Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 16/Correspondence of the Reverend Ezra Fisher, Part 1
Correspondence of the
Reverend Ezra Fisher
Pioneer Missionary of the American Baptist Home Mission Society in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Oregon
Edited by
SARAH FISHER HENDERSON
NELLIE EDITH LATOURETTE
KENNETH SCOTT LATOURETTE
EDITORS' PREFACE
The letters here given to the public were written by the Reverend Ezra Fisher to the American Baptist Home Mission Society. Their publication was planned by his youngest daughter, Mrs. Sarah Fisher Henderson. She collected the letters, had them transcribed, and with the assistance of Miss Latourette had done part of the editing before her death. In her will she provided for the completion of the work. Her executors entrusted this to Miss Latourette and Mr. Latourette, who have tried to carry it on in as close accord as possible with her original plans. These included a life of Mr. Fisher, such occasional changes in the text of the letters as would make them more clear, and notes of historical explanation. The life is the work of Miss Latourette. The emendation of the text was begun by Mrs. Henderson and Miss Latourette and was completed by the latter. These emendations seemed to Mrs. Henderson desirable in view of the conditions under which the letters were composed. They were written under the most adverse surroundings of frontier life, amid frequent distractions and without opportunity for revision. Certain minor rhetorical and grammatical errors inevitably crept in which the author would, with his usual care in such matters, have corrected had he had the opportunity. It is to make these corrections that the emendations have been designed. They have been slight, have in no instance altered the meaning, and usually have been indicated. Omissions, also indicated, have been made of occasional phrases, sentences and paragraphs. The historical notes are the work of Mr. Latourette.
The editors wish to express their heartiest appreciation and thanks to those who have helped make this work possible, especially to the officers of the American Baptist Home Mission Society for the loan of the original manuscripts; to Mr. George H. Himes, of the Oregon Historical Society, for frequent and ungrudging contributions from his rich stores of information; to Mrs. Ann Eliza Fisher Latourette for her constant interest; to the executors of Mrs. Henderson's will, Mr. L. E. Latourette and Mr. R. W. Fisher; and to the editor of the Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society for their kindness in offering its pages to the initial publication of the larger part of the letters.
THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR
Ezra Fisher was a native of New England. He was a descendant of Anthony Fisher, who came from Syleham County, Suffolk, England, in 1637, and settled at Dedham, Mass. Here at the beginning of the Revolution lived Ezra Fisher's grandparents, Benjamin and Sara (Everett) Fisher. Five of their sons answered the call to arms of April 19, 1775. Six of them served later in the war, the eldest dying of camp fever at Ticonderoga.
The youngest, Aaron, was in Captain Asa Fairbank's company at the Lexington alarm, it is said, when but seventeen years of age. He afterward served in the regiments of Col. Ephraim Wheelock, of Col. Carleton and of Col. Rufus Putnam, most of the time with rank of sergeant. During the war he was married to Miss Betty Moore and, at its close, they removed from Dedham and settled on a farm near Wendell, Mass. Here it was that Ezra Fisher was born, January 6, 1800.
His environment was that of the average New England boy at the beginning of the last century. In the home of his parents were few luxuries and much hard work, but there was a fireside where God was worshipped, the Bible read, religion and education discussed and a vital interest taken in the affairs of the State so lately formed. Like other boys of his day, he was privileged to learn, from the generation who had desperately struggled for them, how the civil liberties of that state were won. Unlike most boys of his time, he learned from Baptist parents the meaning of religious liberty. They themselves had been forced to contribute to the support of the established church and could relate sad tales of the various persecutions which had harassed their denomination in New England until at least 1799.
All the early years of his life were spent on his father's farm. The knowledge of farming there obtained and later supplemented by reading along that line served him well as a pioneer, as did also an unusual ability to turn his hand to many things. To the hard conditions of his life on the farm he doubtless owed not only the latter talent, but his tireless industry and his ability to endure hardships. In spite of health which was never rugged, these qualities were his to a marked degree.
From the common schools near his home, he gained sufficient education to begin teaching at the age of eighteen. At the same age he was converted and united with the Baptist church in Wendell. Out of the religious life which followed came the conviction that he ought to preach the Gospel, and with it, the resolution to fit himself thoroughly for the work.
With no other aid than his own, he struggled nearly twelve years to carry out this purpose. His preparation for college was received in part from a nearby academy, but progress was slow because of much time necessarily spent in teaching and in work on the farm. Severe sickness also hindered him.
He was admitted to Amherst College in 1822. That institution had opened its doors only the year before for the purpose of educating "poor and pious young men for the ministry." Here among many with similar aim to his own, he found the opportunities he sought. Although a good student, working his way meant long absences while teaching, and another illness, which was all but fatal, left him much weakened in health, so that his graduation was delayed until 1828, when he took his bachelor's degree with a class of forty, twentythree of whom were preparing for the ministry.
The following year he entered Newton Theological Seminary, where he studied until January, 1830. He then accepted a call to the pastorate of the Baptist church at Cambridge, Vermont, and was there ordained to the ministry, January 20, 1830.
On February 7th of the same year he was married to Miss Lucy Taft, of Clinton, N. Y., but formerly of Wendell, Mass. Shortly after the wedding they departed in a sleigh for Cambridge, Vt. They had known each other from childhood, and their marriage was the consummation of an engagement which began two years before his entrance to college.
In February of the next year he entered upon his second pastorate at Springfield in the same state. His work of nearly two years in this place resulted in the conversion and baptism of about eighty persons. From Springfield Ezra Fisher wrote, under date of September 22, 1832, the first letter of his correspondence with the American Baptist Home Mission Society. That Society had been organized the preceding April, and while it included in its scope the whole of North America, it was religious destitution in the Mississippi Valley which gave it birth.
Western need of the gospel had appealed strongly to both Mr. and Mrs. Fisher. In sympathy with the Home Mission movement from its beginning and feeling that New England claims upon them were small as compared with those of the West, they had early decided that, if the Lord should open the way, they would gladly serve Him "in some destitute portion of the Great Valley."
Their wish met with the approval of the Home Mission Society. Dr. Jonathan Going, first Corresponding Secretary of the Society, on a visit to their church in Springfield, had encouraged them to go to the Valley the coming fall. Hoping at the time that they might do so, Ezra Fisher wrote the first letter to inform him that they felt unable to leave the church in Springfield until the next spring or fall. Late in October, however, came a letter asking him to go immediately to Indianapolis, Ind., and assuring him that the Home Mission Society would furnish him an outfit and support him in that place. Reluctantly they changed their plans and at once made ready to go.
On the twelfth of November, 1832, they bade goodbye to their friends in Springfield and, with their little daughter, began their first journey westward. Stopping only for a visit of a few days with Mrs. Fisher's parents in Clinton, N. Y., they were five weeks on the way, not reaching Indianapolis until the 22d of December.
His commission probably awaited him there. It was among the first issued by the American Baptist Home Mission Society. He at once began work at a salary of three hundred dollars a year, fifty dollars having been allowed him for outfit.
With his arrival at Indianapolis, his own pen takes up the account of his life and work and continues it almost uninterruptedly until 1856. It is the story of how he strove to place the leaven of the Kingdom of God within the developing life of the Mississippi Valley, of how he journeyed by ox team to the Pacific Coast to perform a like service for Oregon, and of how he did indeed labor in Oregon amid many discouragements to set in motion the forces which make for effective righteousness. For the most part, only the outlines of what he himself has written would be in place here.
While the purpose of his correspondence was primarily to give the Society an account of his own work and of the Baptist cause where he labored, he does much more than this. He describes the country, its places, the life and conditions of every field he occupied, suggests, often with prophet's vision, bases for future operations, gives a comprehensive view of American expansion westward and at least touches upon nearly every event of importance connected with the earlier history of the Pacific Coast.
