Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/599

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n demands

his best efforts for the public weal as well as the prosperity of his church; and it is a pleasure to record that in this respect he has fulfilled every demand and expectation of every impartially minded good citizen.

The old questions of dogmas, creeds and ethics between the Protestant and Catholic churches, will of course, go on in endless discussion. But all church- men, and all good citizens must see, and act in concert, to educate and restrain that vast population that acknowledges no church, no creed, no country, and no God.

Archbishop Christie is a native of Highgate, Vermont; about the last place to find a great Catholic preacher. In early life he was taken to Wisconsin and later to Minnesota, where he entered St. John's university in that state and was educated by the Benedictine Fathers. His first parish was at Minnesota ; from that station he was promoted to the bishoprick of Vancouver's island, B. C, and from Vancouver, promoted to the office of archbishop of Oregon City. Here he has officiated with great success for the last ten years.

THE PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH.

The first Protestant Episcopal church service held on the Pacific coast dates back to the year 1579, when the Rev. Francis Fletcher, by the authority of "good Queen Bess" accompanying that royal rake and genteel pirate Sir Francis Drake, held a service at Drake's bay on the coast o'f California in the latter part of June,

1579-

To commemorate these services held on the shores of Drake's bay, a 'Prayer

Book Cross" was erected in the year 1894 by the generosity of Mr. George W.

Childs, of Philadelphia, through Bishop Nichol's agency, on the site in Golden

Gate park, San Francisco, tendered by the park commissioners of that city.

The first services of the prayer book within the territory of Oregon and Washington of which we have any knowledge of record were held by Rev. Mr. Beaver, chaplain to the Hudson's Bay Company, at Vancouver, in the year 1836. Mr. Beaver held services at Vancouver and Cathlamet, in Wahkiakum County, but there is no record of his having held any services within the present territory of Oregon. So far as known at present, the very first services of this church within the borders of this state, were held by the Rev. Mr. Fackler at Champoeg, and possibly Oregon City, between the years 1848 and 1851, of which, however, we have no particulars. The first recognition of the board of missions (to which in one sense the church owes everything it has in all this western country) of Oregon and Washington as a proper and inviting field for missionary efforts, was in the year 185 1, when the Rev. Wm. Richmond of the diocese of New York, was chosen and appointed its first missionary. Mr. Richmond on his appoint- ment, promptly set out for his distant field, by the way of the isthmus, and reached Portland in time to hold his first service and to organize the first church — Trinity church — on the i8th of May, 185 1. On the next Sunday, May 25th, he held his first service in Oregon City, and organized St. Paul's church. Mr. Richmond's finding the Rev. St. Michael Fackler, a clergyman of the church, from the diocese of Missouri, already here though entirely unknown to the board of missions, was a matter of great surprise, but of much pleasure to one who had come single handed and alone to this distant field. Mr. Fackler was soon appointed a missionary of the board upon Mr. Richmond's earnest recommenda- tion and became a most valuable co-adjutor in the work. The Rev. James A. Woodward, of the diocese of Pennsylvania, who like Mr. Fackler, had come to this mild climate in the pursuit of health, became a missionary of the board in 1853, and the Rev. John McCarty, a chaplain of the United States army, came to the same work in the month of January of the same year.

The first notice taken of Oregon by the Episcopalians of the eastern states was a meeting at St. Bartholomew's church in New York city on the 23d of March, 1851. Steps were taken at that meeting to send a missionary to Oreg