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Text enclosed by underscores is in italics .

A list of corrections made can be found at the end of the book.

A SURVIVOR'S RECOLLECTIONS OF THE WHITMAN MASSACRE

Matilda J. Sager Delaney

Copyright 1920

The following modest recital of a life which has covered much of the most interesting period of pioneering in this part of the country is of the greatest interest and value to all who know and love the Northwest. Few lives have been so full of such varied experiences and the clear and poignant recital of the massacre at Waillatpu is of the greatest historical importance. It is so vividly told that it should carry its own convincing truth down the years, as the basis of all writing in connection with the labors of that splendid type of missionaries, Dr. and Mrs. Whitman.

NETTA W. PHELPS, Ex-State Regent, Daughters of the American Revolution.

FANNIE SMITH GOBLE, State Regent.

LURLINE WILLIAMS, Regent Esther Reed Chapter.

FOREWORD

The thought of fostering care seems to have remained with this "survivor" since her days with the Whitmans.

Forgiving innocent ones for the atrocious acts of their kindred upon her own brothers, Mrs. Delaney became a benefactor of the Indians. Before the apportionment of their lands the Coeur d'Alene squaws and children suffered great hardships. To them the Farmington hotel kitchen was a haven of warmth and plenty. They started home cheered and fed with bundles of food to tie on their ponies. The Delaney living room is the only place I have seen Indian women and girls light hearted and chatty. They loved to linger to sing for their hostess. Mrs. Delaney's hospitality extended to clergymen of all creeds. Her's has been a life of hard but generous service. "Not to be ministered unto but to minister" seems to have been the life motto of this woman reared in the wilds.

In 1881 General and Mrs. T. R. Tannatt came to the Northwest when the latter began a search for historical data; she sought pioneers and recorded their statements for comparison, in an effort to obtain truth. Opportunity gave her acquaintance with Mr. Gray, author of History of Oregon, Rev. Cushing Eels, the Spalding family, several survivors of the Whitman massacre, and pioneer army and railway officers from whom she gleaned information which later assisted her in writing the booklet, "Indian Battles of the Inland Empire in 1858," published by the D. A. R.

In 1887 she stopped at the Farmington hotel owned by Mrs. Delaney, and continued an acquaintance with her until 1920. She said Mrs. Delaney's account of the massacre never varied, and in discussion of points of difference with other survivors Mrs. Delaney's clear description and logical reasoning invariably convinced the others that she must be correct, while her clear remembrance of subsequent events, known to them both for more than three decades, strengthened Mrs. Tannatt's belief in the accuracy of her earlier impressions.

Mrs. Tannatt often urged this witness of the heartrending tragedy to publish her recollections, and had the pleasure of reading the manuscript for this narrative which she said contained the most comprehensive and truthful description of the Whitman massacre she had seen. She consented to write the Foreword, but before doing so was summoned by her Heavenly Father.

MIRIAM TANNATT MERRIAM.

A SURVIVOR'S RECOLLECTIONS of the WHITMAN MASSACRE by MATILDA J. SAGER DELANEY

In the spring of 1844 we started to make the journey across the plains with ox teams. I was born in 1839, October 16th, near St. Joseph, Mo., which was a very small town on the extreme frontier, right on the Missouri River, with just a few houses. My father's name was Henry Sager. He moved from Virginia to Ohio, then to Indiana and from there to Missouri. My mother's name was Naomi Carney-Sager. In the month of April, 1844, my father got the Oregon fever and we started West for the Oregon Territory. Our teams were oxen and for the start we went to Independence, the rendezvous where the companies were made up to come across the plains. There were six children then--one was born on the journey, making seven in all.