The church in Indianapolis was a chaotic one of fifty-five members. They had no articles of faith and their beliefs were almost as varied as the places from which they had come. Most were opposed to the support of the ministry. They had no Sunday school and many did not believe in the institution. In their association of fifteen or sixteen churches, he knew of no church which had preaching more than one Sabbath a month and there were but two ministers who devoted much time to their calling. Probably the majority of Baptists throughout the state had little or no sympathy with the benevolent societies of the denomination.
His efforts were chiefly confined to his own church. He preached, however, when possible, in neighboring places and visited sufficiently among the churches of the state to keep informed of their needs. He assisted in the organization of the General Association of Baptists in Indiana, in 1833, and of a state Baptist Education Society in 1835.
At the close of his pastorate in Indianapolis, March 22, 1835, many discouraging conditions remained, but the church was in harmony, had a Sunday school of ninety or more members, and would, he believed, furnish half the salary of a minister the next year.
Ezra Fisher continued to make his home in Indianapolis until April 12, 1836, the last year acting as agent of the American Sunday School Union for Indiana. Because of a wish to work directly for the Baptist denomination, he declined the invitation to serve another year, and, because his health would not admit of the sedentary life, he also refused a position as the head of Franklin College, soon to go into operation at Franklin, Indiana.
Under commission of the Home Mission Society, he again went west, this time to Quincy, Ill., to take charge of a church of nine members, worshipping in a small school room. He arrived there May 4, 1836. For the first year only his time was divided between the church at Quincy and one called "Bethany" at Pay son, ten miles southeast.
Supported but in part by the Society, during most of his stay of three and a half years, he was able to live, to use his own words, "only by uniting industry and economy with self-denial." When the brave little church at Quincy was building, he cheerfully taught school to make up the deficit in his salary, and, at the end of that year, wrote: "This church is truly becoming one of the most pleasant churches in the land and will soon become one of the most desirable situations for an efficient preacher in the whole West. . . . When God in His providence shall indicate to me that this place demands another than a frontier man, if my health and that of my family permit, I hope once more to take a frontier post." The church had forty members at the time he left it.
He had hoped to go to Texas in the fall of 1839, but, disappointed in this, he went at that time to Iowa Territory. So far as is known, there is no record of why he did not go to Texas or of his first year's work in Iowa, save that he preached for a time at Bloomington, now Muscatine, and also at Wapsipinikie, now Independence. In serving these places, it is likely that he devoted considerable time to exploring and endeavoring to relieve the general field.
In 1841, when he again takes pen to report his movements since November, 1840, we find him the only Baptist minister in a region "from twenty to fifty miles in width, extending from the mouth of the Iowa river up the Mississippi to the mouth of the Macoquetois [Moquoketa] and thence up that stream some ten miles above its forks." His station was Davenport.
In endeavoring to relieve the destitution, he travelled during the quarter ending December 10, 1841, seven hundred and fifty miles. Through all that part of Iowa territory and across the river at Rock Island, Ill., and neighboring points, his was a familiar figure for more than five years. He preached the gospel, made religious visits to hundreds of homes, took a leading part in organizing the Baptist work in the territory and in organizing temperance societies, gave many addresses on the subjects of temperance and of Sunday schools and secured numerous signatures to the temperance pledge.
The larger part of his time was given to the churches in Davenport and in Muscatine, the latter church having been organized by him October 31, 1841. It was while living in Muscatine in 1843 that he planned to go to Oregon the following year.
Feeling that the opportunity of visiting relatives and friends would not again be theirs, Mr. and Mrs. Fisher, with their three children, spent the summer and fall of 1843 in the East. It was their first trip back since coming to the Mississippi Valley nearly eleven years before. At the end of the long journey from Iowa, their little daughter announced their arrival at the home of her grandparents in New York by exclaiming, "O grandpa, we've come to stay all night." Their youngest daughter[1] was born during the visit there.
Leaving New York late in the fall, they reached Davenport, Ia., December 15, having come all the way by team.
Under appointment of the Home Mission Society, and still expecting to go to Oregon in the spring of 1844, Ezra Fisher began preaching to various churches within reach of Davenport, travelling that quarter four hundred and twenty-eight miles.
Unfavorable reports of the immigration of 1843 soon reached him. Some of the company had returned, like the Israelitish spies of Canaan, to discourage the hearts of many anticipating the Oregon land of promise.
The uncertainty of getting beyond Fort Hall with wagons and the unsettled condition of Oregon, together with other reasons, led Ezra Fisher to defer his going to Oregon until 1845. He was therefore appointed to labor at Rock Island, Ill., and Mt. Pleasant, twelve miles southeast. On March 14, 1845, at the close of his year with the American Baptist Home Mission Society, he received his commission to labor in Oregon.
Early in April Ezra Fisher and his family set out from Rock Island, Ill., on their journey of more than twenty-five hundred miles, to the Willamette Valley, Oregon. Going into rendezvous at St. Joseph, Mo., they left that place the middle of May. To their joy they soon afterward overtook, or were overtaken by Rev. Hezekiah Johnson and family from Iowa, whom they had expected to accompany them, but had given up. The two men had been closely associated in organizing the Baptist work in Iowa. At the solicitation of both, Hezekiah Johnson had also been appointed by the Home Mission Society a missionary to Oregon. A salary of three hundred dollars[2] for one year from the time of their arrival in Oregon had been advanced to each of them.
Like the rest of their company, the two missionaries and their families experienced none of the extreme sufferings which fell to the lot of many who travelled the Oregon Trail, and of some who that year departed from it. So far as known, the worst Indian depredation in the family of Ezra Fisher was the cutting off of the brass buttons on his son's roundabout. But there were trials in abundance and their share of the very real suffering and danger which were a part of crossing the plains to Oregon.
One of their trials was the disregard of the Sabbath, which they not only felt to be wrong, but which prevented their accomplishing as much in a religious way as they had hoped. Except in a genuine emergency, such as lack of water, or of feed for the cattle, on the Sundays when their company insisted upon travelling, the missionaries would tarry behind, have family devotions, rest and overtake the main company late in the evening.
About half of the Sabbaths were observed at least by halting. On these occasions, one of the three ministers of the company would preach, a wagon usually serving as a pulpit.
At The Dalles Ezra Fisher preached his first sermon in Oregon from John 3:16. Here the missionaries camped and built a flatboat. They were out of provisions and obliged to pay eight dollars per hundred pounds for flour and six dollars for beef. Dried salmon, bought of the Indians, was generally a substitute for the latter.
Some of the party, Ezra Fisher among them, brought the cattle and horses down the Indian trail on the north bank of the Columbia. On the flatboat, laden with their wagons and possessions and a skiff for use in catching their flatboat below the rapids, the rest of their number embarked, and thus came to the portage at the Cascades where they camped in a drenching rain.
Their boat, which was set adrift to go over the Cascades, lodged in the rocks amid-stream and all efforts to dislodge it were in vain. In their extremity, they sent to Dr. McLoughlin for aid. With his usual kindness, he sent them a bateau.
At the Cascades, or, it would seem more likely, at a later camping point, those who had come down the north bank joined them. They were wet and in a nearly famished condition. Ezra Fisher and his son[3] had been living for the last day or two, on a daily half-pint of milk, and a little wheat which they had in their pockets. Hot biscuits[4] were a never-to-be-forgotten luxury of their repast that night.
Continuing their journey in the bateau, the party arrived at a point near Linnton on or near the sixth of December. Here the two families separated, Hezekiah Johnson and family continuing up the river to Oregon City, while Ezra Fisher and family, piloted by Edward Lenox, went to Tualatin Plains.
In the log cabin of David T. Lenox, well known as captain of the first company to reach Oregon in 1843, they found shelter from the rain and cold. It was the same cabin in which had been organized, on May 25, 1844, the first Baptist church west of the Rocky Mountains. It was about eighteen by twenty-two feet, and had a "lean-to." Although the family of David Lenox numbered thirteen and the "lean-to" was occupied by a widow and three children, with the utmost hospitality the six new arrivals were made welcome. Together the three families spent the remainder of the winter, all making the best of their cramped quarters.
