Cannon, Miles. Waiilatpu, Its Rise and Fall, 1836-1847: A Story of Pioneer Days in the Pacific Northwest based entirely upon Historical Research. Boise, Idaho: Capital News Job Rooms, 1915. First Edition. [1975]
Decorated stiff wraps, 9 x 6 inches, booksellers' ticket inside front cover (Fred Lockley, Rare Western Books), 171 clean pp., illustrated from historic photographs. Small paper label base of spine with call numbers, penciled call numbers within, no other institutional markings (this came from a church historical society). Very good. Paperback.
Title page continues: Featuring the Journey of Narcissa Prentiss Whitman, the first American Woman to cross the Continent and Look upon the Columbia River - Her Beautiful Character - Incidents of the Trail - Her Missionary Life with the Cayuse Indians - Her Dreadful Massacre together with Her Husband and Twelve Others - The Taking into Captivity of Two Score Women and Girls, and the Treatment accorded to them by the Savage Indians - The Final Rescue, Etc.
Narcissa Prentis Whitman was the wife of Marcus Whitman, the American medical doctor who led the first wagon train along the Oregon Trail to the West. The Whitmans were Presbyterians who applied to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions for appointments in the West, and were accepted and first sent out with the expedition of the American Fur Company in 1835. He went as far as the rendezvous on Green River, Wyoming, and being impressed by the large body of Indians in attendance, it was decided that he should return to the States and bring out a party of missionaries the following spring. This book reviews this early history in the first chapter and then devotes the rest of the pages to the subsequent journeys, missionary labors, massacre, and aftermath.