474 REVFREND EZRA FISHER
I believe I acknowledged receipt of yours under date of June 25, 1852. I shall leave today for a yearly meeting on the French Prairie and shall not return till I have visited Rogue River settlements, unless the rains should swell the streams so as to make travelling dangerous. As ever yours in Christ,
EZRA FISHER. Received Nov. 29, 1852.
Lebanon, twelve miles east of Salem, Marion Co., Oregon Ter., Nov. 22, 1852.
Rev. Benjamin M. Hill,
Cor. Sec. A. B. H. M. Soc. Dear Brother:
Owing to the winter rains coming down with so much frequency just at the time I got in readiness to make a tour to Rogue River, the fact that the immigration was moving on in that direction in such numbers and the great scarcity of provisions in that country, all of which would contribute to throw the community in an unsettled condition, I con- cluded to spend the rainy season in the older and more settled parts of Oregon and defer my visit to Rogue River and Puget Sound till the opening of the spring. At that time the immigrants will find their homes and begin to look around them with desire to secure the necessary appendages of civilization and a means of grace. From all the facts that have fallen under my observation I have not the least doubt there is an important opening for the constitution of a Baptist church at the Indian agency only seven miles from Jacksonville, a rising mining town near Rogue River. 289 Judge Rice 290 and wife and some two or more members besides are located near the agency and will do what they can to sustain Baptist preaching. Br. James S. Read is in
289 In January, 1851, gold was discovered near the present Jacksonville, the beginning of successful mining in the Rogue River. Other discoveries soon fol- lowed, and there was a large influx of miners. George H. Himes.
290 This was L. A. Rice. He was County Judge for two years. Mattoon, Bap. An. of Ore., 1:137.
