Oregon Historical Quarterly/Volume 16/Correspondence of the Reverend Ezra Fisher, Part 2
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
Dear Brother:
After a protracted journey of more than seven and a half months and a distance of more than 2500 miles,[1] we now find ourselves situated in the lower part of Oregon in the midst of an extremely interesting country, but in all the rudeness of nature. Consequently you will not be disappointed when you learn the true state of society as it exists in this place and the surrounding country. I arrived with my family at the Tuallity Plains[2] about the 6 of December last, after traveling in the rains about 15 days and having occasional rains for the preceding month. When you learn that I walked further than would cover the whole distance of the journey, bearing my full proportional part of the services of the company, and that neither myself nor family laid off our clothing more than four or five nights during the whole journey, always sleeping in our tent on the ground, you will not be surprised that we were worn down with protracted fatigue and care. But a merciful Providence has sustained us all the way through the wilderness and blessed us with more than a usual measure of health and strength. Yet the last month I found my strength gradually yielding. On our arrival, although we were greeted with kindness by the few brethren we met, we did not find our lot cast in the midst of wealthy churches who were participating in the fruits of centuries of labours in civilization and Christianity. We were, however, kindly received into the cabin of Br. Lenox[3] where we have resided up to the present, and, although his house contains but one room, about 18 feet by 22, without a single pane of glass, and his family consists of 13 souls, besides, almost every night, one, two or three travelers, and my family consists of six souls, we have passed the winter thus far quite as pleasantly as you would imagine in view of the circumstances, and probably more so than a large portion of the last emigration, although perhaps a little more straitened for room.
With the exception of the last two weeks, our health, as a family, has been very good since our arrival. . . . The amount of ministerial labor that I have been able to perform since our arrival would seem to a minister in the eastern or middle states to be trifling indeed. But were you in an entirely new country not reclaimed from the savages, with only one settler on each mile square and that only in the open plains, in the dead of winter, with the rains almost daily falling till all the small streams are swollen to swimming, and numbers of bridges, of which there are as yet but few, swept away, with all the cares of a family to be met, after eight months' consumption of provisions and clothing where supplies are to be procured at distances of from ten to thirty miles,[4] it will appear less strange. I have visited but little, have preached every Sabbath but three, and then my place was supplied by others, except once when journeying, the rains and the distance from neighbors prevented. Yet I am almost daily having intercourse with citizens from various parts of the country and, through that means, hope the way is opening for more extended labors in the opening of the spring, which is now beginning to make its appearance. I have established an evening spelling school for children of the family and one of the neighbors and a Bible class on Sabbath evenings in the same families. About twelve children attend regularly....
As it relates to my views of the importance of the field we are now just entering, I am by no means discouraged, but on the whole have a growing conviction that I never in my life was placed in a more responsible relation ; yet at the same time I feel borne down with the surrounding and opponent obstacles to extended usefulness. If you will not regard me desponding, I will name a few of them: First, we have but one church in Oregon[5] and only two of the members living within 25 miles of the place so that all efficiency by church organization is lost, and those that have emigrated the past season are generally poor and but just able to provide for their immediate wants. The forty or fifty Baptist members are scattered over an extent of country, perhaps 90 miles in length and 50 in breadth. Again, we are destitute of juvenile books and periodicals, and books peculiar to the wants of our denomination. And then, the settlements are fast extending south and west and north- west to points which soon must rise to very considerable importance, and here are Br. Johnson and myself, with exhausted funds and beyond the reach of your aid for more than a year (and we must necessarily apply ourselves in part to procuring the means of present sustenance), with the labor of five or six men before us in the ministry, and that, too, at a time which most of all is the most favorable to give permanence and character to a rising nation. Do you ask how our means are exhausted so soon? We answer that when we arrived at The Dalles exhausted of provisions, we paid $8 per hundred for flour and $6 for beef; at the Cascades, from $6 to $10 for
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flour and $6 for beef, and on our arrival in the Plains we found flour worth from $4 to $5, and beef $6 and pork $10, fresh ; sale shoes, coarse, $3 per pair and custom work $6 ; axes, $4 each ; nails 16c per pound; coffee 33*/2C per pound; common calico from 25c to 62 ^2 c per yard ; a common cast bake kettle, with a lid, from $3 to $6, when to be had at any price, and most of our wearing apparel is somewhat in the same proportion; school books cannot be had at any price. 94 Now, could our able brethren and pious too, see and feel as we do the great reluct- ance with which we must leave the work in part to serve the present urgent wants of our families (and these wants must be still more urgent before we can get any remittances from your Board) would they not esteem it a pleasure to make up a box of common clothing or clothes laid by in their families which will cover nakedness and render the appearance of our children in the house of worship decent in Oregon? We are sure we do not covet the softest raiment for ourselves or families, but we do greatly desire to be able to give ourselves wholly to the work, and something in this way might lighten the expense of our support and add greatly to our usefulness. The subject of education, too, allow me to say, rests with great weight on my mind. Judging charitably, with all the laudable efforts of our citizens, it is beyond their power to do much by way of educating their children while they have so much to provide for present animal wants, and are placed beyond the reach of books. Besides this, the greatest efforts made, are those by Romans 95 and the Methodists. Now could we obtain a few school books so as to enable us to operate a common school, they would be of great service. I hope to be able to organize two or three churches, by the aid of Br. Snelling, and to explore generally the settlements above and
94 The first school books to be brought into Oregon in any quantity were by Dr. G. H. Atkinson in 1848. Geo. H. Himes.
95 A Catholic school for boys, "St Joseph's College," was opened in 1843 at St. Paul, on French Prairie. The Sisters of Notre Dame opened a school for girls on French Prairie in 1844 and in Oregon City in 1848. E. V. O'Hara, Pioneer Catholic History of Oregon, pp. 123-125.
The boys' school at St. Paul's was closed in 1849, the girls' school in 1852, and the school at Oregon City in 1853. Ibid. pp. 129, 130.
The Methodist "Oregon Institute" (the precursor of Willamette University) was organized in 1842. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1 1201, 203.
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visit the mouth of the Columbia and Pugets Sound during the coming dry season, should Providence give us and our fam- ilies life and health. We are often strengthened and encour- aged by the reflection that we have the prayers and sym- pathies of many, very many, personal and dear Christian friends, as well as of many whom we shall never know till we see as we are seen and bow together around the throne of our exalted Redeemer.
Yours, E. F.
Rec'd July 22.
Oregon City, Feb. 27th, 1846. Dear Br. Hill:
The haste in which I write and the circumstances will be the only apology for the want of order in which the subjects are thrown together. What, however, you publish, you will cull out and arrange, as I would, had I paper and time before the return party leave this place.
I was upon the subject of education last night and I cannot leave it till I have still further urged its claim upon our churches at home. And here I will say that, with few excep- tions, we have had very few schools in Oregon and most of those of a character such as might reasonably be expected in so new and remote a settlement. Our Methodist friends have a school in operation, about 60 miles above this, in which are taught the branches usually taught in common schools in the States, with a male teacher part of the year, a female teacher through the year, about 40 scholars, and a spacious edifice partially completed. About 30 miles above this, the Roman Catholics are making a strong effort and this year they are erecting a large edifice to be devoted to the purposes of edu- cation and have a school in operation, 96 and I am credibly in- formed that they contemplate a similar institution on the Cow- litz. In both of these they propose to teach all the branches
96 In March, 1846, Vavasour described the Roman Catholic Mission on French Prairie, as having "several large wooden buildings, two churches, dwelling houses and a nunnery." On the Cowlitz he mentioned the Catholic church as being near the settlement of about 19 families. Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. X:gi, 93.
