We Who Survived -14 - Trip to Sheridan - part 1

April 15, 1881

In the spring, I started making arrangements for my visits to see Lorissa Bewley and Eliza Warren. I planned to go by train, so I was interested in finding out more about the railway system. I found out that there was a Sheridan and Willamette Railway, which terminates in Sheridan with a 56 foot turntable. I took the train to Ray's Landing, and then got the Oregonian Railway from there.

The Oregon and California Railroad begins at Coburg 120 miles from Portland on the east side of the river and skirts the foot hills running north until it approaches Ray's Landing. It continues its course on the west side of the valley running south to Airlie a distance of 37 miles with a branch of 7 miles to Sheridan. This line has been leased to the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company.

Apparently the soil in this part of Oregon is excellent for wheat, and very large crops of the cereals, and of vegetables and fruit are produced. That was why having a reliable train service was so important. The county ranks third in the territory with respect to the value of its farm products. Because of the good train service, I was able to arrange to visit both Lorissa and Eliza on the same
day. As the trains do not run as frequently on weekends, I made my visit on a Monday.

From the train station I was able to hire the services of a cab to take me to the Chapman farm. Lorissa came to the door to meet me and invited me inside. Her brother James Bewley was also
there, as well as her husband William.

We chatted socially for a few minutes, while I brought them up to date with what I had learned of the Canfields and Kimballs.

“I already have been provided with much information about the massacre by the others and from your very complete letter,” I said, “so I won't expect you to go over all of that again. I just have a few questions, and perhaps you can bring up anything else that you have thought about since you wrote the letter.”

I asked her, “Did you have any repercussions from your experiences with Five Crows?”

“After we were ransomed and I returned home, I got a job teaching school for a few years,” said
Lorissa. “The summer when I was teaching school near Mr. Bass, the tall priest, Father Brouillet, called on me, and told me that Mr. Spalding was trying to ruin my character and his, and said that Mr. Spalding had said that I had told him that the priests had treated me as bad as the Indians ever had. I told him I had not said so. He said he wanted to ask me some questions, and would send the Doctor, who could speak better English; he wished me to write it; I told him I would rather not do it.”

“When you were with the priests at Umatilla, what impression did you get of their views on the
massacre?”

“Well, they intended to take advantage of the situation. I heard that they were making arrangements to locate two priests, two at Mr. Spalding's as soon as he left and two at The Dalles, and they were going to the Doctor's the next week to build a house. This conversation was before Mr. Ogden arrived at Walla Walla.”

“Do you have any memories of Dr. Whitman's views about the Catholics?”

“Once the Doctor commented about problems with Catholics and said at the table: "Now I shall have
trouble; these priests are coming." Mrs. Whitman asked: "Have the Indians let them have land?" He said: "I think they have." Mrs. Whitman said: "It's a wonder they do not come and kill us."

“I know this is a delicate subject, but how do you think Five Crows really thought of you?”

“From his manner and behavior to me at the lodge in giving me up, I thought Five Crows was disposed to pity me, and not to abuse me. None of the other Indians at Umatilla were unkind to me in any way.  On the day before in the morning while at Five Crows lodge, Chief Camaspelo rode up and handed a note from Mr. Ogden saying that he had redeemed all the captives including me. I had nothing to fear and nothing to do but accompany the Indian as fast as I could to Walla Walla. I
could hardly believe my eyes. I bowed upon my knees with a grateful heart. Five Crows prepared tea and a good breakfast for me, and put a new blanket and buffalo robe upon the saddle to make it comfortable for me to ride and for sleeping at night, and thick shawl around me, and assisted me on my horse, and bade me goodbye kindly and with much feeling and gave me food for the journey. Five Crows knew that he had no choice because Camaspelo outranked him, but he let me go with
surprising good grace. We were 55 miles away and had to spend one night in the open which we spent on the Walla Walla River a few miles below Waiilaput. The night was cold and foggy and it began to rain. Camaspelo built a fire which he replenished in the night for my benefit. No one could have been kinder to me than he.

“When we reached the Fort Mr. Ogden rushed out to meet us. He took me gently from the horse, as a father, and said, "Thank God I have got you safe at last. I feared they would never give you
up."

“And what was your main impression of the priests who had not done very much to protect you?”

“After we heard Mr. Ogden had come to get us, I besought the priest to do all he could at the fort to
obtain my delivery from bondage, and he said he would. A little after he called me to step out of the door from the rest, and told me if I went any more with Five Crows, I must not come back to his house any more. I burst out crying, and asked him what to do. I begged him, as I was alone there, that he would do everything in his power to get Mr. Ogden to take me away, whether he could obtain all the prisoners or not. He said he would do what he could. ”

That being the gist of our conversation, and knowing I had another visit to make that afternoon, I thanked them for their hospitality, and James gave me a lift in his wagon back to the train station.

I took the train back to Ray's Landing and I got another to Brownsville where I visited with Eliza.She and her husband were expecting me and met me at the station. They had invited Nancy Osborne Kees who lives in Halsey, not far away, but she was not able to come on that day.

“This is a good area for settlement,” put in Warren. “The soil is fertile in the Calapooia Valley with the Cascades to the east containing the timber needed for building, and the Calapooia River providing the water power for industry.”

When we arrived at the Warren House, we sat down in the front room, and their daughter, Minnie, a girl of about 18, served us with coffee and cake.

