born Sept. 4, 1802, Rushville, N.Y., U.S.
died Nov. 29, 1847, Waiilatpu, Oregon Territory
U.S. missionary and pioneer.
A physician and Congregational missionary, he was sent to the Oregon region after offering his services to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. In 1836 he and his wife founded a mission among the Cayuse Indians near present-day Walla Walla, Wash. He helped the Indians build houses and a corn-grinding mill, and his wife opened a mission school. In 1842 he traveled east to encourage settlement of the Oregon country. On his return he joined a caravan of 1,000 immigrants to the Columbia River valley. He cared for Indian children in an 1847 measles epidemic, but he was accused of sorcery when many died while white children survived. The Indians attacked the whites and massacred 14, including the Whitmans. Their deaths led Congress to organize the Oregon Territory in 1848.