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essential to a thorough education without directly inculcating their peculiar religious tenets. The influence of this sect is becoming strong in this territory. I am informed by indubit- able authority that there is not a place in the whole territory where the higher branches can be acquired except by a private teacher or in a Catholic school. We then need extremely a series of elementary books, geography, grammar, arithmetic, natural philosophy and other school books, but we have not the means of compensation except by exchanges. They would be purchased were they .here, if wheat would buy them. Can we not have them? Again we are in perishing need of juvenile reading such as the publications of the Am. Bap. Pub. Soc. and the religious periodicals of our denomination both for young and old. We are almost in a heathen land so far as relates to the circulation of religious intelligence, while there is a readiness and eagerness on the part of citizens generally to read anything late from the States. Some of our numerous brethren in New York and Boston could easily send to Br. Johnson and myself the files of their own religious periodicals, after reading, without increasing their expenses. I know of no country where religious tracts would be read with more interest than in Oregon. I know Br. J. M. Peck to be em- phatically a western pioneer, and through his influence and yours, may we not expect immediately an appropriation of the Am. Bap. Pub. Soc.'s publications for Oregon, a proportion of them advocating our denominational views and exhibiting the true character of popery ? Should a box of clothing be made up for the relief of our families, allow me to state that common calico, shirting, any woolen clothing either for men or women, or children between the size of infancy and manhood, shoes, half hose, or any articles of bedclothes would be very accept- able; our hats and shoes are literally worn out and Br. John- son's boys have been barefooted, and little girls, too, all winter, and mine are candidates for the same treatment unless we get returns from New York or supply them and varied other de- mands by the labor of our hands.
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Should your Board continue us in their employ, I shall need a large portion of the appropriation in clothing and books purchased by you in New York, as I may designate in my reports, one of which I shall make and forward by the next return party after this, which will leave in April or May. I had forgotten to mention in the catalogue of our wants writ- ing paper, an article not now in this city. Please send me a few reams and charge it to me from the next appropriation.
Hitherto I have but barely alluded to the field before us. The present population from the States is estimated at about five or six thousand souls, and, when once settled in their homes, will extend up the river about 120 miles above this and up the varied tributaries, and from this downward to the lower mouth of the Willamette. 97 At the mouth of the Colum- bia a strong settlement is being made, and another on Pugette Sound. Our country below the Cascade Mountains is not ex- tensive; yet, as far as I have seen, I think the fertility of the soil generally will exceed the description given by Lieutenant Wilkes and Mr. Townsend. 98
The truth is, it is in a great measure an unexplored country, except by trappers who have probably but little interest in judging of the fertility of the soil and still less in publishing it to the world. I have traveled down the north bank of the Columbia on foot from The Dalles to Vancouver; from Van- couver to the Tuallity Plains ; through the Plains four times ; from the Plains through the Chahalum Valley, across the Yam Hill river and up the Willamette Valley across the Rick- reall about half the distance to the Luckymao," making a dis-
97 This estimate of the American population of Oregon seems about correct. See F. G. Young, The Oregon Trail, Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. 1:370.
The history of the settlement at Astoria is well known. The Methodists oc- cupied Clatsop plains in 1840. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. I:i8s, 188. It was rather optimistic, however, to call the settlements here and on Puget Sound "strong." The American settlement at the latter point had only just begun, and was very small. Bancroft, Hist, of Wash., Idaho and Montana, pp. 1-5.
98 Lieutenant Charles Wilkes, commander of the U. S. Exploring Expedition of 1838-42, was in Oregon in 1841. His "Narrative" was published in five volumes in Philadelphia in 1844. A "Synopsis of the U. S. Exploring Expedition during the years 1838-41," appeared earlier. Bancroft, Hist, of N. W . Coast, pp. 670-683.
John K. Townsend was a naturalist who was in Oregon in 1834-6. His "Nar- rative of a Journey Across the Rocky Mountains to the Columbia River" appeared in Philadelphia in 1839. Ibid. p. 577.
99 Probably the Luckiamute, a stream in Polk County.
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tance from the Plains of about 80 miles; from the Tuallity Plains to this place twice, a distance of about 28 miles, and I think I hazard nothing when I give it as my opinion that its fertility is scarcely excelled by the same extent in the Missis- sippi Valley. In wheat it far exceeds in yield any part of the United States. The crop never fails by winter killing, by blight or by insects, and produces from ten to more than fifty bushels to the acre of the best wheat I ever saw. All the small grains and vegetables do well as far as tried and turnips excell anything I ever saw. The climate is remarkably mild during the winter, although rainy, and is said to be extremely fine during the spring, summer and autumn. It is ascertained that there is a large extent of country north of the mouth of the Columbia reaching to the Sound and back for perhaps more than a hundred miles, much of which is open and fertile, susceptible of immediate settlement. The country of the Umpqua, the Rogue and the Clamet 100 is represented as re- markably fertile and somewhat extensive. New towns must soon rise up on the river, both above and below us. At the mouth of the Columbia and on the Pugets Sound there must soon spring up small cities whose extent and importance will in a great measure be determined by the intelligence, virtue and enterprise of the people of the tributary country. Our climate, our soil, our timber and our water power conspire to render our resources, when developed, great, for the extent of the territory, beyond that of any country I ever saw. But with all these facilities, we greatly need a few discreet young brethren, with perhaps families, who love our Lord and His cause, who can teach and operate upon the mind of the rising generation in bringing them to adopt correct views in all the social and moral relations of man. We also greatly need brethren with families who know how to feel and act for the wants of the church, with whom ministers may counsel and execute.
ioo The Klarnath. For the different spellings of the name, see Frederick V. Holman, History of the Counties of Oregon, in Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. XI 155. Clamet was the spelling given in Elijah White's "Ten Years in Oregon."
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In truth the door is fast opening for business men on the coast as well as in the interior, and the facilities for emigrating from the eastern states are about as good, if not better, by water than by land. Five hundred dollars invested in clothing or mechanics' tools in New York or Boston is better than the same amount in cattle and wagons in Missouri, and then emi- grants might sail in the fall and arrive in the spring in time to make a crop.
You can forward any papers or boxes from New York or Boston or other port by any ship bound to the mouth of the Columbia. The firm of Gushing, Newberry Port, will prob- ably send out one vessel each year. 101 The firm of A. G. & A. W. Benson, No 19 Old Slip, New York, will probably send one vessel each six months. Should you send by any vessel directed to either Br. Johnson or myself, Oregon City, Oregon Territory, to the care of E. O. Hall, Financier of the A. B. C. F. M., Honolulu, Oahu Island, and pay the freight, he will for- ward such packages or boxes to us. Yours, &c.,
EZRA FISHER.
N. B. : It is due to Br. Johnson to state that his family has suffered much with the camp fever 102 since their arrival in this place, but through a kind Providence their lives are all spared and their health is gradually returning. Sister J. is beginning to take the charge of the family. We design fixing our fam- ilies near this place the coming season, sustaining preaching regularly each Sabbath, traveling as much as we can and searching out the scattered sheep.
