Question.—When, and in what manner, did you learn of the massacre?
Answer.—I was residing with my father’s family at Dr. Whitman’s saw-mill, about twenty miles from Wailatpu, where we had gone for the winter. My brother, a young man about twenty-four years of age, and about two years older than myself, had gone down to the station, the Tuesday before, with a load of lumber, and for provisions, and was expecting to return about the last of the week. Joseph Smith and family were also living at the saw-mill, except his oldest daughter, who was at the station. His family was out of flour and meat, and ours was now out of meat. On Saturday evening, he proposed to me to go down the next day for provisions. I did not wish to go down; told him if he wanted provisions he could go. He said if he had a horse he would go. We offered him a horse. He still urged me to go, as there was no one, he said, to stay with his family. I went down on horseback on the Sabbath, being the next Sabbath after the massacre. I did not go to the place till about an hour after dark, and learned nothing of the massacre till after I had got into the house. In the room where I expected to find my brother, I found them eating supper, with several Indians in the room. At the table was Mrs. Hays, and Joseph Stanfield, and Mrs. Hall, with the remnant of her family. About a couple of minutes after I went in, Joseph Stanfield left the table and went out of the house (this was some time previous to the rest leaving the table), and was gone for about three hours, I knew not where; but after he returned, he said he had started to go to Nicholas Finlay’s, a half-breed’s lodge, but had got lost. Nicholas had come in about half an hour before Stanfield returned. In the mean time I had learned from the Indian Beardy, through Eliza Spalding (his interpreter), of the massacre. This was in short sentences and much confused. Beardy said, however, that the Doctor was his friend, and he did not know of it until a good many had been killed, and he was sorry for what had taken place; he said the Indians said the Doctor was poisoning them, and that was the reason they did it, but he (Beardy) did not believe it. That he was there to protect the women and children, and no more should be killed. During the evening I also learned of the number that had been killed, and of those who had escaped from the place; but it was not known what had become of them.
I was informed by Stanfield that my brother had met an Indian who had told him to go back and stay for a week, but another Indian told him he could safely go on for provisions, and that he would go with him. He went on to within half a mile of the mission. The Indians were said to have gone thus far with him. Stanfield said he there found him dead, shot through the head near one eye, and there he buried him. Stanfield said also that evening that the Doctor was poisoning the Indians, which had caused the massacre; that Joe Lewis had heard from an adjoining room one night the Doctor and Mrs. Whitman talking of poisoning them, and that the Doctor had said it was best to destroy them by degrees, but that Mrs. Whitman said it was best to do it at once, and they would be rid of them, and have all their land and horses as their own; and that he (Joe Lewis) had told the Indians this before the massacre.
Stanfield also asked me if I had heard of his being married. I told him I had heard from my brother that he was going to take Mrs. Hays for a wife. He said: “We are married, but have not yet slept together.” I said: “Yes, I understand, you pretend to be married.” He said: “We are married; that is enough.” I thought it strange why he was saved unless he was a Catholic, and during the evening took an occasion, when I thought he would not suspect my object, to ask Stanfield whether he was a Catholic? He said, “I pass for one.”
I slept with Stanfield that night; did not retire till late. Next morning, Crockett Bewley, a young man about twenty-one or twenty-two, I should think, who was sick at the time of the first massacre, and whose clothes had been stolen (by Stanfield), came into the room wrapped in a blanket or a quilt. Bewley seemed to speak of the Doctor’s poisoning the Indians as something commonly reported among them as the cause of the massacre, but said he did not believe any thing of it, but he believed Joe Lewis was one of the leaders, and the Catholic priests were the cause of it. Stanfield replied, “You need not believe any such thing, and you had better not let the Indians hear you say that,” and spoke in a voice as though he was somewhat angry. Soon after this, Bewley left the room; Stanfield turned to me and said: “He had better be careful how he talks; if the Indians get hold of it the Catholics may hear of it.” As soon as I could do it without being suspected, I sought an opportunity to caution Bewley about the danger I thought he was running in speaking thus in the presence of Stanfield, and asked him if he did not know of Stanfield being a Catholic? He said he did not. I told him he might have known it from the fact of most French being Catholics. He replied he did not know of the French being Catholics more than any other people. I told him to be cautious hereafter how he spoke, and he said he would.
Soon after the conversation with Bewley, I told Stanfield I must return home; he said I must not, the Indian chiefs would be there after a while and would tell me what I must do; said he did not think I could get off till the next day.
We now commenced making a coffin for one of the Sager children that had died the night before. Soon after, the chief Tilokaikt came. He told me I could not go back till the next day, that he would then send two Indians back with me. I told Stanfield, in the chief’s presence, that I had told my folks I should be back on Monday if I came at all. Stanfield told me in reply, that the chief says, “Then you may go;” Stanfield also said, “The chief says tell them all to come down and bring every thing down that is up there; we want them to come down and take care of the families and tend the mill. Tell them, ‘Don’t undertake to run away; if you do, you will be sure to be killed;’ not be afraid, for they shall not be hurt.”
