Eells and his family had to leave after the Native Americans massacred a group of neighboring missionaries.

They spent the next fourteen years farming and teaching in Oregon, before returning to Washington, where Eells founded a seminary that later became Whitman College.

[2] In the spring of 1837 the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions appointed Cushing and his fiancee Myra as missionaries to the Zulus in southeast Africa.

[1] On September 16, 1838, Eells conducted the first Protestant service in Stevens County at Chewelah, preaching through an interpreter.

When the Fort Colvile leader Archibald McDonald heard about the fire, he dispatched four men to make the house habitable.

[8] 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.

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.

Major Joseph Magone with 60 volunteers escorted the Eells and Walker families to Oregon City on June 22, 1848.

[10] Cushing Eells taught at different schools in the Tualatin Plains, One was the Oregon Institute which later became Willamette University.

Due to what he called a religious experience he decided to build a school on the site in memory of the Whitmans.

He devoted much effort in the years that followed to founding Congregational churches and schools in Washington Territory and raising money for the seminary.

With his wife's support Eells resigned from his positions, sold his land and returned to the Willamette Valley.

Eells consulted with John A. Simms, Indian agent for the area and located at Chewelah.

[18] Cushing Eells established the first Congregational Church at Chewelah in 1879 in the home of Thomas Brown (1827–1908).

[5] Eells continued to often preach to Indian groups in his later years, spent in eastern Washington.