week. In Liberty, the missionary group waited for the rest of their travel party, a group of fur traders with whom they would travel as far as the continental divide. After some logistical complications, on May 25 they joined the Rocky Mountain Fur Company caravan led by mountain men Milton Sublette and Thomas Fitzpatrick. The fur traders had seven wagons, each pulled by six mules. An additional cart drawn by two mules carried Sublette, who had lost a leg a year earlier and walked on a "cork" leg made by a friend. The combined group arrived at the fur-trader's rendezvous on July 6. Eliza and Narcissa were the first Euro-American women to make this overland trip. In July 1836, while the company paused at the Rendezvous in the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming, Spalding wrote a letter to a fellow minister and newspaper editor about the journey west. The letter, preserved in a transcript by the "Library of Western Fur Trade Historical Source Documents", provides one of the earliest first hand accounts about the route west and conditions found during this journey across the North American continent. The Pacific Northwest Leaving the association of the fur traders, the group of missionaries continued on to the Pacific Northwest. They reached Fort Hall on August 3, and Fort Boise (near Caldwell, Idaho) on August 19. Eleven days later they were at Fort Walla Walla, then operated by the Canada-based Hudson's Bay Company. After a trip further down the Columbia River to Fort Vancouver for supplies, they backed down the trail to Lapwai near present-day Lewiston, Idaho. The Spaldings finally settled into their new home on November 29, 1836. The Whitman party continued on to establish a mission in Waiilatpu, Washington. When the Spaldings established their mission to the Nez Perce, they also established the first European American home in what is today the state of Idaho. They were also responsible, in 1839, for bringing the first printing press into the territory. Spalding was generally successful in his interaction with the Nez Perce, baptizing several of their leaders and teaching tribal members. He developed an appropriate written script for the Nez Perce language, and translated parts of the Bible, including the entire book of Matthew, for the use of his congregation. Eliza Spalding was very well liked by the Nez Perce peoples, whose women often followed her around her home wanting to see