Dr. William Henry Gray (1810-1889) was a physician and lay missionary for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, was born on May 10, 1810. In 1836, he joined Marcus Whitman and Henry H. Spalding to travel overland and establish a mission to convert Indigenous people in what would become the Oregon Territory. In 1837, Gray traveled east in order to obtain more recruits for the missions. While in New York in the spring of 1838, he married Mary Augusta Dix; the couple would have eight children. That summer, the Grays traveled overland to the Pacific Northwest with missionaries Elkanah Walker and Cushing Eells. William H. Gray continued missionary work until 1842. In 1843, he was involved in the Wolf Meetings and meeting at Champoeg that established the Oregon Provisional Government; he subsequently served as a member of the Provisional Legislature.
From 1846 to 1855, Gray farmed on the Clatsop plains, and from 1855 to 1858 operated a sawmill. From 1858 to 1864, he lived in British Columbia, where he worked in the Fraser River mines and built a boat that he piloted along the Okanogan and Columbia Rivers to Celilo Falls. He subsequently lived in Astoria, Oregon, and wrote a history of Oregon that was published in 1870. He also served as secretary of the Pioneer and Historical Society of Oregon. Mary Augusta Dix Gray died in 1881; William H. Gray died in 1889. The couple were initially buried in Astoria, but in 1916 their bodies were reinterred at the site of the Whitman Mission near Walla Walla, Washington.
Caroline Augusta Gray (1840-1998) was a noted socialite and philanthropist in Portland, Oregon who built homes for poor women and girls with the YWCA. Kamm was the daughter of William Henry Gray. She married Jacob Kamm (1823-1912) pioneering Oregon steamship builder, industrialist, entrepreneur, co-owner/operator of the Ilwaco Railway & Navigation Company.
Handwritten diary from 1840 to 1842 written by William Henry Gray and typed transcription of the diary created approximately 1901 by Gray's daughter Caroline Augusta Gray Kamm. The handwritten daily diary documents Gray's professional and personal experiences at Spalding's Lapwai Mission among the Nez Perce and Flathead Indian Tribes between May 25, 1840 and February 25, 1842. The diary reveals that besides operating at carpenter, blacksmith, and overseer for the Mission farm buildings, Gray also acted as unofficial medical intern, providing care for Lapwai, Waiilaptu, Walla Walla, and Tshimakain and Mission personnel, dispensing drugs, bleeding patients, performing surgery, delivering babies, and overseeing burials. He recorded in the diary the numerous Cayuse, Nez Perce, and Flathead Tribal members with whom he interacted, hired, chastised, and tried to save both medically and spiritually.
The manuscript offers Gray's perspective on the deterioration of the interpersonal relationships among the missionaries and the Cayuse, Nez Perce, and Flathead Tribal members five years before the "Whitman Massacre" and Cayuse War.
The diary is handwritten in ink on ruled thick journal stock in cursive with some idiomatic abbreviations consists of approximately 75,000 words. The manuscript is without a cover but retains the original sewing and rawhide ties. Approximately eight leaves are removed entirely or partially from the beginning and end of the of the manuscript, leaving tears and soiling. Two pages were removed, according to notes in the manuscript. The collections includes a typewritten transcription on onion skin paper with occasional corrections and annotations in pencil. The transcription was produced in 1901 by Gray's daughter Caroline Kamm.
No restrictions on access after preservation work completed.
Creator's copyrights are in the public domain.
Purchased from Zephyr Used & Rare Books, May 2024. From the library of Caroline Augusta Gray Kamm.