Tuallity Plains, Tuallity Co., Oregon, April 17, 1846. Dear Br. Hill:
I have just learned that the return party to the States will leave Oregon City on Monday. It is now late at night, and
1 01 F. W. 'Pettygrove, at Oregon City, had come out as agent of A. G. and A. W. Benson in 1842. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:422. The firm of John and Caleb Gushing of Newburyport had sent a ship to Oregon as early as 1839 (it arrived in 1840) and in 1846 another of their ships appeared in Oregon. H. W. Scott (ed), Hist, of Portland, p. 86.
102 Camp fever was much like dysentery or typhoid fever. It was sometimes called mountain fever. Geo. H. Himes.
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my last chance for sending is early tomorrow morning. I can therefore do nothing more than sketch a few lines in the greatest haste. The mercies of God are still passing before us, giving us life and health as a family. We find presented almost daily opportunities of contributing to the formation of the moral character of the people of our Territory. Yet we find everything so dissimilar to anything we ever experienced that we often feel placed almost beyond religious privileges as you are wont to enjoy them in the States.
The population as yet must, from the nature of the case, be very sparse and, as the settlements are somewhat remote from each other, it renders the labors of a missionary difficult, sit- uated as we are at this time many thousands of miles from home and with exhausted funds. We cannot reasonably expect any supplies from your Board for at least twelve months. With these obstacles before us we do not despair, but must be pained while we are obliged to minister to our temporal wants temporarily, and hence limit greatly our field of labour. I have pretty nearly concluded to teach a school a few months, as soon as we get settled, as the most convenient method of promoting the moral and religious condition of the people. I have just returned from the mouth of the Columbia River. I find it an interesting part of the country, and, to all prob- ability, should the emigration continue as we have reason to anticipate, the commercial point for the Willamette Valley and a great portion of the Territory must be located either where Astoria once stood or between that and the mouth of the river. I found about thirty or forty log cabins in this vicinity occupied by families and bachelors. On the south side of the river about the mouth is a tract of rich land large enough for a small county, susceptible of cultivation, but mostly timbered. That portion now occupied is mostly plains, and portions of the timbered land would be more easily cleared and put under cultivation than most of the timbered land in New York. 103 The climate is remarkably salubrious. Noth-
103 The history of Astoria is too well known to need repetition here. The Clatsop Plains were apparently first settled by whites in 1840 when the Methodist Mission established a station there. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. I .'185.
This station was ordered sold out in 1844. Ibid. I:22i.
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ing but the small number of people and the distance of this point from the present populous part of Oregon will prevent me from fixing my family in this vicinity and labouring from this point. Even now my convictions are so strong of the relative importance of this point and of the probable future character of its population, that I may in a few months deem it my duty to take my family to that place.
I still preach on Sabbaths and visit only as I travel from place to place.
Your Board may be desirous of knowing what will be neces- sary to enable us to devote ourselves to the ministry. I think that after fixing our location we can support the family, should the Board see fit to make an appropriation of $150 or $200 the first year, and hope we may be blessed with favor of the people so that we can afterward live on a less sum. Should your Board make an appropriation for another year, we wish you to put us up a box of the following articles and pay for the same from the appropriation : 1 pair no. 9 thick calf-skin boots; 1 pair of calf-skin shoes no. 4, women's; 2 pair of no. 3 shoes, boys' ; 2 pair of children's shoes for a girl 7 years old, and 2 pair for a girl 4 years; 2 bolts of common calico, dark coloured, worth 12 or 15 cents per yd; 10 yards of Ken- tucky janes and 4 yards of black cassimere ; 20 yards of woollen linsey, plaid, for children's dresses ; 25 spools of common sew- ing thread ; 8 pounds of cotton batting ; 1 cast bake kettle, with lid, that will hold about ten quarts; 1 large octavo Bible and five or six spelling books. We are in an entirely new country and have little or no crockery or cooking utensils at any price. You will probably get the box on board Mr. Benson's ship bound for the mouth of the Columbia ; if not, direct to me as one of your missionaries, Oregon City, Oregon Territory, to the care of E. A. Hall, Financier of the A.B.C.F.M. at Hono- lulu, Oahu, one of the Sandwich Islands, and it will probably come safe. Yours truly, EZRA FISHER.
Rec'd Aug. 19, 1846.
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Oregon City, Oregon Territory, Aug. 15th, 1846. Dear Br. Hill:
I am at this time on a visit to this place with Mrs. Fisher and to spend the Sabbath, and have just learned that Mr. Stark, supercargo of the Tulon, 104 leaves this place on Monday morning, and I have but an hour to write and that too in a visiting circle. I have many things to write which I intend to do before winter, but must dispense with order at this time. We are all in tolerable health and presume Br. Johnson's family are, although we have not yet seen them since coming in town. You can have but little conception of our feelings at the present. We find Oregon emphatically presenting a most interesting field for missionary labor, but quite dissimilar to any we have formerly occupied, and our circumstances wide- ly different. I wish you to be assured that we are not at all inclined to complain of the allotments of Providence. They are all in mercy. And it becomes us to rejoice that we may endure hardness for the cause of Christ so long as duty and necessity demand it. But rest assured, dear brother, I tell you the sentiments of my inmost soul when I say I have no desire to become secular when I see a civilized nation (shall I say) bursting into existence on the dark side of the globe, with a character entirely unformed and less elevated than that of Iowa or Missouri, and removed thousands of miles from the moral and religious influence of old and established institu- tions of morality and religion. Your means of communication are easy and direct throughout the entire states and territories drained by the waters of the Mississippi, and even through Texas ; but here we are, separated by great mountain and desert barriers, or a voyage of more than 20,000 miles by sea, sur- rounded by heathen near at hand, by Romans all along the southern coast line, with the isles of the sea waiting for the law of God and some in the very act of receiving it. What can be done must be done or our opportunities for doing as
104 The "Toulon," Captain Nathaniel Crosby, first cime to Oregon from New York in 1845. For a number of years beginning with 1846 it made trips from Oregon to the Hawaiian Islands. Benjamin Stark, Jr., was supercargo. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. II:i6, 48,
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a denomination will be largely lost. A country is now settled, at favoured points, about as large as half the state of Illinois, and we are expecting large accessions the coming fall. Then the most important points will be seized upon with great eager- ness, if it is true, as we fondly hope, that the notice bill 105 is passed by both branches of our National Legislature and become a law. We see Romanism taking root in our soil and special effort being made to secure the influence of the leading men in our colony, and to establish schools for the education of our children and youth. We have already three churches, if they may be called churches, 106 and members favourably located to organize two or three more ; besides, we must soon look after more important interests than any already brought into existence, or entirely leave the seaboard to others. My heart bleeds at this view of things, while I find myself confined in school as the best way temporarily to exert a limited influence while I provide my family with the present necessaries of life. With this state of things before us, we have but three Baptist ministers in good standing in the churches, 107 and the other two are more confined than myself. We know your Board does not expect we will exhaust our physical powers for the bread that perishes, and, were you here to view things as they are, you would lift up your voice in the churches till we 'were liberated from the necessity of serving tables, or say, We will leave you to your ways, but appoint more faithful laborers in this vineyard of our common land. You know what we have to expect from the first emigrants from Missouri and Iowa. It is too much to expect to be thrown into the bosom of affectionate churches who sympathize with the faithful ministry and study to make his labors delightful. 108 Men do not rejoice
105 The bill provided for twelve months' notice to Great Britain of the termi- nation of the joint occupancy of the Oregon agreement of 1818. The news of the p-issage of the notice bill did not reach Oregon until a number of days after this letter was written. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1 1589.