Each morning the beds, which had been spread out on the puncheon floor, would be rolled up in the buffalo robes which had seen duty on the Plains. They did their cooking over the stick fireplace. This was simplified because of a lack of materials with which to cook. They were without flour, milk, butter or eggs, and their only meat was the game which they were able to kill. Boiled wheat, occasionally served with molasses, potatoes and dried-pea coffee, were their chief dependence. They had, besides, dried peas and turnips.
In the evening they would gather around the fireplace, seated, for the most part, on benches or blocks of wood and, by the light of a pitchy knot, Ezra Fisher would read the words for the children to spell. On Sunday evenings he would conduct a Bible class.
Upon his arrival at the home of David Lenox, he had at once united with the little church which had been organized the preceding year and of which Rev. Vincent Snelling, of the immigration of '44, was pastor. This was at West Union, six miles northeast of what is now Hillsboro. During the winter he provided for his family, travelled up and down the Valley, going nearly as far south as the Luckiamute River, acquainted himself with conditions and needs, and preached every Sunday but three.
In the spring, David Lenox moved his family into a new, hewed log cabin and Ezra Fisher's remained in the old. The following summer Ezra Fisher taught a term of school, kept up his preaching each Sabbath, superintended a Sunday school of twenty-five pupils, and, when Rev. Vincent Snelling moved to what is now Yamhill County, became pastor of the West Union Church. During the few months of his pastorate there were ten or twelve conversions.
Believing that near the mouth of the Columbia lay the point which would become of first commercial importance for Oregon, and that no other place except Oregon City was of more immediate consequence, he moved to Astoria in the fall of '46. That part of Oregon had then its share of settlers, at least one other denomination was beginning an effort there and the outlook for steady growth was most encouraging.
Throughout the winter he preached every Sunday but, with only two American families in Astoria besides themselves, his field of usefulness was limited. Most of his time for two months was occupied in building the house which for many years served as Astoria's postoffice and which has often been pictured as a landmark of the place. It was made of shakes, split with a frow, and was built entirely from one big tree, a portion of which remained unused.
Their privations and discouragements that year were great. They had received neither word nor remittance from the Home Mission Society since leaving Rock Island, Ill. They had no mail and very little reading matter. Their first home was a log cabin which had been abandoned some time before. It had been made more habitable no doubt by some repairs, but it had no windows and in it were few indeed of the commonest comforts of life. They were wearing old clothes which had served their day in Illinois and of food had small variety, although better supplied than the year before. The winter was severe and he lost all but two of his twenty cattle. More than all his privations, he regretted that he could be of so little use as a minister of the gospel and must spend so large a part of his time in providing the necessities of life. "If I have one object for which I desire to live more than all others," he wrote, "it is to see the cause for which Christ impoverished Himself making the people of Oregon rich."
In anticipation of the needs of California and of Puget Sound his first letter from Astoria had this: "Should the settlement of the Oregon question be what we anticipate, we shall greatly need a missionary stationed at Puget Sound before you can commission a suitable man and send him to the field. And should Upper California remain under the United States government, a missionary will be greatly needed at San Francisco Bay immediately upon the settlement of the Mexican War. . . This whole country and Upper California are emphatically missionary grounds, and our relation to the whole Pacific Coast and the half of the globe in our front demands prompt and faithful action. . . Whatever God has in store for our majestic River and our spacious and safe harbors on the Pacific, one thing is now reduced to a demonstration: We must become a part of the Great North American Republic. It remains for the Christian churches of that Republic to say whether our territory shall prove a blessing or a sore curse to the nation. Shall the needed help be denied us?" His plea for San Francisco and Puget Sound was often repeated.
In the spring, because they could the better earn their living and, at the same time, be as useful as at Astoria, they moved to Clatsop Plains.[5]
In connection with the Presbyterians, they at once organized a Sunday school in the log school house where their eldest daughter[6] taught during the week.
This at first numbered twenty-five and soon grew to thirty. Following Sunday school each week, either Rev. Lewis Thompson, the Presbyterian minister, or Elder Fisher would preach, the two men acting alternately and their congregations numbering about fifty.
In June, mail from the East began to reach the Baptist missionary. It was the first since leaving St. Joseph, Mo., more than two years before. In August, two boxes from the Home Mission Society arrived. At the age of seventy-five, the only living member[7] of the family remembers with what delight these, and a box from her grandparents, which arrived at the same time, were received.
The goods from the Home Mission Society had been ordered from Tualatin Plains April 17, 1846, and were sent in response to the wish of Ezra Fisher that a large proportion of his salary each year should be spent in articles purchased in New York at the lower New York prices and forwarded by ship to Oregon. This method of remittance was satisfactory to both and became their practice. The salary of the two missionaries would appear to have been less than two hundred dollars each, as they received word in 1847 that it had been increased to that amount. They sometimes received donations from eastern churches and societies. These, however, were usually books and periodicals for general distribution.
Removing four miles farther south on Clatsop Plains, near what is now Gearhart, Ezra Fisher kept up his' appointments at the former place and began preaching on the alternate Sundays in his own home, a log cabin built by himself. In the fall, he made a four weeks' tour of the Willamette Valley, taking with him a supply of Bibles, Testaments and tracts which had been received with the goods from New York.
The third winter in Oregon was passed more pleasantly than the two which had preceded it. But life on Clatsop Plains in 1847 and 1848 was hardly modern. Around them, far more numerous than the white settlers, were the Clatsop Indians, and Chinook Jargon was in daily use. Ezra Fisher's cabin was lighted by a primitive lamp without a chimney and burned oil obtained by the Indians from a whale which had been cast ashore. The lamp was a luxury of his own family, most of their neighbors using a saucer or small bowl of oil or lard in which a twisted rag served for a wick. His home was swept by a hazel broom which he himself had made. Indian baskets were common receptacles and, except for wild cranberries raked from numerous bogs, the family fruit supply was the berries gathered in the summer and dried. Mrs. Fisher had a few cherished dried currants, which on rare occasions she would add to a pudding or cake. The only apples or oranges the children had seen in Oregon were a few presented to them by a sea captain at Astoria.
In the spring of 1848, Ezra Fisher helped to build a log house to serve for school and church purposes and on March 18, 1848, organized the Clatsop Plains Baptist Church. At this time he was the only minister in the county, its population was gradually increasing and at his two stations were two Sunday schools with forty-two scholars, ten teachers and one hundred and twenty library books.
In June, he made another trip to the Valley, this time to aid in the organization of the first Baptist association in Oregon, and to awaken an interest in starting a denominational school. At West Union the Willamette Baptist Association was organized, June 23, 1848, Elder Fisher being elected moderator and David Lenox clerk. Thereafter, throughout his life, Ezra Fisher was greatly interested in all the work of this Association, was its moderator many times, preached to it and served it in numberless ways. In connection with it was a Ministers' Conference which he helped to organize and of which he was repeatedly elected moderator. He later assisted in the organization of the Corvallis Association, and of the General Association, in both of which he took an active part.
At the close of the West Union Meeting, he made an extended tour of the Valley, preaching and looking over the field with the thought of a suitable location for a school constantly before him. He travelled on foot sixty-five miles above Oregon City, crossed the Willamette near Salem and visited the Yamhill church, returned through the Chehalem and Tualatin valleys and arrived at Oregon City on the twentieth of July. Leaving Oregon City on the twenty-fourth, he reached home the twenty-eighth.
About this time came the California gold excitement.
In the spring of 1849, none of his church on Clatsop Plains was left but members of his own family. Amid the general confusion and excitement there was little hope of accomplishing much in Oregon, and he lacked the means to devote himself to missionary effort in California. The loss of his supplies from New York for that year in the wreck of the. bark Undine off Cape Horn and the absolute necessity of devising some method by which to provide for the needs of his family induced him to go to the mines. This he did, hoping, at the same time, that he might be of more service by going than by remaining at home.
