Marcus Whitman was an American physician and missionary. He is most well-known for leading American settlers across the Oregon Trail, unsuccessfully attempting to Christianize the Cayuse Indians, and was subsequently killed by the Cayuse Indians in an event known as the 1847 Whitman massacre, over a misunderstanding, resulting in the beginning of the Cayuse war (1847-1855). Whitman’s alleged political influence over the United States’ claim to the Oregon country, as well as his purported leadership role in the emigration, were greatly exaggerated in the decades following his death, leading to great controversy in popular and academic literature. Whitman was born 4 September 1802 in Federal Hollow, New York. He married Narcissa Prentiss. Both were killed on 29 November 1847.

Jerome James Day, the youngest son of Henry and Ellen Day, was born in Truckee, California in 1876, and was working as a union miner when his wealth from the Hercules thrust him into business and politics. He studied at Gonzaga College and the University of Idaho, taking an accelerated program in mining when the Hercules began to turn a profit. He married Lucy Mix of Moscow, Idaho, in 1902 and fathered one son, Jerome James, Jr., b. 1911, and one daughter, Bernice Eugenia, b. 1904. He and his wife lived in Moscow for approximately fourteen years, and he became president of the Moscow State Bank, and president and major stockholder of the Idaho National Harvester Company, a venture with his in-laws. He was state senator from Latah County for three terms, 1909-1912.

Although the most socially active of the Days, he never cast off the sorrow of his son's drowning death at seventeen, the result of a boating accident while at prep school in the Seattle area. His daughter was married twice; the first time in 1925 to an Alaskan by the name of John Fuller Malony, the second time to a man named Sharkey about whom little is known.

Jerome remained closely connected with the Day mining companies, and in 1912 became president of the Tamarack and Custer Consolidated Co. When the Days bought the old Northport smelter Jerome moved from Moscow to be its president, and organized a bank at Northport. He was president of the Idaho Mining Association, 1919-1922, and for twenty years a leading spokesman for the Idaho mining industry.

He was prominent in the Idaho Democratic party and served on the Idaho State Board of Education and as regent of the university from 1933 until his death in Phoenix, Arizona, on March 9, 1941. He established several scholarships at the University of Idaho and his library of English classics and western Americana was donated to the University.