On January 11 , 1840 , the Eells house burned . Local Indians responded quickly to assist . When the Fort Colvile leader Archibald McDonald heard about the fire , he dispatched four men to make the house habitable . The Eellses had two sons while living at Tshimakain . Edwin Eells was born on July 27 , 1841 and Myron Eells was born on October 7 , 1843 . Dr. Marcus Whitman was the attending physician at both births . Myra was thirty-seven years old when her first son was born . Myron Eells would become a missionary , and spent much of his life on the Skokomish Reservation , to the west of Puget Sound , where his brother Edwin was Indian Agent . Cushing and Myra Eells ' mission was not successful . Myra Eells wrote in 1847 , " We have been here nine years and have not yet been permitted to hear the cries of one penitent or the songs of one redeemed soul . " On November 29 , 1847 the Whitmans and eleven other missionaries at Waiilaptu were killed in what became called the Whitman massacre . Tension had been building between the Cayuses and the growing numbers of American settlers in the area . A measles epidemic in November 1847 killed up to half the Cayuses , but only a few of the whites were affected . Some of the Cayuses blamed Whitman for the deaths of his patients , and this led to the killings , followed by the Cayuse War . Colonel Henry A. G. Lee , Oregon Volunteers called for volunteers to bring the Tshimakain missionaries to the Willamette Valley and safety . Major Joseph Magone with 60 volunteers escorted the Eells and Walker families to Oregon City on June 22 , 1848
Whitman massacre
Whitman massacre
Cushing Eells