In San Francisco he met and preached for Rev. O. D. Wheeler, whom the American Baptist Home Mission Society had sent to California in 1848. He was in the mines about eight weeks and took out about one thousand dollars' worth of gold, most of which, upon his return, went toward the purchase of a claim to furnish a site for a Baptist college. If any one should think him mercenary, let him read his letters of '49 and that of Jan. 20, 1853.
Arriving home on August 23, he set out on the twenty-ninth for the Willamette Valley. At the call of several representative Baptists of the Valley, a meeting was held at Oregon City, Sept. 21, 1849, to consider the question of establishing "a permanent school under the direction and fostering care of the Baptist churches in Oregon," and on the following day was organized the Oregon Baptist Education Society.[8] The attendance being small, it was voted to adjourn and meet with the church in Yamhill County on Sept. 27.
At the Yamhill gathering, every church except one, that of Molalla, was represented. A site for the institution was agreed upon, a Board of Trustees appointed, and to Rev. Richard Cheadle was assigned the task of raising two thousand dollars for building and other expenses. Ezra Fisher was placed in charge of the institution and was requested to move to the place as soon as practicable, and put a school in operation. The chosen location was on the "east bank of the Willamette about eight miles above the mouth of the Calapooia river." Upon his arrival with his family at Oregon City late in November, Ezra Fisher learned that the intended site was not vacant. While awaiting developments, he opened a school in the little meeting house[9] which Hezekiah Johnson had built in Oregon City the year before, and where his niece, Miss Mary Johnson,[10] had taught for a few months immediately after its completion.
It was finally thought best to locate the college in Oregon City, the opportunity of purchasing a claim adjoining the townsite of Oregon City, the success of Ezra Fisher's school, and the desirability of Oregon City as a place of location, doubtless being the chief reasons which led to this decision. The claim was purchased for five thousand dollars by Hezekiah Johnson, J. R. Robb, Joseph Jeffers and Ezra Fisher, the latter giving twelve hundred and fifty dollars, most of it being what he had dug from the California gold mines. About fifty acres, half a mile back from the town, and so located as to command an unsurpassed view of the Willamette River and the Cascade mountains, when once it should be cleared of timber, were donated for college purposes.
To obtain title, Ezra Fisher moved his family to the claim the first of December, 1850. There they built a home and lived until the close of 1855. Upon receiving patent from the government, he deeded to each of the other men their portion of the land according to the agreement. Ezra Fisher taught in Oregon City for about two years and was at the same time pastor of the Baptist church of that place, that Hezekiah Johnson might give his time to the general field. Portland, Milwaukie and other nearby places, he supplied with occasional preaching.
In November, 1851, the Home Mission Society appointed him Exploring Agent for Oregon, this action meeting with the hearty endorsement of the Willamette Association. In this capacity he labored until 1856. As Exploring Agent, he travelled on foot up and down the Willamette Valley many times, visiting also the Umpqua and Rogue river valleys. He visited and preached to the churches, assisted in the organization of others, held meetings, kept before the denomination higher standards of efficiency and was everywhere an influence for good. His was in very truth "the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make His paths straight."
Of his work during the time he made his home in Oregon City, he has given a fuller account than of any other period of his life. Let us leave to him the details of both it and of the Oregon City College.
On Jan. 20, 1854, at her home near the site for the Oregon City College, Mrs. Fisher died at the age of forty-eight years. Her illness was short and her family unprepared for so great a calamity. She left five children. The oldest[11] was married; the four at home were aged respectively nineteen, fourteen, ten and six. She had lost two daughters: one, at Quincy, Ill., in 1838; the other, at Muscatine, Ia., in 1842.
Mrs. Fisher had been a missionary's wife for twenty-two years. She had the same missionary spirit as her husband and was constantly encouraging him in his work. With sweetness and fortitude she bore every privation. If her own heart was ever dismayed, her family seldom knew it and she took fresh courage from her beautiful faith in God and the blessedness of their work. Her children have often said that they never heard an unkind word from her lips.
She knew how to make the most of everything. On scraps that many would have thrown away she could get up an attractive meal. If her home was sometimes a rough log cabin, it was a clean one and a most pleasant place to be.
Her death was the cause of a revival, in which about twenty-five were converted, most of them uniting with the Baptist church in Oregon City. Among the number were three of her own children and three from the family of Hezekiah Johnson.
Old pioneers of Oregon who knew Ezra Fisher well have said that he was a pleasant man to meet and converse with. In manner, he was quiet, kindly and dignified. In appearance, he was six feet in height and thin. His complexion was fair, his eyes blue, his hair light brown and abundant. His health, never the best, made him appear somewhat delicate, but he was muscular and had great endurance. In later years his beard was nearly gray, while his hair was but slightly so. He was careful of his appearance and, according to the almost universal custom of New England ministers, wore a "stove pipe" hat. For the first eight years after coming to Oregon, his trips about the Valley were made on foot and he always carried the usual carpet bag of those days.
When he preached he was earnest, convincing and scholarly. He could preach a doctrinal sermon, but seldom did. No pioneer minister of Oregon could be more depended upon to hold up the Christ than Elder Fisher. He disliked either levity or sensationalism in a minister. In delivery he was pleasing; he used simple language and was sometimes eloquent. He generally used a skeleton. Those which have been preserved, show that his ideas were surprisingly modern. He often used the expression, "one more observation." If young people ever objected to this, they liked his pleasant smile after the sermon was over and he was very successful in his work with them.
At the close of the Willamette Association of 1852, over which he had presided and to attend which he had walked from Oregon City to Parrish Gap, about twelve miles above Salem, he placed his hand on a boy's head and said: "I could walk this country all over for my Master, if I could only be successful in winning souls to Christ." He then appealed to the boy[12] to become a Christian. It was one of many similar appeals. "He was always sowing good seed," said one who knew him well.
Of what he was in his home life his daughter[13] has thus spoken: "My father was very kind and thoughtful of mother and the children, never omitting when starting on his frequent journeys to kiss us in his kindly way, and we were always glad to welcome his home-coming. He usually brought some start of fruit tree or flower to add to our home comfort." Wherever he lived, he soon had trees, small fruits and flowers growing. He gave them excellent care and was skillful in pruning, grafting and budding.
In 1853 he bought a white pony called Dolly. Thereafter in speaking of his trips Dolly was always included. "Dolly and I" found traveling bad today, or "Dolly and I" met with an accident, he would say. Dolly was the "carriage" of a news item which appeared in an eastern paper and read:
"Rev. Ezra Fisher, of Oregon, while on his way to one of his appointments, was thrown from his carriage and one of his ribs was broken."
On June 27, 1854, Ezra Fisher was married to Mrs. Amelia Millard. She was a woman of Christian character, whose coming into the home was a blessing to her husband and to his children. Such a woman as she was much needed there. By her kindness and tactful counsel she won the hearts of her husband's children and grandchildren, and she lived to see some of his great-grandchildren and to be loved by them. The remembrance of her kindly face and loving deeds during frequent visits to their homes is one of their pleasant childhood memories. She survived her husband many years and was much beloved by all who knew her. She died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. James Elkins, in Albany, Oregon, at the age of ninety-seven years. To the end, she took an intelligent interest in everything, but especially in the work of her church and of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
Ezra Fisher entered upon his last year as Exploring Agent, April 1, 1855, with the request that the Board of the Home Mission Society should be on the look-out for a suitable man to take his place, and at its close resigned. His work and the hard conditions attending it had told on his strength and he felt the necessity of a less arduous life. Wishing to settle near the center of the Valley within easier reach of the churches most needing ministerial aid, he accepted the pastorate of the Santiam church, located at what is now Sodaville, Oregon. The removal from Oregon City was made in December, 1855, ox teams being provided by members of the Santiam church. They were six days on the road, having stopped over Sunday at Parrish Gap.
