Archives West Finding Aid

The Sager family migrated west during April, 1844. During their journey Henry and Naomi Sager died of "camp fever," leaving their seven children orphaned. The Sager children were adopted by Marcus and Narcissa Whitman in what is now Washington. Narcissa was mourning the death of her recently drowned daughter, Alice, and welcomed the opportunity to add the Sager children to the Whitman family. The Sagers lived with the Whitmans until the Whitman Massacre in November, 1847, in which Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, as well as John and Francis Sager were killed. In 1860 Catherine Sager, the oldest Sager daughter, wrote an autobiographical account of their journey west, "Across the Plains in 1844."