1 06 These three Baptist churches were at West Union (Tualatin Plains), La Creole (Polk County), and Yamhill (South Yamhill). Mattoon, Bapt. Annals of Ore. 1: 1-4.
107 The three Baptist ministers were Rev. Vincent Snelling, Rev. Hezekiah Johnson, and the author. Mattoon, Bap. Annals of Ore. 1:43-50.
1 08 Biptists from these western states and territories were not yet accustomed to supporting the ministry of the church.
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at the sound of the gospel even here ; but we feel strongly assured that the time is not far distant when all the discourage- ments peculiar to a new country and an extremely fluctuating population will give place to the order and efficiency which the gospel of Christ so forcibly inculcates. At present I am teaching school, as I have intimated, in Tuality Plains, 25 or 26 miles N.W. from this place, but greatly fear that my lungs will not long allow me to continue in that employment. I preach and superintend a Sabbath school on the Sabbath, or preach and visit abroad Saturdays and 'Sabbaths. Two weeks today and tomorrow I assisted in organizing a small church near the mouth of the Yam Hill River, 109 and on Sabbath presented to the public the peculiarities of our de- nomination, in a sermon of about an hour, and at the close baptized a brother of some talent who wished to prepare for the ministry. The three churches now organized are most favorably located, being organized so that their future place of worship must unavoidably be at the county seats of three important counties on the Willamette river. But our brethren are in a new country and have everything to do to render their families comfortable, and have not been formerly trained to the principles so happily carried out by our Pilgrim fathers in the settlements of Plymouth and Boston. I preach every Sabbath. We have a Sabbath school, in connection with other denominations, and Bible class consisting in all of about 25 scholars and 5 teachers ; ten of the children are of Baptist families, and three teachers. I superintend the school when at home. Four days in June I attended a camp-meeting of the Congregational Church in the upper plain ten miles from my present residence and participated as much as my strength would admit. Our labors were blessed, and it is hoped that some ten or twelve souls were truly converted. . . .
Tell our brethren that tracts and Sunday school books are greatly needed, and we feel that we cannot be denied this
1 09 This was the church at South Yamhill, twelve miles or so from the mouth of the river. Mattoon fails to mention the author's part in this organization, giving only the names of Snelling and Johnson. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore. I:s.
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request as soon as a package can be made up and sent. Our brethren will not forget to send us files of religious periodicals. We have now been cut off from all the blessings of religious periodicals and literally shut out of the religious world for 17 months except that we find occasionally an angel visitor of this kind in a Pedo-baptist paper. We trust it is our love for the cause of Christ in Oregon which has led us to forego, with our young families, all these privileges. Shall our wants meet with a response from the hearts and hands of our brethren in the Atlantic states? We maintain a weekly prayermeeting and Mrs. Fisher and our little daughter, with two other young females not yet baptized, sustain a weekly prayermeeting. I visit but little as a minister, but embrace every opportunity I can for that purpose. I must close this for want of paper and time but hope I shall be able to fill another sheet before the Tulon leaves the mouth of the Columbia. If possible we must have two good Baptist preachers sent out from east of the Alleghany mountains immediately and I think they will find support. Remember us affectionately to our dear brethren in New York. Yours truly,
EZRA FISHER. Rec'd Feb. 5, 1847-
Tuallity Plains, Tuallity County, Oregon Ter.
Aug. 19th, 1846. Dear Br. Hill:
Since last writing, learning that the Tulon may be delayed a few days at the mouth of the Columbia and being about to visit Clatsop and the coast immediately north of the mouth of the Columbia, I hope to be in time to forward you another sheet. Consequently, I hasten to communicate another letter. We returned from Oregon City on the 17th. Found our family in usual health. I wish . . . that your Board may know as near as possible the true state of things with us. As it relates to the character of our Baptist brethren with whom we have to co-operate, they are mostly from the upper
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part of Missouri and ... a very considerable number of Baptists from Iowa. . . . We have some few who have been accustomed to work in prayer meetings and Sabbath schools and would like to see the ministry devoted to their appropriate calling, but as yet very little can be realized by way of ministerial support. Yet I think the time is near at hand when the brethren will take a gospel view of the subject and carry out the gospel plan. We greatly need a few working brethren located at favoured points for business and influence in Oregon. It is not difficult to see where those points will be. Such brethren as could engage in farming, lumbering, mechanic arts, such as are indispensable to a new country, and in the salmon fisheries will find that a small capital judiciously in- vested, with industry, would soon enable them to rise to compe- tency and probably to affluence. I have never seen a country where, at so early a period in its history, so many avenues are opened to reward the industrious as are found in Oregon . . We greatly need a few efficient brethren who have formed their habits east of the Alleghany Range- It is as easy for brethren to come by water direct to the mouth of the Columbia, to Vancouvers Island or Pugets Sound, which are certainly among the most favored points in our country, as for the inhabitants of Missouri to cross the Rocky Mountains by ox teams. The time has already come when money or merchandise will buy neat stock at no very extravigant prices in New York or Massachusetts, Who- ever can reach the Sandwich Islands will be able soon to find a passage to the mouth of the Columbia.
I wrote you in my last that we greatly need two good teach- ers. My reasons are these: 1. I think they will undoubtedly be able to sustain themselves. 2. The Romans are now very industrious in attempting to occupy every important point with a school. I was credibly informed that a proposition was recently made by a priest to the proprietors of Portland, the highest point which merchant vessels reach on the Wil- lamette, to build a church and establish a permanent school
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in the place, if the proprietors would give the site and pledge their attendance on the services of the Roman Church. 110 A somewhat similar proffer has been made to some of the settlers of the Clatsop Plains south of the mouth of the Columbia, if my informant, a resident of said plains, is to be relied upon, and I think him a man of veracity.
I have taught one quarter and probably I shall teach another, commencing about the first of October, if my lungs will allow me to teach and preach; if not, I must abandon teaching and find some other employment sufficient to sustain my family till relief comes from your Board, should it decide that a mission must be sustained here. Our Pedo-baptist friends have very freely expressed to me the opinion that I ought to have gone to Oregon City. But as the circumstances are and Br. Johnson seems desirous of remaining, I have for months been decidedly of the opinion that I should hold myself in readiness to make my home at or near the mouth of the Columbia, as soon as our brethren in this region will give their consent and Provi- dence opens the door. I rejoice to be able to say that quite unexpectedly to me our brethren are now adopting my views, and the probability is that by next summer settlements will become sufficiently extended on the coast to justify my re- moval to that point . . . We need men in Oregon who desire to magnify the office of the ministry and love it more than all other pursuits. We need more ministers, but we shall doubtless be better able to say what the character and qualifications should be after the arrival of the forth-coming emigration; volunteer ministers will probably come then and we shall then probably have an opportunity of writing you by way of the Sandwich Islands. We shall probably need one more at least in the Willamette Valley, one at Vancouver and one in the neighborhood of Pugets Sound before you
1 10 There seems to be no other record of this offer. If it was ever made it was not accepted. The first Catholic chapel was not erected in Portland until 1851, and not until 1859 was the first Catholic school opened in Portland. Hist, of Portland, Ore., ed. by H. W. Scott, pp. 348, 394.