The Santiam church numbered at that time about thirty-six members. In a revival conducted by Ezra Fisher and Rev. William Sperry in 1853, there had been fifty additions to the church, but half the membership were dismissed to form what is now the Brownsville church.
In 1856 the Willamette Association met with the Santiam church. The log school house being of insufficient size, the gathering was held in a new barn fitted up for the occasion. Heretofore the Willamette had been the only Baptist Association in the state. That year it was divided into three, the Santiam church, because of its location, going into the Corvallis Association.
Ezra Fisher was a strong anti-slavery man. As time went on he found himself in a church and association whose members were largely from southern states. For the sake of harmony, his policy at first was to say little. But as the slavery question grew larger and Oregon was threatened with admission as a slave state, he felt that it was no time for silence. In public and privately he exerted his influence to the utmost against slavery. When the adoption of a Constitution was before the people, his fight was a valiant one. A well-educated man from Kentucky said that he had met no one since leaving the East who reminded him so much of Henry Clay, and added, "He is as earnest and logical as Henry Clay himself." Few awaited the returns of Nov. 9, 1857, with more anxiety of mind than Ezra Fisher,[14] and none was made more glad by Oregon's decision.
The pastorate of the Santiam church continued until 1858, when Ezra Fisher and; the other anti-slavery members of the church withdrew and formed a church of their own near Washington Butte. They adopted the usual Baptist articles of faith, but declared also non-fellowship with those who in any way countenanced slavery.
While with the Santiam church, Ezra Fisher had a farm of about twenty-five acres, from which most of his livelihood was gained. Upon moving to Washington Butte, he sold or traded it for another farm of about the same size. In the summer of 1861, he sold this and, putting most of the money into live stock, moved to The Dalles.
Four miles from The Dalles, he bought a small place having for improvements little else than a poorly built log cabin and from which its former owner had not been able to raise enough to "feed the squirrels." Here with his wife and thirteen-year-old son, he spent the record-breaking winter of 1861 and 1862. With plenty of wood, it was all they could do to keep from freezing. With the opening of spring, only a few of their stock, which had been let out for the winter, remained. He was almost penniless and obliged to receive help from a daughter to buy food supplies.
He was sixty-two and Mrs. Fisher sixty, but they at once set themselves to the task of developing and making a living from their place. They set out strawberries and planted vegetables and fruit trees. After a few years, they were able to make a comfortable living.
While he was doing this, he did not forget to preach. There being no Baptist church, he frequently preached for other denominations. The one Baptist family in The Dalles at the time they came soon moved away. Two leading men from the church at Washington Butte moved with their families to The Dalles, and others began to come, so that about 1863 Ezra Fisher began to preach on Sundays to the few Baptists of the place, their meetings being held in the court house.
Later a church of sixteen members was organized. Ezra Fisher generally preached to them on Sundays, but being unable to give much time to the work, he would not permit himself to be considered as a pastor or to receive pay. At this time he was often working fifteen or sixteen hours a day. Rising about three or four o'clock to get his products off on an early boat down the river, he would then work the remainder of the day on his place. His sermons would be prepared on Sunday morning after breakfast and he would then travel, often on foot, four miles to town to preach. In 1870, a letter from The Dalles church to the Willamette Association reported: "We have been holding meetings every Sunday for some time; generally have preaching by our beloved Elder Ezra Fisher." He thus served the church until 1872.
By his untiring labors, and those of his wife and son, their barren land was transformed into one of the pleasantest homes in the vicinity of The Dalles, and was a favorite visiting place of their many friends. They had built a good frame house, and the fruit from his orchard was known throughout the county. Indeed he was one of the first to prove the superiority of The Dalles cherries.
The strenuous work on his farm became harder for him each year. It paid him well, but he was continually going beyond his strength. He therefore sold his place and moved to California.
The climate was favorable to the health of both, but, after a year spent near San Diego, the church at The Dalles, which was then able to pay a small salary, gave him a most urgent call. Feeling that it would be a joy to be once more of service in preaching the Gospel, especially to his loved people of The Dalles, and wishing also to be near his children, he returned to Oregon.
He arrived in time to attend the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Willamette Association. He gave a memorial address, preached to them on the Relation of the Doctrine of the Resurrection to the Scheme of Salvation, and was the only one present who had helped in the work of organization a quarter of a century before.
At the time of his return in 1873, the church at The Dalles had twenty-three members. They were still without a building, but had two lots which Ezra Fisher and one or two others had purchased about 1868. As actively as. in his younger days, their pastor took up the labors before him. Besides working toward a church building, he preached two well-prepared sermons each Sunday, taught the Bible class in the Sunday school and did much pastoral visiting. He was also elected County School Superintendent.
Upon returning to Oregon, he had earnestly prayed that God might once more bless his efforts in the conversion of souls. During the winter he held revival meetings in which he labored for six weeks. Sixteen of the young people of the town were added to the church. Among the number were his youngest son,[15] Rev. C. M. Hill, present head of the Baptist Theological Seminary at Berkeley, Cal., and Rev. G. W. Hill, a Baptist missionary in China.
The next summer he came to the Valley to visit and to attend the Baptist State Convention and the Willamette Association, in both of which he took an active part. To the latter, which met at Forest Grove, he extended an invitation in behalf of his church to meet at The Dalles the following year, expecting that their $3,000 church would then be ready for dedication. The minutes of that year record: "Elder Fisher preached at the Baptist church to a full house. The venerable servant of God seemed to renew his youth, while he held forth Jesus as the Great High Priest of our profession, and urged all to come to Him and live."
On September 9, 1874, he conducted the exercises at the laying of the corner stone of the First Baptist church of The Dalles, Rev. D. J. Pierce, of Portland, giving the address of the occasion.
Elder Fisher preached his last sermon on October 18, 1874. While away on a forty-mile trip visiting the schools of Wasco county, he contracted a cold, which resulted in typhoid pneumonia. He was brought home to the Dalles, and there died November 1, 1874. He would have been seventy-five in January. His will provided that, at the death of Mrs. Fisher, onethird of whatever remained of his estate, which was small, should go to McMinnville College.
From those who knew him in the East, among the number two of his classmates at Amherst, from men and women who had lived near him in the Middle West, from California acquaintances and from the pioneers of Oregon has come the testimony of what he was. It has been unanimous that his was a character of the highest type.
The Society in whose employ he labored so indefatigably for nearly twenty-five years has placed the name of Ezra Fisher high on the roll of its missionary heroes. Many words of praise from men who have guided its affairs might here be quoted. But from a most unexpected source came a simple testimony from one who crossed the plains with him, and, since no better test of character could well be imagined than the trials and vexations which attended the journey by ox team to Oregon, it is here given. It came from Andrew Rodgers, who fell with the Whitmans at Waiilatpu. In a letter to Mrs. Whitman's sister, Miss Jane Prentiss, written from Tshimakain and dated April 22, 1846, he wrote:
"There were three ministers in the company, one a Seceder minister [Dr. T. J. Kendall] from about Burlington. The other two were Baptist ministers, one from Iowa, the other from Rock Island, Ill., whose name was Fisher, and who was formerly of Quincy, and is doubtless well known there. He manifested more of the true spirit of Christ while on the road than any other man with whom I was acquainted."
