A Survivor's Recollections of the Whitman Massacre is a memoir of a pioneer woman Matilda
Sager. The story is a good historical read revealing the author's experience when the 1847
massacre occurred. She was only eight at that time when her adoptive parents the missionary
Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife along with her two brothers were murdered. Excerpt: In the
spring of 1844 we started to make the journey across the plains with ox teams. I was born in
1839 October 16th near St. Joseph Mo. which was a very small town on the extreme frontier
right on the Missouri River with just a few houses. My father's name was Henry Sager. He moved
from Virginia to Ohio then to Indiana and from there to Missouri. My mother's name was Naomi
Carney-Sager. In the month of April 1844 my father got the Oregon fever and we started West
for the Oregon Territory. Our teams were oxen and for the start we went to Independence the
rendezvous where the companies were made up to come acrossthe plains. There were six children
then-one was born on the journey making seven in all.
