Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/49

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EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS.
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was brought across the plains in an emigrant wagon in 1848, intrusted to the care of P. B. Cornwall, who turning off to California placed it in charge of Orrin Kellogg, who brought it safely to Oregon City and delivered it to Joseph Hull. Under this authority Multnomah lodge was opened September 11, 1848, Joseph Hull, W. M.; W. P. Dougherty, S. W., and T. C. Cason, J. W. J. C. Ainsworth was the first worshipful master elected under this charter.[1]

A dispensation for establishing an Odd Fellows lodge was also applied for in 1846, but not obtained till 1852.[2] The Multnomah circulating library was a chartered institution, with branches in the different counties; and the members of the Falls Association, a literary society which seems to have been a part of the library scheme, contributed to the Spectator prose and verse of no mean quality.

The small and scattered population and the scarcity of school-books were serious drawbacks to education. Continuous arrivals, and the printing of a large edition of Webster's Elementary Spelling Book by the Oregon printing association, removed some of the obstacles to advancement[3] in the common schools. Of private schools and academies there were already several besides the Oregon Institute and the Catholic schools. Of the latter there were St Joseph[4] for

  1. Address of Grand Master Chadwick, in Yreka Union, Jan. 17, 1874; Seattle Tribune, Aug. 27, 1875; Olympia Transcript, Aug. 2, 1875.
  2. This was on account of the miscarriage of the warrant, which was sent to Oregon in 1847 by way of Honolulu, but which did not reach there, the person to whom it was sent, Gilbert Watson, dying at the Islands in 1848. A. V. Fraser, who was sent out by the government in the following year to supervise the revenue service on the Pacific coast, was then appointed a special commissioner to establish the order in California and Oregon; but the gold discoveries gave him so much to do that he did not get to Oregon, and it was not until 3 years afterward that Chemeketa lodge No. 1 was established at Salem. The first lodge at Portland was instituted in 1853. E. M. Barnum's Early Hist. Odd Fellowship in Or., in Jour. of Proceedings of Grand Lodge I. O. O. F. for 1877, 2075–84; H. H. Gilfrey in same, 2085; C. D. Moore's Historical Review of Odd Fellowship in Or., 25th Anniversary of Chemeketa Lodge, Dec. 1877; S. F. New Age, Jan. 7, 1865; Constitution, etc., Portland, 1871.
  3. S. I. Friend, Sept. 1847, 140; Or. Spectator, Feb. 18, 1847.
  4. Named after Joseph La Roque of Paris who furnished the funds for its erection. DeSmet's Or. Miss., 41.