The chief had now done talking. Stanfield now told me to caution them, our people, at the saw-mill, as to what they should say; if they said any thing on the subject, “say that the Doctor was a bad man, and was poisoning the Indians.” He had also before that told me the same. I got a piece of meat and asked for some salt; but he said there was none about the house; afterward I found this was not the case. I then returned home, and informed our people as to what had taken place, and my father’s first reply was, “The Catholics are at the bottom of it.” Mr. Smith admitted it, but said, immediately, we must all become Catholics for our safety, and before we left the saw-mill, and afterward, he said he believed the Doctor was poisoning, and believed it from what Joe Stanfield had told him before about the Doctor’s misusing the half-breeds and children at his mission. The next day, Tuesday, we went down to the mission, and arrived after dark; found the young men, Bewley and Amos Sales, who were sick at the time of the first massacre, were both killed, and their bodies were lying outside of the door near the house where they lay during the night, and Stanfield said he could not bury them until he got the permission of the Indians. The next day we helped to bury them.
Here I would say that the two Indians the chief wished to send with me, as he said, to see us safe down, as Stanfield interpreted to me at the time, were the chief’s sons, and he wished me to wait because Edward, Tilokaikt’s son, had gone to the Umatilla to the great chief, to see what to do with the two young men who were sick. This, Stanfield told me, was the business which Edward Tilokaikt had gone for, and he would not get back so as to go with me that day. Three Indians, however, arrived within an hour after I got to the saw-mill, viz., Clark Tilokaikt, Stikas and one whose name I never knew, and came down a part of the way with us next day. I learned from Mrs. Canfield and her daughter, that this same Edward Tilokaikt, after he returned from the Umatilla, gave the first blow with his whip, and broke and run out of doors, when other Indians finished the slaughter of the sick men. While at the station, Joseph Smith threatened me with the Indians if I did not obey him. I felt our condition as bad and very dangerous from the Indians, and feared that Smith would join them. He sometimes talked of going on to the Umatilla to live with them. His daughter was taken by the chief’s sons (first Clark, and in the second place, Edward) for a wife. I told Mr. Smith, were I a father, I would never suffer that, so long as I had power to use an arm; his reply was, “You don’t know what you would do; I would not dare to say a word if they should take my own wife.” I continued to regard our situation as exceedingly dangerous till we got out of the country.
After we had arrived at Wallawalla, I said, in the presence of Mr. McBean, that I supposed there were present some of the Indians who had killed my brother, and if I knew them I would kill them yet. Mr. McBean said, “Take care what you say, the very walls have ears.” He was very anxious to get us safe to the Wallamet.
Q.—Would you suppose one who was acquainted at that place liable to get lost in going that evening to Finlay’s lodge?
A.—I would not. It was in sight and a plain path to it, and was not more than twenty-five yards off.
Q.—When did you learn from your brother that Stanfield was going to take Mrs. Hays as a wife?
A.—Some two or more weeks before the massacre, something was said as to Mr. Hoffman taking Mrs. Hays. My brother says, “No, I heard Joe Stanfield say that he was going to take her as a wife.”
Q.—Did your brother appear to believe that this was about to take place?
A.—He did, and my brother talked about it,—made us believe it was going to take place.
Q.—What opportunity had your brother to know about this, more than yourself?
A.—He boarded at the station, and was some of the time teaming from the saw-mill, and Mrs. Hays cooked for him and several others of the Doctor’s hands, among whom was Stanfield.
Q.—Why did you think Stanfield was a Catholic, as a reason for his being saved?
A.—Because I heard Dr. Whitman say at the mill, that the Catholics were evidently trying to set the Indians upon him, but he thought he could keep it down for another year, when he would be safe. I supposed he expected safety from the government being extended over the country.
Q.—How did Stanfield seem to know that the chief would be there after a while, and would tell you what you might do as to going back to the saw-mill?
A.—I did not know.
Q.—Why did you tell your people that you would be back on Monday, if at all?
A.—Because we were in an Indian country, and I remembered what I had heard the Doctor say at the Umatilla, and my brother had not returned as expected.
Q.—Had you any means of knowing what “great chief,” at the Umatilla, Tilokaikt spoke of, where his son Edward had gone to learn what to do with the sick young men?
A.—I had not.
Q.—Did you know at that time that the bishop was said to be at Umatilla?
A.—Yes.
Q.—Did you form in your own mind, at that time, any opinion as to whom Edward had gone to consult?
A.—I thought the term “great chief” might have been put in to deceive me, as Stanfield had told me, the evening before, that the Catholics were going to establish a mission right away at that place, and that they would protect the women and children, and I thought it might be the Catholics he was consulting, or it might be some great Indian chief. This talk of establishing a station there continued for more than a week after we got down to the station. After I found Bewley and Sales were killed, I seemed to forget much until even after I had got down, and even to the plains, when the facts again came more clearly to my recollection, and I spoke of them freely to my parents and to others.
(Signed,)
Daniel Young.
Sworn and subscribed to, before me, this 20th day of January, A. D. 1849, in Tualatin Plains, Oregon Territory.
G. W. Coffinbury, Justice of the Peace.