“What more do you want to know?” asked Eliza. “I have already given you a long story about the
massacre.”

“I would like to know a bit more about your parents, and what it was like growing up in the Lapwai
area.”

“I was the first living child born in the West at the place called  "Lapwai," means the "Place of Butterflies". The first child born was Mrs. Whitman's child, but she died when she was three.

“How were you raised in the mission?”

“My mother made the Nez Percé's her priority, doing every missionary task from teaching them to
weave, knit and sew, to running the printing press, trusting us to some Indian children's care. She encouraged us to learn the language and talk with the Indians, unlike Mrs. Whitman's attitude.”

I soon found that for Eliza there was no alternative but that the priests were to blame for the massacre. I found myself having to defend them. She said, “The presence of the priests
created tensions and unrest amongst some members of the tribes. It was felt by some of the missionaries that the teachings of the priests would lead to the deaths of many of the protestant
missionaries. Dr. Whitman was furious to find them in the area.”

“Yet, Young Chief had embraced the Catholic faith, so wasn't it natural that he should offer the priests a home near his tribe?” I asked.

“The Indians, given the choice, would choose the Catholics who had a more colorful and interesting
way of having services. I heard that before he died, Dr. Whitman had seriously considered turning his mission at Waiilatpu to Bishop Blanchet whenever the majority of the Cayuse wished it to be so and
requested that he come there as soon as possible to further discuss arrangements.”

“Do you seriously think then that he was about to quit being a missionary?”

“The Whitmans were expecting trouble and had been for some time, but they did not think the
Indians would murder anyone but the Dr. and my father. You may think and ask then, why did they still remain, and I think it is because they knew they would be hooted at and say they had abandoned their post and left without a cause.”

“You give the impression, and your father did too, that you blame the Catholics for the massacre.”

“After we escaped, we all had to leave that country right away. But the Catholics still remained
unmolested they took possession of our place right away. They benefited from the whole thing."

“Tell me a bit about these Catholic and Protestant ladders. I understand your father was instrumental in making the Protestant one.”

Eliza went out of the room for a few minutes and when she came back she had two large pieces of wood with pictures and words on them. She said, “This Catholic ladder represents 'salvation history.' Though there are certain pictorial representations along the side, it mostly consists of bars and dots,
as you can see. The images are usually rather straightforward. At the bottom are a series of circles representing, probably, the sun, moon and stars. Those lines representAdam and Eve, and the Tree of the Knowledge and the serpent. Those three lines represent the children of Adam and Eve. Adam dies when Enoch, a righteous man, is alive.

“Each horizontal line represents a century, and bundles of 10 lines for a millennium. Four millennium there were, in the reading of the Bible, from Adam to Christ. Then, the 33 dots represent the years of Christ's life. After the crucifixion the lines, which now represent centuries of the history of the Christian Church. Note that a branch goes off from the 16th line, which then withers. What is it? Their propaganda against us. Of course, this is a Catholic's depiction of 'withered' Protestantism. We get to the 18th line and then there are 42 dots, 1842, when the Ladder was made. Off to the
left are two vertical lines, representing the two Catholic missionaries who are hard at work with the Indians.

“To the Indians all the important things are either now or in the Biblical times. Finally, the three
Protestants are identified as Luther, Calvin and Henry VIII, a rather unusual triad, but I suppose they fit together in that they each spearheaded the Reformation in different lands.”

“So interesting was the Catholic Ladder to the Indians that I suppose the Protestants felt they had to
imitate the Catholics,” I said.

“My father and mother together produced this Protestant Ladder( pictured above)  in '45. It was similar to a 1839 Protestant Ladder created by Methodist minister Daniel Lee, who was
stationed in the Willamette Valley.

“The Catholic Ladder misrepresented Protestantism as a withered branch of Christianity and promoted misguided teachings. The Protestant version focuses on presenting two competing histories of the Catholic and Protestant traditions, with emphasis on the errors of the Catholic tradition and the righteousness of the Protestant tradition. The Protestant Ladder offers more pictorial images, whereas the Catholic Ladder tends to rely on symbols.

“In keeping with the Protestant tradition of stressing literacy and bible-reading, my father also
produced the first printed book in the Nimi’ipuu language in 1839.”

“Comparing the two ladders,” I said, “in the one your father did, it has lots of nice drawings on the sides, representing everything from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to the building of the first city to the Tower of Babel. Humorous it is that so much space is devoted to depictions of the first chapters of Genesis. It is as if he realized after he had drawn about six scenes from Genesis that he was running out of space, and so he quickly leaped over lots of history to get to the crucifixion of Christ, the really big historical event. Around the time of Christ we have the interesting scene of John the Baptist's head being presented by Salome.”

“The Catholics had looked at the Protestants as a withered branch; the Protestants recognized the
'parallel track' of the Roman Catholic Church with the Pope in charge,” said Warren, Eliza's husband.

“Finally, however, the Protestant Ladder shows that the Catholic "track" of history will end in an unceremonious way when the road turns back on itself and the Pope is overturned. The last picture on the "Catholic side" shows an upside-down Pope being lowered into a fire - perhaps he will
fall victim to the same fires with which he has burned the Protestant martyrs. What lies at the end of the Protestant road, in contrast? A straight road to heaven. The Protestant road is narrower than the
Catholic one but it, after all, is the 'true' one,” said Eliza.

(to be continued)