None but God knows how the influence of Ezra Fisher lives on in the lives of many. He was an apostle of Jesus Christ sent to the frontiers of this country to have a part in shaping the destinies of the West. Dear Br.: It becomes my duty to make a report of my labours for the third quarter ending this day, the year commencing June 15, 1842. I have devoted all the time to the ministry as far as my health and the extremely severe winter would admit. I have failed entirely of reaching one appointment on the Sabbath by reason of a severe storm, the thermometer ranging about 12 degrees below zero, and the appointment being in an open prairie 12 miles distant. My lungs have been sore most of the time during the last quarter so that I have seldom preached more than once on the Sabbath.[16] I have preached 17 sermons; no addresses; attended 4 covenant meetings; 11 weekly prayer meetings; traveled 246 miles. No hopeful conversions; cause of religion and temperance low in B.; yet our church enjoys a devotional frame of mind. . . . We have received 5 by letter and 2 to be under our watch care. Have made more than 50 pastoral visits. Monthly concert is attended at but one place in B. I have visited and addressed 3 common schools. Obtained but five or six signatures to the temperance pledge. . . . We have one licentiate preacher in our church, a good deacon and a valuable brother. . . . Such is the extremely embarrassing circumstance of our feeble church that as yet we have done nothing for either of the benevolent institutions, although there is a willingness and a promise to soon. No auxiliary society has aided me the past quarter. No Bible class; one S. school of 7 teachers, 4 Baptist, and about 45 scholars, 8 of whom are Baptists. No effort to build a house. I have received about $70 for my support, mostly in produce.
The Church has invited me to continue with them the present calendar year. . . . and made an effort to raise $200 in produce, but will not be able to raise more than about $100, should I stay.
In view of the irritable state of my lungs every winter and of the soft and salubrious climate of Oregon Ter. and the amount of emigration annually passing over the Rocky mountains, we are contemplating removing to the said Territory next year, if Providence smiles and we can raise the means,[17] As we have been almost eleven years in this Valley, we wish to visit our friends in New York, Vermont and Massachusetts before we make this removal. Our reasons are, First, the benefit of my lungs and health of my family. Second, it will probably be more difficult to persuade men to go to Oregon than to Iowa, especially at first, while the demands will be greater in three years. We hear of companies forming in various portions of our country to go out the present year and numbers of them are Baptists. Third, I have been a pioneer for more than ten years and have no desire ever to settle over a church in the old states, while the field is the world in the new and rising portions of our country. We shall probably leave this place as soon as the first of June for New York, and I wish, by the Grace of God, to devote as much of my time to the service of the Messiah's Kingdom as I can during my journey with my family. . . . Our Board will meet in this place next week, and I shall present my views to them for consideration and counsel.
Please send me a draft of twenty-five dollars as soon as convenient as I am owing for rents which were due last November and we cannot raise a dollar in money on my last year's subscription.
All which is submitted.
Dear Br. Hill:
I take my pen to make a report of my services in Bloomington, Iowa, and vicinity, for the part of the quarter commencing March 15th and ending May the 23d.
According to my best calculation I have labored eight weeks in the service of the Society and the church at Bloomington and vicinity.
I have preached 15 sermons, delivered one address on the subject of Bible instruction . . . Traveled one hundred and five miles to and from appointments. . . . Have visited and assisted in the revival in Davenport two days Our church has been peculiarly oppressed with pecuniary embarrassments and has paid nothing for any of the benevolent objects, but has paid about thirty dollars for my salary. I have received nothing from auxiliary societies. . . . You will please forward me a draft for fifteen dollars to Clinton Post Office, Oneida Co., New York, in the care of Timothy Taft, and I shall receive it on my arrival.
I feel convinced that I have not rendered the amount of profitable service directly to the cause at Bloomington that I should, had not the subject of the Oregon enterprise agitated my mind and called forth my anxious thoughts, and I trust humble prayers. As it relates to that subject, I have endeavored to look at the privations and difficulties as well as to the beauties of nature,[18] and I can say with some degree of confidence that I desire to set aside all considerations but the will of God and the well being of man in this and all my undertakings. In considering the path of duty I see no field of labor which I can contemplate with so much satisfaction, or concerning which I have so little doubt of duty as an attempt to lay the foundation for an interest in Oregon. Our countrymen will go, and they will go too, without the Bible and the Sabbath, unless these are carried by the good and self-denying. Hundreds are crossing the mountains this year.[19] Our Government is sending out a scientific corps[20] of 50 mounted men to explore the country and, if possible, to return as soon as the early part of the next session of Congress. I am also informed that an English nobleman is hiring men and purchasing wagons and mules in St. Louis for an exploring expedition to that country, ostensibly a private expedition. . . .
We shall probably be at Buffalo as soon as the ninth of July, perhaps the second. May God direct.
I subscribe myself your unworthy brother in Christ,
N. B.—The church in Bloomington will apply to the General Association to render them some temporary aid but have not determined as yet to ask for assistance from your Board. Some two or three families will probably go with me to Oregon, if I am preserved and am permitted to go.
Rev. Benj. M. Hill,
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. S.,
Beloved Br.:
It is with emotions of gratitude to our Divine Master for the great kindness you have manifested to me in all your correspondence, and especially since our personal acquaintance that I address you at this time. . . . May Heaven reward you, if indeed I am a disciple of Christ. I was driven to fear that the amount for my salary in Oregon would require my stay in this State so long that I should be driven to cross the wide prairies of the West with my young family in the dead of winter or fail of being ready to leave with the caravan in the spring. I also expected to be compelled to leave the ministry in part to teach through the intervening time, but, by your suggestion, cheerfully take this opportunity to request the Board through you to appoint me as one of their missionaries for the term of six months in Iowa, as I desire to devote that amount of time to preaching the gospel in that Ter. I shall probably find an important field of labor on the Mississippi River. I think it will require one hundred and fifty dollars to barely sustain my family six months, but think, with fifty dollars from your Board, I can live from the people. I have a wife and four children.[21] Should your Board think fit to make the appointment, you will please forward it to Br. Charles E. Brown, Davenport, Cor. Sec. of Iowa, Bapt. Gen. Association.
I did not find the instructions to applicants for appointment, as your annual report is packed up in my boxes. I thought perhaps your Board would dispense with all the formality ordinarily requisite, as I intend going directly to Davenport and acting in concert with the Board of the Iowa B[aptist] G[eneral] Association, located in that place.We arrived in this place on the 15th of December, and have delayed writing on account of the unfavorable reports respecting the road to Oregon, hoping to be able before this to learn something more satisfactory on the subject. But as yet we are involved in uncertainty. Five men from the emigrantscompany returned, after they had proceeded as far as Fort Hall, who stated that the company were obliged to leave all their wagons and take the pack horses through the mountains a distance of 600 miles.[22] We have learned too by ten of Lieut. Fremont's men who returned that the company of emigrants were reduced to the necessity of eating horse flesh for meat.
We hope to learn more definitely and positively when Lieut. Fremont returns, which will probably be in two or three weeks. Should we learn that the distance from Fort Hall to the mouth of the Willamette is impassable by wagons, we feel that it will be more than our young family can encounter to take pack horses and provisions and necessary cooking utensils and clothing and bedding and, thus arrayed, attempt to urge our way through the defiles of the mountains. We learn that a very large company from Platt County, Missouri[23] are making arrangements to emigrate next spring for Oregon, some from this Territory and some from Ill. A Mr. Flint from Missouri writes that probably the emigrating camp will consist of 3000 men. We feel ourselves thrown into an uncomfortable suspense on the subject, but it is all right. Our disappointment was great. It is distressing to abandon the enterprise, and the thought of presumptously hazarding the lives of my family is equally distressing, especially while so wide a door is open in this wide Valley. Our friends here will none of them advise to go, unless we receive more favorable reports of the way. Yet I have some reason to suspect them of selfishness. We trust the Lord will soon remove our doubts. I can truly say my mind is strongly inclined to preach the gospel in Oregon.
