Born March 14, 1808

Prattsburg, New York

Died November 29, 1847

Waiilatpu, Washington (near present-day

Walla Walla, Washington)

Missionary

Narcissa Prentiss Whitman.

"The missionary work is hard, up-hill work, even the best of it. There are no flowery beds of ease here."

Narcissa Whitman in a letter to her parents, October 6, 1841, quoted in Where Wagons Could Go

Though many emigrants moved west in the nineteenth century to establish farms, trap beaver, or dig for gold, others came on a holy mission to convert western Native Americans to Christianity. Narcissa Prentiss Whitman, along with her husband, Marcus Whitman, established their mission in Oregon Country in 1836, making Whitman the first white woman to cross the Rocky Mountains. The missionaries helped prepare the way for the great migration west along the Oregon Trail in later years, but they never succeeded at converting many Indians to their religion. In 1847 Indians slaughtered the...