Oregon. She was introduced to Mr. Clark and his wife, and being invited to spend the winter of 1846 and 1847 at their home, accepted. In the course of the visit she expressed, at one time, the wish to establish herself in a home of her own where she might receive the orphan children of those who perished in crossing the plains, be a mother to them all, and see that they were properly brought up and educated.
This was a wish which found ready response from her host, and thus from the blending of those two kindly personalities there came into being in 1847 what is known as the "Orphan Asylum." It was a school intended primarily for the children of unfortunate emigrants, but it came soon to be patronized by others. In 1848 the gold excitement occurred in California, and men whose wives had died left their children with Mrs. Brown. Here, too, came the children of the settlers who had selected claims in the fertile valley of the Tualatin River. The log church used by Mr. Clark served the purpose of a schoolhouse, and during the summer a boarding hall was built. The school was free to all who had not means to pay, but a charge was made to those who could afford it. There are some yet living who attended that school and remember distinctly its two kindly founders. Settlers rallied nobly around the enterprise and furnished from their own meager supplies the household utensils needed for the boarding hall. When the revenue was insufficient for supplies, Mr. Clark and other settlers generously furnished them. Teachers were secured from those coining in or from the missionaries who had been driven from their post in the eastern part of the Willamette Valley when increase of immigration stirred up the Indians to hostility. Among those early teachers are found the names of Rev. Lewis Thompson, of the Presbyterian denomination, William Geiger, a friend of Mr. Clark, later a prac-