The men of the company organized in a military manner, having their captain and other officers, for they were going through the Indian country and guards had to be put out for the protection of the travellers and to herd the stock. The immigration of '43 was piloted through by Dr. Whitman and ours was the second immigration across the mountains. The road was only a trail and was all Indian territory at that time, from the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains. We had to ferry streams, sometimes with canoes fastened together and the wagons put on them; and the Indians rowed us across the rivers in some places. The mountains were steep and sometimes we had to unyoke our cattle and drive them down, letting the wagons down by ropes. The Captain of our company was named William Shaw. There were vast herds of buffalo on the plains and wandering bands of Indians. We had to guard the cattle at night by taking turns. After we started across the plains we traveled slowly; and one day in getting out of the wagon my oldest sister caught her dress and her leg was broken by the wheel running over it. There was no doctor in our company, but there was a German doctor by the name of Dagan in the following company and he and my father fixed up the leg and from that time on the old doctor stayed with us and helped. My father was taken sick with the mountain fever and he finally died and was buried on the banks of the Green River in Wyoming. His last request was that Captain Shaw take charge of us and see us safe through to the Whitman station. He thought that was as far as we could go that winter. Twenty-six days later my mother died. She made the same request of Captain Shaw and called us around her and told my brothers to always stay with us and keep us together--meaning the girls of the family. Dr. Dagan came on and helped to care for us with the boys' help. When my mother died, my injured sister could walk only with the help of a crutch. Mother was wrapped in a blanket and buried by the side of the road. So the Captain and his wife looked after us and the other immigrants showed their concern for the orphans by taking an interest in us. A kind woman, Mrs. Eads, took the tiny baby and the big-hearted travelers shared their last piece of bread with us. We finally arrived at Dr. Whitman's station on the 17th day of October, 1844, seven months from the Missouri River to the Whitman station. It was a long time!

Mrs. Whitman wanted to keep the girls, but she did not care for the boys. Dr. Dagan went on the Willamette valley and left us there. Doctor Whitman finally concluded he would keep the whole seven of us and took us in charge. We lived there three years. I might say something of the home incidents. The first thing Mrs. Whitman did was to cut our hair, wash and scrub us, as we were very much in need of a cleaning up; then she gave us something to eat and the bread seemed very dark to us--it was unbolted flour. Mrs. Eads, who had been caring for my baby sister, five months old, arrived three days later and then Mrs. Whitman took the motherless little one in charge and she grew to be a fine baby. Everything was so different from what we had been used to. The Whitmans were New England people and we were taken into their home and they began the routine of teaching and disciplining us in the old Puritan way of raising and training children--very different to the way of the plains. They hired a teacher and the immigrant families all had the privilege of sending their children to this school during the winter months. We had a church and Sunday school every Sabbath and we had our family worship every morning and evening. We had certain things to do at a certain hour. We never had anything but corn meal mush and milk for our suppers and they were very particular in our being very regular in all our habits of eating and sleeping.

When the spring came all the immigrants left and went on down to the Willamette valley--the families who had wintered at the Mission leaving the Sager children behind with the big-hearted Dr. and Mrs. Whitman. We had our different kinds of work to do. We had to plant all the gardens and raise vegetables for the immigrants who came in for supplies. We got up early in the morning and we each had our piece of garden to weed and tend. We had to wipe the dishes and mop the floors. We had verses of scripture to learn each morning which we had to repeat at the family worship. The seven verses would be our Sunday school lesson. We took turns in giving our passages of Scripture. Everything was done in routine. Sometimes we had to walk in the afternoon. Mrs. Whitman would go with us; we would gather specimens and she would teach us botany. During the summer when the Indians went to the buffalo grounds, we were alone and we looked forward to the coming of the immigrants as one of the great events of our life. Sometimes in the summer we went bathing in the river. We would get the Indian girls to teach us to swim. Once, Missionary and Mrs. Eels came down from Walker's Prairie, having with them a girl by the name of Emma Hobson, and the latter went in bathing with us children; she could not swim and the current swept her down the river. She caught on an overhanging bush and an Indian took her out of the river and put a blanket around her. Mrs. Eels gave the alarm. We always called that "Emma's place." We cut water melons in two and strung them together and would play for hours with those water melon boats, having a great deal of enjoyment. Still, discipline was strict and when we were told to do a thing, no matter what, we went.

