We have now arrived at a period of impending change when the eccentric Bonneville drove through the South Pass (1832), closely followed by that adventurous Bostonian, Nathaniel J. Wythe. Both lost everything they had in these ventures, but they pointed the way, followed a little later by countless thousands of home builders to the Oregon country. A part of the Wythe party remained and became the first American home builders in the Oregon country. We are now arrived at what we may call the third period. The four Flathead or Nez Perces Indians, shall we not call them Pilgrims, had crossed over to St. Louis (1832) in search of the "White Man's Book of Heaven". General Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame, then Indian agent for the West, had received them kindly, and introduced them widely to the religious world and elsewhere. Their advent kindled a flame of missionary zeal not often excelled, with the result that in 1834 the Methodists sent Jason Lee and others, and in 1835 the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, representing the Presbyterian and Congregationalists, sent Dr. Samuel Parker and Marcus Whitman as missionaries to the Oregon country. Parker completed the trip during the year of 1835, but Whitman turned back at the rendezvous on Green River, west of the crest of the Rock Mountains, and retraced his trail to his home for the purpose of securing more aid to occupy the field, and the following year with his young wife, in company with H. H. Spaulding and wife, crossed over to Vancouver, where the party arrived in September, 1836. These two were the first ladies to pass over the Oregon Trail and deserve special mention here, not so much for this distinction as for their piety, coupled with heroism and courage, not popularly expected of their sex. I will venture to digress to pay a just tribute to the pioneer ladies, so often, and I may say so generally, misunderstood. Students of history are well aware that, but for the firm support of the Pilgrim mothers, the lot of the Pilgrims that landed on Plymouth Rock would have been infinitely harder. I have often thought that in thinking and speaking of the Pilgrims we ought always to speak of the Pilgrim fathers and mothers. It has fallen to my lot to observe at close range the heroism of Pioneer mothers, and I wish to testify that, under stress of suffering or danger, they always became a bulwark of encouragement and support. Let me relate one instance. Meeting one day nine wagons on the Oregon Trail returning, we discovered the teams were all driven by the women and children—the men were all dead. This was on the trail in the Platte Valley after that dreadful scourge of cholera had struck the columns.