Narcissa Prentiss Whitman was an American missionary in the Oregon Country of what would become the state of Washington. On their way to found the Protestant Whitman Mission in 1836 with her husband, Marcus, near modern-day Walla Walla, Washington, she and Eliza Hart Spalding became the first documented European-American women to cross the Rocky Mountains.

Marcus Whitman was an American physician and missionary. He is most well-known for leading settlers across the Oregon Trail, unsuccessfully attempting to Christianize the Cayuse Indians, and being killed by the Cayuse Indians in the Whitman massacre.