Once a month we had a missionary meeting and we would sing missionary hymns and the Whitmans would read extracts from missionary papers. They took the Sandwich Island paper, the editor being the Rev. Damon. There was a man at the Mission by the name of O'Kelley; he was an Irishman, and he went with the Doctor who had to go out and give the Indians a lesson in farming. They took all we girls in a wagon and this man O'Kelley drove. Dr. Whitman showed the Indians how to cultivate their little patches. There was not very much cultivation about anything, however. O'Kelley was to cook the dinner. He had a big chunk of beef to boil and he told us he would give us a big dinner--would give us some "drap" dumplings; so we became very curious to know what "drap" dumplings were. No doubt they were "drap" dumplings, because they went to the bottom of the kettle and staid there until we fished them out. We put in the day there. Returning, my brother took me on his horse and some of the others rode in the wagon. We had riding mares and they had colts. When we came to the Walla Walla River the colts began floating down stream and we had an awful time, but I hung on. I had on an old sunbonnet, but I lost it. We finally got safely home.

Although Peregrinus puts the burden of constructing his wheel on others, he does not appear to have considered it a vain conceit; for, in the beginning of the last chapter of the "Epistola" he says: "In this chapter, I will make known to you the construction of a wheel which, in a remarkable manner, moves continuously." He is writing from Southern Italy to his friend Siger , at home in Picardy; and that this friend may the better comprehend the mechanism of the wheel, he proceeds to describe in a systematic manner the various properties of the lodestone, all of which he had investigated and many of which he had discovered. The "Epistola" of Peregrinus is, therefore, the first treatise on the magnet ever written; it stands as the first great landmark in magnetic philosophy.

The work is divided into two parts--the first contains ten chapters and the latter three. "At your request," he says to his friend, "I will make known to you in an unpolished narrative the undoubted though hidden virtue of the lodestone, concerning which philosophers, up to the present time, give us no information. Out of affection for you, I will write in simple style about things entirely unknown to the ordinary individual."

After this declaration as to the original character of his work Peregrinus proceeds: "You must know that whoever wishes to experiment should be acquainted with the nature of things; he must also be skilled in manipulation, in order that by means of this stone, he may produce those marvelous results."

The titles of the chapters will give an idea of the comprehensive character of the magnetic work accomplished by the author and, at the same time, will serve to show how much was known about the lodestone in the thirteenth century.

An attentive reading of the thirteen chapters of this treatise of 3,500 words will show that:

He establishes the two fundamental laws of magnetism, that like poles repel and unlike poles attract each other.

He demonstrates by experiment that every fragment of a lodestone is a complete magnet, and shows how the fragments should be put together in order to reproduce the polarity of the unbroken stone.

He shows how a pole of a lodestone may neutralize a weaker one of the same name and even reverse its polarity.

He pivots a magnetized needle and surrounds it with a circle divided into 360 degrees.

This brief summary shows the great advance made by the author on what was known about the lodestone before his time. Most of the salient facts in magnetism are clearly described and some of their applications pointed out. So thorough and complete was this apprehension and explanation of magnetic phenomena that nothing of importance was added to it for the next three hundred years.

The invention of the compass has been attributed to one Flavio Gioja, a seafaring man of Amalfi, a flourishing maritime town in Southern Italy. If we admit that Gioja was a real and not a fictitious person, we cannot, however, admit the claim which is made by his countrymen, when they say that he gave to the mariner the use of the compass in the year 1302; for we have seen that Peregrinus distinctly states that his compass, described in 1269, could be relied upon for guidance by the traveler on land as well as by the voyager on sea.

To Gioja may belong the merit of having simplified and improved the compass. It is likely that he suspended the needle on one pivot instead of the two used by Peregrinus, and that he added the compass-card with its thirty-two divisions, attaching it to the needle itself, thereby adding materially to the practical character of the compass as a nautical instrument.

