At sunset on August 29, Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife, Narcissa, climbed off their horses in a high pass over Oregon’s Blue Mountains and praised God. Five thousand feet below them lay their destination, the Walla Walla valley. “Enchanting,” wrote Narcissa in her journal later. Five months before, they had set out from Liberty, Missouri, with Rev. Henry Spalding and his wife, Eliza, on their overland journey to Oregon, where the couples intended to work as missionaries among the Indians. Never before had the overland route been attempted by white women, but Narcissa and Eliza demonstrated to those back east who were longing to pioneer that women were equal to the arduous trip. And theirs had been a formidable one.

From the beginning, the couples’ relations were tense, for Narcissa had rejected Spalding as a suitor eight years earlier. Enraged, Spalding had publicly accused Narcissa of lacking good judgment. The Whitmans had struggled to find another couple to join them as missionaries in Oregon, but in the end they were obliged to settle for the Spaldings. They regretted it; Spalding’s malice often made the difficult journey nearly unbearable.

Nevertheless, during the first few months of the trip, Narcissa reveled in their life under the open sky. She wore men’s boots, rode sidesaddle, and relished the food: “So long as I have buffalo meat I do not wish anything else.” And she was in love, having just married Marcus before their departure. “I was never so content and happy before,” she wrote.

But as the months passed, the road took its toll. At times it seemed as if the wilderness conspired to block their way. River crossings were hazardous, and the men toiled like beasts to get the wagon up hills and mountains. “So stif and hard” was the sagebrush in places, Narcissa wrote, “as to be much in the way of our animals & waggon.” Malnutrition, filth, and exhaustion became continual companions. August’s heat was so scorching that “truly 1 thought ‘the Heavens over us were brass,” Narcissa wrote, “& the earth iron under our feet.’” A wagon axle snapped, animals went lame, and the tension between the couples exploded into arguments so bitter that when they finally arrived in Oregon, they settled 120 miles apart.

It proved a foolish decision. Eleven years later, innocent of offense, the Whitmans were massacred by the Indians they had come to save. When the Reverend Spalding finally arrived at their mission, he could do no more than comfort the survivors.

Bound by a common dissatisfaction with Unitarianism, a distinguished company gathered on September 19 in the Boston home of Rev. George Ripley. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Bronson Alcott attended; Orestes A. Brownson, Frederic Henry Hedge, Convers Francis, and James Freeman Clarke all were there. Their purpose was “to see how far it would be possible,” Ripley said, “for earnest minds