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can commission and send them out. The coast and Van- couver will probably be peopled with an enterprising and intelligent people.
I think Br. Johnson and myself will need $200 cash another year to enable us to devote ourselves to the work, and, should we place ourselves so as to stop our rents and keep a little stock, perhaps we can live with that by subjecting our families to taking the charge of our little temporals. Probably one half of that in such goods as families need in wearing apparel and articles of furniture, would be as convenient for us as the money, and, by this means, your Board may sustain its missionaries by the assistance of friends who would cheerfully contribute wearing apparel when money is out of the question.
Rec'd Feb. 5, 1847.
Astoria, Clatsop County, Oregon Ter.,
Jan. 4th, 1847. Dear Brother Hill :
Being in daily expectation that the ship Tulon will leave the mouth of the river for the Sandwich Islands, I embrace this as the only opportunity I shall have till spring to address you by letter, and this will not reach you for eight or ten months, if ever.
Through the tender mercies of God, we are all in good health, except that I am confined to the house with a wound received from an axe in my foot last week. The wound, however, is doing well and will probably heal in two or three weeks. I will here remark that we probably have one of the most salubrious as well as mild climates in the world. But I have taken my pen for other purposes than to give a descrip- tion of climate and soil, and the beauties of the scenery. We have chosen this as our field of labor should God graciously please to spare our unprofitable lives, although at present the population of the place and vicinity is small. This I have done from a strong conviction that the coast must soon become the most important part of the country, and that, too, probably
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as soon as we shall be so situated as to be able to do much permanently for the cause. We feel a strong assurance that we shall soon enjoy a stability of government which will give an impulse to emigration and commerce, and we trust that in the emigration we shall find some who care for the cause of Christianity, and will co-operate with us for the promotion of the Kingdom of Christ on these shores. We have three Baptist sisters about ten miles from us on the Clat- sop Plains, who have moved there since we came to this place, with whom we had a slight acquaintance in the states. 111 We are in expectation of other members in the spring or summer, and hope by that time to constitute a feeble church in this county. If we shall be able to do this, and to awaken in the community an interest in substituting religious order on the Sabbath for visiting, hunting and transacting worldly busi- ness, we shall feel that we have not lived in vain in Oregon. We feel the strongest conviction that ours is a very important position, although at present we labour under the greatest inconveniences of any of your missionaries. Your Board is my witness that I have not in years past made the privations of a missionary the burden of my communications with you. The duty I owe to Him who bought us with His own blood and ever lives to intercede in our behalf, as well as the relation I sustain to the Home Board of Missions, and to our new and promising territory, demands of me, however humiliating the task, a disclosure of facts. Before I proceed, I will state that to me, and I doubt not to the other two Baptist ministers labouring in Oregon, the work of the ministry is desirable above all other works, and I know of no field for which I have any desire to abandon Oregon. But what can a man do without his bread and his tools? To be sure, under the most adverse circumstances, something may be done for God every day, but we know it is not God's plan that Zion's teachers shall be removed into a corner, but that they shall be brought into sight and hearing, that she may hear the word: "This
iii These were Mrs. Robinson and her two daughters, Mrs. Motley and Mrs. Thompson.
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is the way, walk ye in it." We are all as Baptist ministers driven to the necessity of going to secular pursuits to give our families food, and but very insufficient raiment.
As a people, we are a colony removed far from all civiliza- tion and commerce, except what the small surplus products of our country attract. The consequence is a monopoly in commerce, very oppressive to the community. Our settlers are generally industrious, and should the Government grant them 'their lands, they are laying the foundation for wealth despite the temporary monoply in trade with which they are op- pressed. 112 As before stated, we have very few Baptist brethren who have been accustomed to see a minister sustained by the church, and those few are scattered so as to prevent anything like a systematic effort to aid in the support of the ministry. They love the gospel sound and delight in its ordinances ; but ministers must travel far from settlement to settlement to preach. This creates a large tax on the time of the man who must leave the word of God and serve tables. Added to this, the rainy season five or six months in the year renders the roads in this new country very difficult to travel, and when we travel by water we have to go in open boats and sleep in the open air, perhaps in wet blankets after rowing all day in the rains. These difficulties might and would be overcome were our hands liberated and our family cares abated. With the improvement of the country, the difficulties of travelling will soon be overcome, and are now probably as few as might reasonably be expected . . . Our white American popu- lation now numbers nine or ten thousand sottis scattered over a territory more than two hundred miles from Pugets Sound and this place to the headwaters of the Willamette, and is aided in science, religion and morals by only one printing press, and that issues a semi-monthly half sheet. 113 Its proprietors
112 Probably a reference to the Hudson Bay Company, which did most of the shipping at this time. Geo. H. Himes.
113 This was the Oregon Spectator which first appeared Feb. *, 1846 under the editorship of W. G. T' Vault. H. S. Lyman, Hist, of Ore. IV:2 79 . The spelling book was published Feb. i, 1847. There were 800 copies, none of which are known to be extant in their complete form. The book was an abridgement of Webster's Elementary Spelling Book, about two-thirds the size of the original. Geo H Himes Hist, of the Press in Oregon, in Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. 111:347.
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have lately resolved to strike off 200 copies of Webster's ele- mentary spelling-book somewhat abridged. You can form some estimate of our poverty and want. Probably not one family in three in the territory has a spelling-book. I have no doubt men would gladly have paid one dollar per copy for spelling-books for their children in the school which I taught last summer, but there was not a spelling-book at any price. We have a few Sunday-school books sent out from New York . . . which have been of great value to the children and youth as far as enjoyed; and we have a few volumes of the publications of the American Tract Society and some tracts sent to Rev. Mr. Griffen, a Congregationalist. 114
Our Methodist brethren are doing something towards sup- plying some of the children with juvenile books, and their Sunday School Advocate, with their hymn books, and some Bibles and Testaments; but all this is a very small fraction of what is greatly needed. I have not seen a Baptist periodical from the States for more than 20 months I have omitted to mention that the country is almost destitute of all suitable elementary school-books and juvenile reading. It would do your heart good to see the eagerness with which a periodical, a tract or Sunday school book is seized upon and read by a large portion of our citizens. For example, when our eldest daughter of fifteen years was sent for to teach a school quarter, 115 and a request came for hymn-books and any other suitable books so that they could have a Sunday school during her stay, I had nothing but a few copies of the Divine Songs and a few tracts to send. Cannot our request be responded to so that as missionaries we may be supplied with suitable tracts and juvenile books of the American Baptist Publica- tion Society, with a fair proportion of the former exposing the evils of Romanism, and others vindicating our denomina- tional peculiarities ; also some Bibles and Testaments. I know
1 14 This was probably Rev. J. S. Griffin, who came to Oregon in 1839 (Ban- croft, Hist, of Ore. 1:238), sent by the North Litchfield Association of Connecticut.
115 This school was at Skipanon, near Warrenton, in Clatsop County. Geo. H. Himes.
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there would be an effort made, if our brethren in the States were to feel our wants as we daily feel them. Imagine your- self and family of children surrounded by heathen and daily under their influence, and at the same time Romanism uniting its influence with heathenism to bring into disrepute the sim- plicity of the gospel in a new and isolated republic rising on the western borders of America ; would you not plead for help ?
