Spalding, Henry Hart, 1839-1898

Henry Hart Spalding was born in Lapwai, Oregon Territory, on November 24, 1839. The son of missionaries Henry Harmon and Eliza Hart Spalding, he was one of the first children of two white parents born in the Oregon Territory. The Spaldings lived in Lapwai, where they attempted to convert the Nez Perce to Christianity, through much of the younger Henry's childood. After the family's friends the Whitmans were killed by Cayuse Indians in 1847, the Spaldings withdrew to the Willamette Valley of Oregon. Henry Hart attended school at Tualatin Academy (the high school associated with Pacific University in Forest Grove), from at least 1853-1858. He later moved to Almota, Washington, where he was a businessman with interests in a hotel, orchards, and other concerns. He died after being injured in a fire in 1898.