The Forgotten Heroines of the Oregon Trail
A look back at the arduous 1838 bridal trek across the continent to a missionary post in the Colville country.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
In the springtime of 1838 there started across the continent from a village in western New York a bridal party of which Mr. and Mrs. Gray formed a part. The other members were Rev. F. Walker and wife, Rev. C. Eells and wife, and Rev. A. B. Smith and wife. Their destination was a missionary station in the Colville country, now in Yakima county, Washington Territory. Their mode of travel was on horseback and all their worldly possessions were placed upon pack animals. Their missionary work among the Spokane and Nez Perce Indians, rudely broken by the Whitman massacre, is a matter of pioneer history, but forever unwritten and soon unremembered will be the privations and fatigues of that bridal journey on horseback, nearly half a century ago. Certainly no bridal tour of later times can outdo this one in romance and sight seeing, however it may be eclipsed in comfort and elegance.
“Forever unwritten and soon unremembered will be the privations and fatigues of that bridal journey on horseback.”
This piece reflects on the early settler 'missionary' mythos that dominated Pacific Northwest history, specifically framing the hardship of travel in a romanticized light. It ignores the complex and often destructive reality of these missions, which were later embroiled in the violence surrounding the Whitman massacre.
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