Our brethren will not forget to send us files of some of the religious periodicals as well as the annual reports of the Mis- sionary, and other benevolent societies. So far as these auxil- iaries are concerned, we famish in a dry and barren land. When I left the Western states I sold and gave away a large portion of the few books which composed my library because they were too heavy to transport across the Rocky Mountains, so that now when I would consult a commentary or some of the standard writers of the last and present century on the great truths of the Gospel, I seriously feel my need. My library consists principally of Mosheim's Church History, Home's Introduction, Buck's Theological Dictionary, Butter- worth's Concordance, a Greek Testament and Lexicon and Wayland's Moral Science. One of our ministering brethren on the Willamette has Fuller's Works and McKnight on the Epistles. As ministers we greatly need a few books, and could any valuable ones be sent, they would be thankfully received. De Aubin's History of the Reformation 116 would probably be an invaluable work here. We have consumed most of our available means, and find ourselves placed in the strait of in- volving ourselves in debt or providing with our hands the bare necessaries of life, not knowing how soon we shall get any communications from you- I have received a few presents from two of our brethren here and a few from some friend, amounting perhaps in all to thirty dollars.
We are living, and have lived ever since we came to the country, except for about five weeks, in a rude log cabin with- out a single pane of glass. Our furniture consists of three
u6Not De Aubin, but D'Aubigne (1794-1872).
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chairs, three stools, a small pine table about two feet by three, two old trunks which have traveled with us about 20 years, and a very few cooking utensils which we have brought with us or obtained at exorbitant prices. We have two tea cups and four saucers ; more are not to be obtained in the country at any price. Most articles of clothing and furniture, when they can be obtained, are three 'or four times the price they are in the States. We have neither fire shovel, tongs nor and- irons, but a common barn shovel. We often think, if we had a few of the most commonly indispensable articles of house- hold furniture and could provide our children with the most coarse but comfortable apparel so that we could meet the many pressing and important calls for ministerial labor all over the country in all the varied relations of our calling, we should be happy.
Our Territory is needing the labors of at least five or six devoted Baptist missionaries. The time has come when we, as a denomination, must have men in the field, or other men will gather the harvest. Our Methodist brethren are now sustaining five or six missionaries in the settlements, and at this very moment, had we the men and means, our denomina- tional views are as favorably received as any other. Brother Snelling is a worthy brother, and would gladly wear himself out in the ministry but for the pressing cares of his family. Brother Johnson is doing what he can at Oregon City and vicinity. My labors will be principally confined to this county, unless we are so liberated from secular cares as to enable me to spend a portion of the time in traveling through the settle- ments now forming on the Chehalis and at Puget Sound, 117 as well as the upper settlements. Should the settlement of the Oregon Question be what we anticipate, we shall greatly need a missionary stationed at Puget Sound before you can com- mission a suitable man and send him to the field. And should Upper California remain under the United States govern- ment, a missionary will be greatly needed at San Francisco
117 See note 220 for the early settlements on Puget Sound. The upper set- tlements were probably those in the Willamette Valley.
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Bay immediately upon the settlement of the Mexican War. It is my deliberate opinion that missionaries in whom your Board can confide should be appointed and sustained till by God's blessing an interest shall be awakened sufficient to sustain itself, and afford assistance to the surrounding country This whole country and Upper California are emphatically mission- ary grounds, and our relation to the whole Pacific Coast and the half of the globe in our front demands prompt and faith- ful action. If our position excites so much interest in the political and commercial world, ought not the churches to turn the eye in this direction and ask: Have we no interest in all these movements ? 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? As a people, we are in the most help- less infancy; the power of the Gospel of our ever Blessed Saviour must be exerted to bind this legion and drive it into our mighty Pacific, or we shall be abandoned, the prey of the worst of spirits and the basest of passions. Dear brother, it is far beyond the power of language to describe the blessings of the Gospel. While we, almost isolated and faint, pray and labor and look with longing eyes toward the parent land, shall we not see this bow of promise hanging over our eastern skies : "The Lord will send deliverance out of Zion"? No doubt the time is near at hand when the facilities of communication will be greatly multiplied and a direct mail route will enable us to correspond directly two or three times a year, 118 and vessels will be monthly leaving this place for the States and bearing cargoes directly from the States in return. We wait with patience for these changes. We feel that we are passing
n8For a time in 1846 direct mail service had been established with Weston, Mo., at the rate of fifty cents a single sheet, but 'this was discontinued after nine months. Geo. H. Himes, History of the Press in Ore., Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. Ill :343.
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through a crisis in the history of the country, and ask God for grace that we may be brought through without repining at his providences. We feel a strong conviction that the time is near at hand when God will enlarge Zion on these shores, and we shall enjoy all the blessings of civilization and Christi- anity for ourselves and our children.
I preach every Sabbath, although the number living in our place is as yet very small. I shall probably divide my labors between this place and Clatsop Plains, in the opening of the spring. I have spent most of my time the last two months in building a small frame house, and have it now almost en- closed, and shall probably soon move into it. 119 We shall then open a small Sunday school of the few children we have in the place. We feel pretty strong convictions that we shall make this region the field of our future labors, should God permit, and this becomes the commercial point on this river, which is very probable. We are waiting with anx-iety, how- ever, to learn what the Government will do for this country; you probably know at this time, or will before the rising of congress. 120 I have written you five or six times since our arrival in the country, and two or three times on our way, but have not yet had a single line from you- Will not a box of clothing be sent to aid Brother Johnson and myself in clothing our families? Second-handed clothing and coarse, too, will be very valuable to us. You can have no conception of how thankfully it would be received, or of the difficulty of obtaining clothing in this country. I know positively that our families would rejoice exceedingly, if they had the old clothes which are regarded useless by hundreds of our brethren in the old States.
1 19 This house was used as a post office by John M. Shively, who was one of the first two U. S. postmasters appointed for Oregon (1847). Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:614. A picture of the house was in the Oregon Daily Journal, Dec. 31, 1909.
120 It may be that the author had not yet heard of the final settlement of the Oregon boundary, which was made in the summer of 1846.
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(Jan. 4, 1847).
I have repeated the request for books and clothing through fear that any former letters may have never reached you. I know it will afford many a sister pleasure to collect a few com- forts for those of us who are laboring in these ends of the earth. We make not these appeals because we think we could not meet the wants of our families should we give ourselves entirely to secular pursuits. But this we cannot do. God will have his ministers feel a necessity laid upon them and a woe too, if they preach not the Gospel. We very much expect to hear from you in the spring, so that we can feel relieved in spending the dry season strictly as missionaries. We ought to visit every large settlement and hold a meeting of two, three or more days, and gather up the scattered sheep and feed the lambs. But I must desist. My heart is full of the wants of our country. May God give us grace to do His will. You can send any boxes or letters on board any vessel that passes the Sandwich Islands, directing all such packages to me at this place to the care of E. O. Hall, Financier of the A. B. C. F. Missions at Honolulu, Oahu or Wahoo.
Your unworthy brother and fellow laborer in the gospel field,
EZRA FISHER.
N.B. Let us have an interest in your prayers and the prayers of all those who mourn over the desolations of sin, that the richest blessings of the gospel may be poured out upon Oregon.