On the other hand, a claim has been made for Peregrinus which cannot be admitted. It was put forward by his itinerant countryman Th?venot, in the seventeenth century, to the effect that the author of the "Epistola" was acquainted with magnetic declination, in virtue of which a freely suspended magnet does not point north and south, but cuts the geographical meridian at a definite angle.

Writing in 1681, Th?venot says in his "Recueil de Voyages" that: "It was a matter of general belief down to the present day, that the declination of the magnetic needle was first observed sometime in the beginning of the last century. I have found, however, that there was a declination of five degrees in the year 1269, having found it recorded in a manuscript with the title "Epistola Petri Adsigerii," etc.

The title of the manuscript seen by Th?venot is not, however, as he gives it above, but "Epistola Petri ad Sygerium," etc., which is quite a different reading.

There are twenty-eight manuscript copies of the "Epistola" known to exist; and only one of them, that of the University of Leyden, contains the passage alluded to by Th?venot. This manuscript was the object of careful study and critical examination by Wenckebach and other competent scholars, who pronounced it a spurious addition made some time in the early part of the 16th century.

This oft-stated and widely-believed fidelity of the needle to the pole is not, however, founded on fact; it is the exception, the rare exception, not the rule, despite the couplet of the poet:

Th' obedient steel with living instinct moves And veers for ever to the pole it loves;

or this other,

So turns the faithful needle to the pole, Though mountains rise between and oceans roll.

The line of no variation, like all other isomagnetic lines, has shifted its position with time, so that it runs to-day considerably to the west of the place assigned to it by Columbus in 1492 and by the Papal Bull of the following year.

We do not know what Columbus thought of his explanation, born of the stress of the moment, but the esteem in which he was held by pilots and sailors alike for his knowledge of astronomy and cosmography led them to accept it. Their fears were allayed, a mutiny was averted and a successful termination to their voyage rendered possible.

Captains of ocean-liners would give to-day a different answer to a passenger who might consult them about the splinter of steel which serves to guide their fleet vessels in darkest nights, through howling tempests and over billowy seas. The mysterious influence that controls it, they would say, comes neither from Polaris nor the pole of the world, nor from the heavens above, but from the earth beneath.

Such an explanation was not thought of until it was clearly shown a hundred years later that this globe of ours acts like a colossal lodestone, controlling every magnet in our laboratories and observatories, and every needle on board the merchantmen and fighting-monsters that plough our seas and oceans.

Returning to the treatise of Peregrinus on the magnet, it should be said that for several centuries the twenty-eight manuscript copies lay undisturbed on the dusty shelves of city and university libraries. In 1562, four years after the appearance of the first printed edition , Taisnier, a Belgian writer on magnetics, who is also described as poet-laureate and Doctor "utriusque juris," was among the earliest to discover the "Epistola," from which he copied extensively in his little quarto on the magnet and its effects, thus showing that there were literary pirates in those days. It was also well known to Gilbert, to Cabeo and Kircher; but despite the references of these writers, the "Epistola" remained practically unknown until Cavallo, of London, called attention to the Leyden manuscript in the third edition of his "Treatise on Magnetism," 1800, by giving part of the text and accompanying it with a translation.

Later, in 1838, Libri, historian of the mathematical sciences in Italy, gave excerpts from the Paris codex with translation; but the scholar who contributed most of all to make the work of Peregrinus known is the Italian Barnabite, Timoteo Bertelli, who published in 1868 a critical study of the various manuscripts of the letter, principally those which he found in Rome and in Florence, adding copious notes of historic, bibliographic and scientific value. Father Bertelli was Professor of Physics in the Collegio della Quercia, in Florence, where he took an active interest in Italian seismology besides carrying on investigations in meteorology, telegraphy and electricity. Born in Bologna in 1826, he died in Florence in March, 1905.

The following list of manuscript copies of the "Epistola" is taken from a scholarly paper by Professor Silvanus P. Thompson, of London, which appeared in the "Proceedings of the British Academy" for 1906:--

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