Board for Foreign Missions, he visited the Pacific Northwest with Samuel Parker in 1835. He returned there in 1836, with his wife, and with the Reverend Henry Spalding and his wife, and W.H. Gray. They established two missions, one near the site of the present city of Walla Walla, Washington. They drove their wagon as far as Fort Boise, and thus were credited with opening that part of the wagon road to Oregon. In the winter of 1842, Whitman rode to the East to gain further missionary support, and to try to encourage emigration to Oregon. He also hoped to interest the federal government in settling the Oregon country. The new settlers of 1847 brought with them an epidemic of measles that caused the death of many Indian children. The missionaries' medicine did not help them. In 1847, a band of Cayuse Indians, who probably believed their children had been poisoned, attacked the mission. They murdered Whitman, his wife, and 12 other persons, and burned all the buildings. Whitman was born on Sept. 4, 1802, in Rushville, N.Y. He practiced medicine for eight years before he became a missionary. Whitman, Narcissa (1808-1847), was a missionary teacher to the Indians of the Pacific Northwest. In 1836 she married the famous Presbyterian missionary, Marcus Whitman, and became one of the first two white women to journey overland to the Northwest. The couple began a mission among the Cayuse Indians at Waiilatpu in 1837. The Whitmans and 12 other missionaries were massacred by the Indians on Nov. 29, 1847. Mrs Whitman was born in Prattsburg, N.Y. Reference: Please place in the Subject Line: WEBPAGE-HISTORY 
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