Received July 13
/
Astoria, Oregon Territory, April 2nd, 1847. Dear Brother Hill :
I wrote you three sheets by the Tulon in January, making known in some measure the wants of our country west of the mountains, and directed it by way of the Islands, but after writing, Captain Crosby determined to take a cargo
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of flour to the American squadron at San Francisco Bay. 121 The package may be a year in reaching you, and it may be that he made over his letters for the States to the war ship which was dispatched to take Captain Howison to the States to account for the loss of the Schooner Shark. 122 It is pos- sible that you will receive it in two or three months, but, through fear of a long delay, I shall repeat some of our obstacles in the promotion of the cause of Christ in Oregon. By the abounding grace of God we are alive and in good bodily health; yet our remote situation from the seat of op- erations of American churches, together with our temporal embarrassments, and the inconvenience of reaching the remote settlements, both as it relates to the time employed and the expense of traveling, has compelled me to confine my labors to the few people in Clatsop County. The winter has been extremely severe, and to human appearances Providence has frowned upon my attempts temporal.
We moved to this place last fall, as probably possessing the most favorable indications of future usefulness, and with pretty strong encouragement that we should be joined by other Baptist friends this spring. But the severity of the winter which has been destructive to cattle in this place and to the wheat already in the barns probably determined our Baptist friends otherwise. My cattle, which were more than twenty head in the fall, are now reduced to two, and I feel myself compelled to remove to Clatsop Plains on the coast immediately south of the mouth of the Columbia, but cut off from this place by Young's Bay, three miles in width, as the most probable place of sustaining my family by my own hands and at the same time sustaining a small congregation; our daughter Lucy Jane Gray can have a small school part of the time, and a small Sabbath school may probably be sustained during the year. In the meantime we hope that the day is
121 This was, of course, the Pacific squadron which had helped in the American occupation of California in this and the preceding year. Bancroft, Hist, of Cat. V, passim. Captain N. Crosby was prominent in the history of early Oregon ship- ping. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:26.
122 The "Shark" was wrecked at the mouth of the Columbia, Oct 10, 1846. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:587.
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not far distant when we shall have such relief sent us from your Board as will enable me to reach more remote portions of the settlements and devote my whole time to the appropriate duties of a gospel minister.
In the abstract I think this county presents as much present prospect of permanent usefulness as any part of the country, if we except the immediate vicinity of Oregon City and the country accessible from that point. We feel a strong confi- dence that the first national work by way of fortification and the facilitation of navigation must be done at this great outlet of travel and commerce, and but a few months will be sufficient to decide this- 123 I cannot therefore think of leaving this point unless the seat of commerce should be fixed at another point and Providence should plainly indicate a more advantage- ous situation. We % have three Baptist sisters [married] in Clatsop Plains and there is a general desire manifested that we shall remove there for the present. I learned by Captain Kilborn of the Brig Henry that he had sent a letter for me to the Willamette Falls (Oregon City). I suppose it is from your pen, but have not had the satisfaction of seeing it. Rest assured we wait with great anxiety some communication from you. At present we have here only two American families besides my own, and a few bachelors, and besides the Hud- son Bay Company's servants, and it is not probable towns will improve much in Oregon beyond the absolute necessities in business transactions, should our Government make grants of lands to the first settlers and require each family to reside for a term of years on his land to perfect his title.
I have received no direct communication from Brother Johnson since I left Tuality Plains, but occasionally hear from him. I can assure you that to all human appearance our use- fulness would be increased ten fold were we only placed in such circumstances as we were in the Great Western Valley, and yet our labors as ministers are as greatly needed as they
123 The first defensive works at the mouth of the Columbia were besrun in 1863. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 11:510. No work on the channel was done until much later.
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ever were in the Mississippi Valley. O ! how blighting to the Christian graces is this secularizing of the ministry ! Surely no minister, who values holiness of heart and desires the en- largement of the Redeemer's Kingdom on the borders of idolatry and Romanism, can do otherwise than exercise the deepest regret at the necessity of consuming his precious time and attention in providing but partially for animal wants. Such at present must unavoidably be our condition unless aid come from some quarter. Our few churches are but partially organized, and need frequent visiting and instruct- ing, and to see practically demonstrated the utility of a devoted ministry, that they may appreciate it and put forth laudable efforts to sustain it. We feel a strong confidence that all necessary relief would be forthcoming with many and pre- vailing prayers, could our liberal brethren stand by and see us as we go to our daily labor with almost all the spiritual needs in their pressing importance urging themselves upon us, yet neglected. I do trust that another summer will not leave Brother Johnson and myself in a still more straitened con- dition than we were the past . . . Were we placed in other circumstances ... I might be justified in being less opportunate . . . but where all depends upon the efficiency of the ministry to bring before the infant churches the doctrines, the ordinances, the precepts and examples of the gospel, we ought to be given zvholly to the work. We covet not this spiritual exile because it is to be preferred to all those pleasing associations which daily bring to your door the triumphs of the gospel from the four quarters of the globe, and that habitual enjoyment of elevated Christian society which is to be enjoyed in all the older parts of our country. But we have chosen our position and chose the sacrifice with the hope that under the blessing of God and by the aid of those more highly blessed with temporal and spiritual gifts, we might become both His and their servants in shedding abroad God's gifts in these benighted ends of the earth. It will be two years the twelfth of the present month since we left
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the field of our former labors. With it we cheerfully re- linquished the prospect of enjoying those almost inestimable privileges of religious publications of all description, as we supposed, for one year, hoping that a few months after our arrival we should occasionally be greeted by those welcome visitors. But Alas ! the Mexican war and the inf requency of arrivals by water direct from our eastern ports has held us in banishment up to this present. When I look to the people and see them left in ignorance of all the great religious movements in the world, except for a few packages sent to the Methodist and Presbyterian missions, my feelings are often left to wander between despair and that indifference occasioned by the care and fatigue incident to meeting our temporal needs. Our whole country is oppressed by an excessive mon- opoly of our merchants, so that most of the people are unable to meet the pressing wants of their families. If they could sit down at night as they come in from their daily labor, take up a religious periodical and read their half-clad families some interesting accounts of the triumphs of grace over depravity instead of meditating and teaching the principles of revenge, how would the family circle be cheered and the lowering cloud of our Western solitude be dissipated ! The question is settled that Oregon is destined to be numbered among the states of our great American Republic ; the scenes of our early sufferings and privations will soon be known only as they are engraved on the memory of the sufferers, or recorded on the pages of history. A brighter day is before us and we fancy that we already descry the first dawning light breaking over the tops of the eastern mountains. We must look to the older and more gifted states to aid in giving us a religious as well as a political and commercial character. Will not our Baptist churches aid in this work? Romanism is making strong attempts at planting deep its root in Oregon soil and availing itself of every inefficient effort of Protestant- ism to bring into disrepute the vital godliness of both it and its ministry. So long as our ministers are unsustained, the
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priests herald the stereotyped reproach through community, both savage and civilized: "These men are not ministers. See, they work and trade and live like other men." "We are the founders of schools and are always ready to minister to your afflictions and care for your souls."
