Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1894-04-13
THE NEZ PIERCE INDIANS.

| - AAS ~ LII 4 LxI CE I'm D1A NS.
ItOetUe Hundred Indians on a
Reservation of 10000 dcres
of Fine Lnnd---A Printing
Press in 1886.
A little over sixty years ago
printing press was sent from the
Sandwich Islands by the Presby-
terian missionaries to Rev. II. IL.
Spaulding and wife, who brought
it up the Columbia river from the
Whitman mission, near Walla
Walla, to the Presbyterian mission
at Lapwai, twelve miles east of
Lewiston. DIR. Marcus Whitman,
Rev. Spaulding and wife established
a mission among the Nez Perces at
Lapwai in December, 1886. The
press arrived in 1S47, and E. o.
Hall printed on the same press
some small dictionaries in the Nez
Perce dialect, which were used in
the mission school. We printed a
new edition of this work in our old
newspaper Office at Lewiston in
1882, and that edition, bearing the
Nez Perce News imprint, is the
standard text book ON the reserva-
tion to-day. The mission press was
the first press on the Pacific slope,
with the exception of the press on
which the Deseret News was first
printed by the Mormons at Salt
Lake City. The Spaulding press is
now in the capitol building at Sa-
lem, Oregon, and we have an ex-
cellent photograph of it on exhibi-
ton in the FREE PRESS Office. The
original building in which the
Spaulding press was worked is still
standing at the Lapwai mission.
Nearly a third of century be-
fore Spaulding came, Lewis and
Clark wintered at the forks of the
Clearwater, thirty miles east of
Lapwai, and at their camp the Nez
Perces saw the first white people,
the first horses and the first iron
tools.
In 1888, Rev. A. B. Smith estab-
lished mission on Kamiah creek,
and attempted to cultivate a gar
den, but was compelled by Chief
Ellis, to abandon the place.
In 1910, the Jesuit missionaries,
De Smet, Mengarini and Point,
baptized several thousand Indians
ON Pen d. Oreille lake, and it was
reported that the Blessed Virgin
personally appeared to a little In
dian. At that time there were at
Lapwai, horses, cattle, sheep and
swine. Chief Ellis had been schooled
by the Catholics of the Hudson
Bay Fur company, on the Red
river of the north.
| Old Chief Joseph crossed over
Snake river and settled near lap
wal, and cultivated garden and
schooled his children at the mis-
sion. He was half Cayuse and
half Nez Perce. His son Joseph
afterwards left the mission and
settled without authority Of the
government in the Wallowa val
ley, Oregon, from which place he
went on his famous raid in 1877,
was captured with his band by
Gen. Miles, banished to the Indian
territory and from thence trans.
ferred in 1885 to the Colville
agency.
At the time of the Whitman
massacre November 20, 1847
Spaulding abandoned the I4apwai
mission and went to the William
ette valley, where he resided unit
1862, when he returned to Lapwai
Afterwards, when Senator Nesmitf
was appointed one ola commission
!, to inspect the agencies, he decided
that Spaulding was incompetent
!: and he suspended him. Judge w
G. Langford, of Walla Walla, pur
chased Spaulding's right to th'
Lapwai mission claim of $40 acres
q for 81 900.
Spaulding was absent about l.
4 years at his Waitsburg ranch, ant
returned in 1871, to Lapwai, a
: teacher in the employ of the U. s
Government, and died there il
1874. His remains were interre
in small grove at the mission
r About l 200 Indians now reside o.
2 the Lapwai reservation, which is
J. few miles east of Lewiston and i
o. 3Ox6O miles in size. Congress
should. by all means, pass la,
T. {; cutting up this reservation, appor
N tioning it out to the Indians, an
10 selling the surplus to the whites
e. The soil, climate and all tn
natural conditions render this
very desirable district for tn
homes of white men, and it is yer
wrong for the government to mair
tain the reservation.