4. Protestant Ladder

Henry and Eliza Spalding, Presbyterian missionaries stationed at Lapwai on the Clearwater River in present-day western Idaho, produced this Protestant Ladder in 1845. The ladder may have been related to a 1839 Protestant Ladder (now lost) created by Methodist minister Daniel Lee, who was stationed in the Willamette Valley.

In 1836 two Presbyterian couples arrived in the Oregon Country to establish missions in the Plateau region. Marcus and Narcissa Whitman established a mission at Waiilatpu, several miles west of the present-day town of Walla Walla, Washington. The Spaldings established their mission at Lapwai in the traditional territory of the Nez Perces (Nimi’ipuu). The first Catholic missionaries, Francis N. Blanchet and Modeste Demers arrived in the Pacific Northwest in 1838. By the early 1840s the Presbyterians learned of the popularity of the Catholic Ladder produced by Blanchet in 1839.