We came all the way (from New York) with our own conveyance, which was the cause of our reaching Iowa so late. I commenced my labours immediately on our arrival, and preach part of the time in this place and Rock Island, Illinois, and the remainder of the time in the surrounding country, where we hope there will be a church constituted before long. The church at Rock Island appear solicitous to obtain my services the ensuing year, provided we do not cross the Rocky Mountains, and it may be my duty to comply with their request, yet the irritable state of my lungs admonishes me of the importance of finding a milder climate, and, as we are now broken up, we feel inclined to get as far south as we can, and be useful in a free state, if we shall find the way to Oregon closed. I shall write you immediately on learning the result of Lieut. Fremont's expedition. I subscribe myself your brother in Christ,Rev. Benjamin M. Hill,
Dear Br.:
The time has arrived when it becomes my duty to make my first quarter's report under the appointment made Nov. 1st, 1843. I have preached about one-fourth of my time in this place, part of the time at the mouth of Pine creek, Muscatine County, one Sabbath in Bloomington, a part of my time in Hickory Grove and Attens Grove, Lott County, one Sabbath at Cordova,[24] Rock Island County, Ill., and the remainder of the time at Rock Island, directly across the river from this place.
Br. Seley organized the church at Cordova last winter; the church in this place Br. Brown supported half the time; the church at Bloomington I formerly supplied; the church at Rock Island has formerly had the fruit of Father Gillett's labors. All belong to Davenport Association. ... I have labored the whole time in the field, have preached 34 sermons, delivered one temperance address, attended 24 other sermons in protracted meetings; 18 prayer meetings; 6 church meetings; visited one common day school,[25] 1 Sabbath school four times and addressed them each time, and traveled 428 miles. Eleven or twelve hopeful conversions have occurred in the field of my labors, all but one in Rock Island, in connection with a series of meetings carried on by Br. Thomas Powell and myself.
I have baptised 8 and received one by letter into Rock Island church. I have made 55 pastoral visits. No monthly concerts sustained at present. Have obtained 3 signatures to the temperance pledge. . . . Received $22 from the people towards my support. Nothing paid for the various benevolent societies connected with our denomination.
No auxiliary society has contributed for my support. One Sunday School at Rock Island, 6 teachers, about 25 scholars, and about 50 volumes in the library. No meeting house commenced.
In consequence of the great uncertainty of being able to reach the American settlements in Oregon by wagons, the great destitution of ministerial labors in all this region especially on the Upper Mississippi, the unsettled condition of Oregon and the late Indian depredations at the Walla Walla Mission station under the charge of Dr. Whitman,[26] we have concluded to defer going west this spring; yet not without much reluctance and I trust attempting faithfully to commit our cause to him whose we are and to whom we owe everything. Should the door be open so that duty shall appear plain, I now think I shall cheerfully undergo the privations of removing across the desert mountains to the Pacific Coast. May God direct and be it ours to obey.
By the invitation of the Church at Rock Island, Ill., and by the advice of all the brethren in this vicinity, I have consented to take charge of that church and a small church in Henry County, 12 miles S. East from that place, the coming year. These churches will be able to give us about two-thirds of a support, and, by the advice of the members of the Board of the Iowa Baptist Gen. Association and Br. Powell, we shall apply to your Board for a reappointment when my present appointment expires.
In view of all the circumstances, should your Board censure the course which we have pursued respecting the Oregon mission, you will have the faithfulness to administer affectionate reproof as becomes the responsible station you occupy. The church in Rock Island formed themselves into a Sabbath School society, on the 5th of March, and resolved to make application to the American Sunday School Union for an appropriation of S. S. books from the special appropriation made for destitute Sunday Schools in the Valley of the Mississippi. . . .
All of which is respectfully submitted,
N. B.—Br. Brown will probably move to Parkhurst in a few days. Br. Seley has gone to Ohio and Kentucky on a meeting house begging for Bloomington. Br. Carpenter leaves Dubuke for Vt. in a few days Burlington, Bloomington, Davenport and Dubuke are each in great want of a Baptist minister and I suppose Galena[27] will be on the same list in a few months.
O! I wish our wise men, and especially our Baptist ministers who talk of sacrificing for Christ could survey the almost unbroken destitution on the Mississippi from Quincy to St. Anthonys Falls[28] on both sides of the river, with all our flourishing villages, till they would heed the voice of the Spirit and separate at least a Paul and Barnabas for this work. The calls are imperious.
Tell the brethren to take their latest maps of the western states and look over the field by their fire sides and then ask God who is to give all this people the bread of life? The field is increasing in importance every day. Soon it will go into other hands, and well it will be, if it goes not into the hands of the Romans.[29]Yours, E. F.
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc.,
Dear Br.:
In behalf of the First Baptist Church in this place, and the Baptist church called Mount Pleasant[30] in Henry County, 12 miles southeast from this place, I am requested to solicit your aid for the support of my family one year from the time of the expiration of my present appointment. The above named churches wish me to devote my time entirely to the cause of Christ within their bounds and the immediate vicinity. My post office address is Rock Island, Rock Island County, 111. Rock Island is situated at the foot of the Upper Rapids on the east shore of the Mississippi river; contains about 1200 inhabitants. Three miles above is a rapidly rising village of something like 300 souls, where almost any amount of water power may be employed. Already two saws and two runs of stones are employed and four more runs of stones are to go into operation next fall. Three miles south of this on Rock River another town is laid off at the foot of the falls of Rock River; they are just commencing to build at that place and six runs of stones will be put in operation next fall.[31] said that water power may be employed in these two places, enough to drive 700 or 1000 runs of stones the entire year. The country in the vicinity is becoming thickly populated for a new country. The number of communicants in the church in Rock Island is forty-three; and the average number of attendants at public worship is about sixty. The number of my family is six. It is desirable that my reappointment should commence at the expiration of the present appointment. Mount Pleasant church numbers—communicants and probably about fifty will be the average number of attendants. . . . We have other places of preaching through the week. The amount of salary necessary for the support of my family would not fall much short of four hundred dollars. The church in Rock Island will pledge one hundred and seventy-five dollars, and the Mount Pleasant church fifty dollars. If your Board will appropriate one hundred dollars to my support, I will try and supply the remaining deficiencies.
Rock Island is the seat of justice for the county and I am no enthusiast when I say it is destined in less than twenty years to be second to no other town on this river in Illinois.[32] The water power will eventually line the whole bank of the river with mills from Molein [Moline] to this place, a distance of three miles, and also the entire east shore of the Island itself the same distance, which terminates opposite the upper part of this town, and, if necessary, half the water of the Mississippi may be employed in driving machinery at a comparatively small expense. No other Baptist church in the place. The other churches are a large Methodist church and a pretty able Presbyterian church for a new country.
The surrounding country along the river and for ten or twelve miles back is capable of sustaining a dense population, being more than ordinarily well supplied with timber, abounding in coal of a good quality, and is fast settling with eastern emigrants.
We hope to sustain three Sabbath schools the present summer in connection with these churches. In behalf of the above named churches,
The First Baptist Church in Rock Island, county of Rock Island, and the Baptist Church at Mount Pleasant, Henry Co., concur in the foregoing application to the Executive Committee of the American Baptist Home Mission Society, to appoint Elder Ezra Fisher, as their Missionary.
Rock Island &
Mt. Pleasant, Ill.
May 3, 1844.
HARMAN G. REYNOLDS,
NATHAN W. WASHBURN,
The Executive Board of the Baptist Con. of Iowa, concur in the above and recommend the reappointment of Br. Fisher and the desired appropriation.
Rock Island, Rock Island County, 111., June 15, 1844.
Rev. Benj. M. Hill,
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc.
Dear Br.:
I now proceed to make my report for the second and last quarter under the appointment Nov. 1, 1843.
I have labored the whole time in my appropriate field of labor except 9 days in which I was absent on private business and during that time I spent most of the time as profitably to the cause of Christ as I should have done in the field, being absent from none of my Sabbath appointments. It is with your Board to judge of the propriety of making a proportionate deduction from the sum appropriated.
I have preached 35 sermons during the quarter, delivered one temperance address, attended 24 weekly prayer meetings, 15 church and conference meetings and traveled 321 miles to and from my appointments. . . . Baptised 1 and received three by letter into the churches under my charge.
