U.S. Presbyterian missionary who, with his wife, Eliza (née Hart), in 1836 established the Lapwai Mission (near present-day Lewiston, Idaho) with the first white home, church, and school in what is now Idaho.

Spalding was educated at Plattsbury (N.Y.) Academy, Western Reserve College (Ohio), and Lane Theological Seminary (Cincinnati) and was ordained in the Presbyterian ministry in 1835. He was first appointed to the Osage Indian mission (western Missouri) and then went west with the party of Marcus Whitman (Whitman, Marcus) (q.v.) in 1830. The printing press that Spalding and his wife brought in 1839 was the first in the Pacific Northwest. The Lapwai mission was closed in 1847 after the Whitman massacre, but in 1871 the Presbyterian Church resumed the work, which is still being carried on among the Nez Percé Indians.