ticing physician and until recently a resident of Forest Grove, and Miss Mary Johnson, of whom no record is found beyond the name, and there were probably others who assisted.
The orphan asylum was more than an idea; it was an institution. Something tangible had started. Something had come into being where before there was nothing. It was only the forerunner of what was to follow, but it served its purpose and it had its distinct bearing on subsequent events. It put at the foundation of Pacific University a splendid motive, which, to an institution that cherishes: traditions, is worth a great deal. Furthermore, it determined the location of an institution at Forest Grove rather than at some other place, and served as a starting point for the more ambitious undertaking that soon followed.
The next step in the development of an institution was taken upon the arrival of a third personality into. Oregon. In June of 1848 there landed at Oregon City, ready for a life-long service, for Oregon in all that makes for good citizenship, Rev. George H. Atkinson. It is significant that he came not as missionary to a foreign field, but as the first representative of the Home Missionary Society, and as a representative to a section of the United States that in the same year received a territorial government, thus insuring American institutions and American ideals of life. The coming of Mr. Atkinson also marks the growing influence of emigration, for it had been at the request of a parish in Illinois, some of whose members had gone to Oregon,, that petition had been made for a representative of the society which had been organized to lay moral foundations in the new West. It was significant, too, of the fact that the East was organizing to extend aid to the West, and to furnish conditions that would not have been realized for many years had it been necessary to await the
