Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/370

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
322
Erwin F. Lange

which over $4,500 had been expended as non continued. Post continued as head of the school for over a year and then became discontented for some unknown reason.[1] From time to time during the summer of 1855, he threatened to open a private school. When asked to meet with the board of trustees to discuss difficulties he failed to come to the meeting. He further got into trouble with the board by changing the name of the school in an advertisement, and by admitting girls to the school against the orders of the trustees. A committee was appointed by the board of trustees to interview him but the nature and result of the interview are not known. In a letter dated November 27, 1855, Fisher says that Post had withdrawn from the school and had opened a private school of his own.

The status of the school in 1855, is described by Fisher in a letter dated July 3, 1855. He says: "Our school affairs are moving along but slowly. Our community is so fluctuating, being subject to many excitements and so many fluctuations, and so extreme, that it is impossible to keep any class of scholars above a few months, except a few from the more able permanent citizens. . . . Although our school has failed of exerting the direct salutory influence on the denomination which was anticipated, yet it has done much to elevate the views of the Baptists in Oregon and has shed its blessings, both direct and indirect, upon hundreds of our fellow citizens."

There is no evidence available that the Oregon City College was ever legally incorporated but January, 1856, we find the Willamette Baptist Association forming a new school to succeed the Oregon City College. This was incorporated by the territorial legislature as the Oregon City University. The charter,[2] dated January 11, 1856, stated that "all rights, credits, and property of said Oregon City College are hereby transferred to and vested in the trustees of the Oregon City University." The trustees names were G. Chandler, Ezra Fisher, William T. Matlock, Hezekiah Johnson, Thomas J. Chase, L. D. C. Latourette, William C. Johnson, G. P. Newell, John D. Garrett, Samuel L. Campbell, D. L. Lenox, J. S. White, William Sperry, E. T. Fish-


  1. Fisher, Correspondence, 479, 480.
  2. Original in Oregon Historical Society.