Horace Sykes visited the memorial for Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and nine others about a century after the eleven were massacred by a band of Cayuse whom they had lived among or near since they first blazed the Oregon Trail in 1836.   The massacre occurred in 1847 and so did the decimation of half of the Cayuse people in a measles epidemic for which the indigene believed the Whitman Mission was the source.  Horace looks up at the “shaft on a hill” backlighted by the moon.  Even in daylight it was difficult then to frame a 35mm camera for it did not allow the photographer to look through the lens but rather through optics set to the side of the lens.  So we may ponder how he chose to imbricate the obelisk with the moon, but most likely the wag or wobble of chance was involved too.   (Click to Enlarge)