The Washington Historical Quarterly, Volume V, 1914Various
History
The Washington Historical Quarterly, Volume V, 1914
Various
Northwest, Pacific -- History -- Periodicals
Her parentage and environment were unusual. On the banks of a swiftly
running stream, called Lapwai, which empties into the Clearwater
river a dozen miles or so east of the City of Lewiston, in the State
of Idaho, was the place of her birth. Their home was a nondescript
building, made of logs, eighteen feet wide and forty-eight feet long. A
partition, also made of logs, divided it into two rooms, one eighteen
feet square in which the family lived, and the other eighteen by thirty
feet, which was used for a school and assembly room. It had been a
great task to erect that house. There were no teams, and all the logs
had to be carried four miles by the Indians. It took thirty men to
carry one log. The parents were missionaries, and had lived there about
eighteen months, with no white neighbors nearer than one hundred and
twenty miles and the only means of communication between them was on
horseback.
Now let us go back thirty years or more. In the spring of 1806, when
Lewis and Clark were returning back across the continent in their most
wonderful exploring expedition, they passed through this section of
the country. On arriving at a place called Kamiah, sixty miles east of
Lapwai, they found the snow too deep to allow of their crossing the
mountains, and were obliged to remain there about a month. They found
the Indians of this tribe very friendly and accommodating. They were
really a superior race of people. Most of them had never seen any white
people before, and none of them had ever seen a black man, like York
of that party. Their curiosity was greatly aroused. They even tried to
wash the black off from his face. The thirty days or more spent there
was mutually very enjoyable, and the memory of it was treasured up in
their minds for very many years. It is not known that there were any
very religiously inclined men among them, but all knew of the existence
of a God, and Mr. Clark at least is said to have been a church member.
It is more than probable that some seeds of Divine truth were dropped
into their darkened minds at the time, for twenty-five years later they
sent a delegation of four men to St. Louis to get further knowledge of
the white man's God, and the book or guide to Heaven. Two of these were
elderly men, and two were younger. On arriving at St. Louis, then the
emporium of the West, they were cordially received by General Clark
who was then Superintendent of Indian Affairs, having charge of all
Indians living in the far West. He remembered well the hospitality he
and his company had received at the hands of their tribe a quarter of
a century before, and took great pleasure in requiting it in a fitting
manner. They arrived in the fall. During the following winter the two
elderly men sickened and died. There is a tradition, that just before
starting, one of the survivors made the following speech: "I came to
you over the trail of many moons from the setting sun. I came with one
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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