Henry H. Spalding

Who was Henry H. Spalding?

Henry Harmon Spalding, and his wife Eliza Hart Spalding were prominent Presbyterian missionaries and educators working primarily with the Nez Perce in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. The Spaldings and their fellow missionaries were among the earliest Americans to travel across the western plains, through the Rocky Mountains and into the lands of the Pacific Northwest to their religious missions in what would become the states of Idaho and Washington. Their missionary party of five, including Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa and William H. Gray, joined with a group of fur traders to create the first wagon train along the Oregon Trail.

Henry Spalding was born in Bath, New York, in either 1803 or 1804. He graduated from Western Reserve College in 1833, and entered Lane Theological Seminary in the class of 1837. He left, without graduation, upon his appointment in 1836 by the Boston-based American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions as a missionary to the Nez Perce Indians of Idaho.

Eliza Hart was born August 11, 1807 to Levi Hart and Martha Hart in Kensington, Connecticut. In 1820 the family moved to Oneida County, New York.