CORRESPONDENCE 165
Methodist brethren sent one preacher 158 overland to the mines, and I understand that he is now preaching part of the time in San Francisco.
Yours, EZRA FISHER, Received June 19, 1849. Missionary in Oregon.
Clatsop Plains on the Pacific Shore, near Astoria,
October 19, 1848. Beloved Br. Hill :
On opening the most valuable box, No. 9, shipped from New York to me on board the ship Matilda, Oct. 15th, 1847, I found an inventory without either name or place attached to it, but we infer that the letter was directed to you and not to either of us from the sentence appended to the invoice in the following words : "The difference of $2.34 between the invoice and the letter to Brother Hill is owing to articles having been brought in after the letter was sent." The box contained the only shawl, boys' cloth cap, and a piece of bed- ticking that was sent us. The box was valued at $66.34. We regret that we have neither name nor place attached to the invoice, because it would afford us great pleasure to have addressed a line of grateful acknowledgement to the donors. The box was thankfully received and contained a number of articles of woolen clothing which are especially valuable in our climate, so cool in summer and so wet in winter. Any second-hand woolen clothes, when but partially worn, are always very useful where sheep are scarce and looms none. We have not more than two or three looms in all our Terri- tory. Thanks to Br. and Dr. Allen for the Mothers' Journal, the forwarding of the paragraph Bible and Testament and
152 Who was sent to California, th editors have not been able to find; Rev. William Roberts and Rev. J. H. Wilbur stopped there several weeks in 1847, on their way from New York to Oregon, and organized a church in San Francisco the first Methodist church on the Pacific Coast south of Oregon. In 1849, Rv. William Taylor and Rev. Isaac Owen were the regular appointees of the Con- ference in California. H. K. Hines, Missionary History of the Pacific Northwest, p. 371, 386. (Rev. C. O. Hosford, a pioneer of 1845, who was licensed to preach in Oregon by the authorities of the Methodist Church, Rev. William Roberts, Superintendent, in the fall of 1847, was sent to California early in 1848. Hos- ford organized the first class-meeting in a short time, and that became the nucleus of the first Methodist church in California. Geo. H. Himes, Asst. Sec. Or. Hist. Society.