Can there be some method devised whereby we can have forwarded several numbers of some good religious periodicals of our own denomination, and some of the publications of the A. B. Publication Society adapted to Sunday schools and to vindicating our own denominational peculiarities and breathing a spirit of devotion and Christian philanthropy? Books of all kinds are eagerly sought for and Sunday schools can easily be sustained where ten or twelve children can be found suffici- ently contiguous. I have several times written relative to the best and cheapest way of sustaining your missionaries in Ore- gon. Such is the feeble and scattered condition of the settle- ments that your missionaries must be sustained principally from your Board, or they must sustain themselves. Yet there is great hope that a few years will change the aspect of things in this respect. When the people once see the happy effects of a devoted ministry, they will cheerfully contribute to its support, and be blessed in so doing. When the time comes that a fair competition in trade takes the place of oppressive monopoly, industry will probably be as amply rewarded in this as in any other part of the nation, and we all hope that day is near. None but those who have experienced it can tell the inconveniences and privations of a new country so far removed from civilization. But really our early settlers have performed their part nobly, and are still contending undis- mayed with obstacles which would be regarded almost in- surmountable in the old states. On arriving here the few people of this country were all poor and for the past three years they have brought almost all their breadstuff 125 miles in canoes and open boats, making a trip in 10 or 15 days and camping out in the open air through all their jour
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ney: 124 these journeys are often performed in the dead of winter while the rain is falling every day; all groceries and store goods are obtained in this way, except such as are purchased off of ships. The people have just put in opera- tion a mill sufficient to meet the home demand, and the days of privation are fast passing by. Now the actual expense of living in Oregon, with half the comforts of life, is twice as great as it is in the western states, and how to meet these expenses of your missionaries is the question to be considered. Articles of clothing are exceedingly difficult to be obtained here. Sisters of the churches could make up clothing or send the articles unmade, or even half worn clothing, such as is laid by, and would contribute largely to our wants. They would probably thus provide for us with great cheerfulness; at the same time it would not at all diminish the annual cash contributions. You can have no conception of the manner in which we are clad in our ordinary business. We are still wearing old clothes which we had laid aside as unfit for use in the Western states, and have purchased but a few of the most common articles, and those of the coarse and substantial kind when they could be obtained. We still prefer to practice this kind of self-denial to the abandonment of our enterprise, while we have the hope left that we may be made instrumental in laying the foundation of the cause of Christian civilization where it is so much needed. We wish not to make the gospel an item of merchandise, and I think both Brother Johnson and my- self are willing to practice the most rigid economy for the sake of carrying out the great object of our mission. As to the amount necessary to sustain our families, you will be able to judge by referring to the Methodist Board to find what it costs them to sustain the families of their ministers in this field. It may be proper to write a few lines relative to the sufferings of the late emigration which in far too many cases have been great, and in some cases perhaps without parallel
124 These were probably brought from Vancouver or Oregon City, and possibly also from Portland.
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in American history, and I fear it will be read to the preju- dice of future emigration. I believe all the emigrants who followed the usual roads to Oregon and California ar- rived in good season and with good health and no serious loss. It was only those companies who were either desirous of finding a new and better route, or were induced to follow imprudent and self-interested guides, who reaped so bitterly disappointment and disaster and even starvation. The great- est sufferers were probably a party who, before crossing the Sierra Nevada range of mountains, left Mr. Hastings who was conducting a part of the California emigration. After travelling till all hopes of reaching the lower company failed, a party of fifteen of the strongest, in attempting to cross the snowy mountains, were compelled to leave their animals and travel on foot almost destitute of clothing and food. Such was their extremity before reaching the San Francisco Bay that eight perished, and the survivors subsisted on the flesh and blood of those that perished, some upon their own relatives. Five of the seven who reached the settlements were women, and when they arrived they were reduced to a perfect state of nudity. May these sufferings prove an effectual warning to all successive emigrations to follow none but explored and opened roads. 125 A practicable wagon road is now opened from the States to the settlements on the Willamette River, terminating at Oregon City, where plenty of provisions can always be had at the ordinary prices of the country. We trust we shall soon have regular mails at least quarterly from this to the States; and then we can rely with some certainty on our packages being safely carried to the place of destina- tion. I have written you every opportunity since I arrived in the Territory, but as yet have had no letter from you. You may judge by this that we are greatly discouraged,
125 There is also probably a reference here to the party which in 1846 came to Oregon via the southern route from Ft. Hall. This party suffered great hard- ships while getting into the Willamette Valley from the Rogue and the Umpqua Valleys. Bancroft, Hist, of Ore. 1:556-565.
For the hardships of the California party, which are here not exaggerated, see Bancroft, Hist, of Calif. V .-529-542. The author mentions only the party called the "forlorn hope," but a much larger party suffered somewhat similarly. but you may rely upon it that we entered this field expecting to meet many privations- Our greatest embarrassment is that we are doing so little for Him who has bought us with His blood and we trust clothed us with his righteousness. As ever yours,Ezra Fisher.
Rec'd Sept. 6, 1847.
- ↑ A quotation from a letter of a fellow immigrant of the same train as the author throws sn interesting sidelight on the trip. "Another trial that one has often to meet on the way is disregard for the Sabbath. I suppose there was about as much contention arose on that subject in the company in which I came as any other. A good part of the company cared nothing about that, or any other religious question, and if it suited them they wished to travel on that day as well as any other. And even then when they did stop on that day it was only to mend their wagons or wash their clothes. I do not say that all did this, for there were some of our company that were devotedly pious. There were three ministers in the company; one a Seceder minister from about Burlington [this was T. J. Kendall, D. D.]. The other two were Baptist ministers, one from, Iowa, the other from Rock Island County, Illinois, whose name was Fisher. . . . He manifested more of the true spirit of Christ while on the road than any other man with whom I was acquainted. . . . The company in which I came traveled, maybe, half of the Sabbaths on the way. We had preaching most of the days on which we stopped."—Letter of Andrew Rodgers, Jr., April 22, 1846, quoted in "The United Presbyterian" (Vol. 46, No. 2), Jan. 13, 1898, p. 10.
- ↑ There is much obscurity surrounding the origin of the names Tualatin and Tuallaty. Geo. H. Himes, from his investigations, believes Tualatin probably to be an Indian name meining "a land without trees," describing the natural prairies of what is now Washington County; and Tuallaty (the accent on the penult) to be an Indian name meaning "a lazy man," describing the sluggish river. If this is true, Tualatin was the name applied to the plains, and Tuallaty to the river; but a confusion of the two early took place which ultimately resulted in applying Tualatin to both river and prairie. The plains had begun to be settled at least as early as 1840. Bancroft, Hist. of Ore. I:244. They had at this time about 150 families, Canadians, half-breeds and Americans. Warre and Vavasour, ed. by J. Schafer, Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. X:75.
- ↑ See note 73.
- ↑ The nearest points where supplies could be purchased were Oregon City and Portland. Pettygrove had established a store in the latter place in 1845 and with Lovejoy had cut out a road to the Tualatin plains. They may also have been able to get a few supplies at Linnton. Bancroft, Hist. of Ore. II:9.
Oregon City was begun in 1829-30 by Dr. McLoughlin and by 1845-6 had 300 inhabitants, two church buildings, about 100 dwelling houses and stores, a grist mill, and several sawmills. Warre and Vavasour, ed. by J. Schafer in Ore. Hist. Soc. Quar. X:47-51.
- ↑ The West Union Church on Tualatin Plains. Sec note 73.