Have made 40 pastoral visits. We have no monthly concert yet established, but sustain two weekly prayer meetings in Rock Island Chs. . . . Assisted in the examination of Br. Robb, at Mt. Pleasant, Henry Co., Iowa, for ordination at the meeting of the Iowa Baptist Convention. The church at Rock Island paid $1 for the Home Missionary Society; nothing for the other benevolent societies. Have raised about five dollars for Sabbath school library and I have received about $42 dollars of my salary the past quarter. Mt. Pleasant church have pledged $8 for Home Missions, to be paid next fall. I have received nothing towards my salary from any auxiliary society.
We have organized a Bible class of 12 scholars. We have two Sunday schools with our people, 12 teachers, about 50 scholars, and about 100 volumes in the library. We have bought at auction a mechanic's lien on a brick house 20 feet by 40, with the roof on and doors in, secured most of the company rights to the house and lot and expect to secure the rest and fit it up as a place of worship during the coming year.
I attended the Iowa Baptist Convention with which our church cooperate. Session harmonious and deeply interesting to us in this new country. Collections were taken up in aid of the Home and Foreign Missions and American and Foreign Bible Societies, in all amounting to $21.
All which is respectfully submitted,
P. S. I still feel impressed with the importance of establishing a mission in Oregon and, should the God of missions spare our lives and give us health and we learn that the way is practicable with wagons as far as the Walla Walla, we hope to be ready to go out next spring, if we can have assurance of being sustained till churches can be raised up to support the gospel in that new territory. Our journey last year, together with the expenses of the family for the present year, strongly reminds me that $300 will be less than will sustain my family a year, should my services commence at the time of our departure from this place. Br. Johnson[33] and myself have had some conversation with Br. Brabrook, the Foreign Mission agent for this state and Missouri, and he thinks the mission would appropriately come under the cognizance of the F. Mission Society as it would tend to facilitate the establishment of an Indian mission west of the mountains. It matters but little to us with which Board we stand connected, provided we are enabled to devote ourselves entirely to the work of the ministry and not leave our families to suffer. I greatly desire that Br. Johnson may be appointed and immediately encouraged to go. I know of no man in the West I would prefer to accompany me, should it please the Lord to open the way for me. The undertaking is great and we greatly need more than one, that, in the case of death, the work might not be entirely suspended, the labor, money and time lost. I have just learned that the company going this year would probably be about fifteen hundred. Please write me the wishes of the Board.
- ↑ Afterward Mrs. Sarah Fisher Henderson.
- ↑ See letter of March 22, 1845.
- ↑ Ezra Timothy Taft Fisher.
- ↑ Throughout the journey, the family baking had been done with the aid of a tin reflector, which stood on four legs, was bent so as to form a hood and enclosed at the sides. From the front, baking pans were slid into place along grooves.
- ↑ See letter of Jan. 26, 1850.
- ↑ Miss Lucy J. G. Fisher (Latourette).
- ↑ Mrs. Ann E. Latourette.
- ↑ See letter of Feb. 8, 1850.
- ↑ It was the first Baptist church building west of the Rocky Mountains.
- ↑ Afterward Mrs. Henry V. Gymer.
- ↑ Mrs. L. D. C. Latourette.
- ↑ Rev. A. J. Hunsaker, who was afterward General Missionary of the Baptist Convention of the North Pacific Coast, was financial agent for the McMinnville College and who is a man so well known and esteemed throughout the state as to need no further mention.
- ↑ Mrs. Ann E. Lalourette.
- ↑ As a good rule for the guidance of American citizens, he was fond of quoting "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."
- ↑ Francis Wayland Howard Fisher.
- ↑ It will be recalled that the author's death was caused by pneumonia. Occasional references to sore lungs show a tendency in that direction.
- ↑ The first important immigration to Oregon was in 1842 when about one hundred accompanied Elijah White, newly appointed Indian agent of the United States, on his return to Oregon. This was merely the advance guard of an immigration of about a thousand in 1843. The immigrants of this year came largely from Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri. The interest of Ezra Fisher in Oregon probably dates from the interest in Oregon and the glowing reports of the country which were circulating all through the west in the winter of 1842-4. See Bancroft, Hist. of Oregon, Vol. I, passim.
- ↑ This well reflects the information concerning Oregon which was current in the west at the time this was written. No large immigration had yet gotten into Oregon with wagons, and the journey was an extremely arduous and dangerous one of about six months. On the other hand, reports circulated by travelers and missionaries from the country, and by the debates in Congress of the past few winters, pictured Oregon as an earthly paradise. Bancroft, Hist. of Oregon, Vol. I, passim.
- ↑ The exact number of the immigration of 1843 is uncertain. It is variously estimated from 500 to 1000. Bancroft, Hist. of Oregon, I: 395 ft.
- ↑ The United States Government expedition was that headed by J. C. Fremont. It traveled just behind the immigrants as far as Soda Springs on the Bear river, and after a detour of the Great Salt Lake, arrived at The Dalles, Oregon, in November. Bancroft, Hist. of Ore. I: 420; C. A. Snowden, Hist. of Wash. II: 247. The English nobleman was Sir William Stewart, who was hunting in the Rocky Mountains with William Sublette, Overton Johnson and Wm. H. Winter of the immigration of 1843. Route across the Rocky Mountains, etc., reprinted in the Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, VII: 62 ff.; the reference is on page 68.
- ↑ The four children were Lucy Jane Gray (Latourette), Timothy Taft, Ann Eliza (Latourette) and Sarah Josephine (Henderson).
- ↑ The report was false. The Oregon party took their wagons with them. The California party left their wagons and went thence on horses. Bancroft, Hist. of Ore. I: 399, 400.
- ↑ Mr. George H. Himes, Assistant Secretary of the Oregon Historical Society, says that in his researches he has found that some went in this year from Platt County. See also note 67.
- ↑ Cordova is a small town about twenty miles north and east of Rock Island.
- ↑ The public school system in the Mississippi Valley began early. In Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, there were enacted in the twenties school laws providing for public common school instruction. In Iowa it came some time later. E. G. Dexter, A Hist, of Education in the United States, pp. 103-116.
- ↑ This probably refers to the trouble with the Indians in the late autumn of 1842. Mrs. Whitman was insulted during Dr. Whitman's absence in the East, and fled to The Dalles. The mission mill at Waiilatpu, Whitman's station, was burned. The news of this, exaggerated and misdated by rumor, seems to have reached Ezra Fisher at this time.
- ↑ Galena was an important center in the lead-mining district. It was laid out in 1827 and incorporated in 1839. By the census of 1850 it had a population of 6,004, but has since declined. Am. Encyc., VII: 563.
- ↑ St. Anthony's Falls are, of course, the water power which gave rise to Minneapolis. There was but the barest beginning of a settlement at this time in the vicinity of the present Minneapolis and St. Paul.
- ↑ The extension of Roman Catholic work among the whites in the Upper Mississippi Valley first became prominent in the thirties. In 1841 the chapel giving the name to St. Paul, Minnesota, was built. A large German Catholic immigration into Illinois from 1841 on gave the church there an impetus. Cath. Encyc., under Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin.
- ↑ This Mount Pleasant church was apparently in a rural neighborhood. No town of that name exists.
- ↑ This village is the present Moline. The village south of Rock Island, on Rock River, is the present Milan.
- ↑ If the author includes Moline (the author's Molein) with Rock Island, this prophecy was fulfilled.
- ↑ Rev. Hezekiah Johnson, to whom frequent reference is made in the letters from now on, was born in Maryland in 1799. He moved to Ohio in 1816, and was ordained there in 1827. He moved to Iowa in 1838. In 1845 he went to Oregon as the author records. He died in Oregon in 1866. C. H. Mattoon, Bap. Annals of Oregon, I: 45.