Tualatin County, Rev. J. S. Griffin secretary;[1] but no legislative action was taken until a later period. Besides the spelling-book printed in 1847, Henry H. Evarts printed an almanac calculated for Oregon and the Sandwich Islands.[2] It was printed at the Spectator office by W. P. Hudson.
Professional men were still comparatively rare, preachers of different denominations outnumbering the other professions.[3] In every neighborhood there was preaching on Sundays, the services being held in the most commodious dwellings, or in a school-house if there was one. There were as yet few churches. Oregon City, being the metropolis, had three, Catholic, Methodist, and Congregationalist.[4] There was a Methodist church at Hillsboro, and another at Salem, and the Catholic Church at St Paul's, which completed the list in 1848.
The general condition of society in the colony was, aside from the financial and Indian troubles which I have fully explained, one of general contentment. Both Burnett and Minto declare in their accounts of those times that notwithstanding the hardships all
- ↑ Or. Spectator, Feb. 18, 1847.
- ↑ S. I. Friend, Feb. 1848; Thornton's Hist. Or., MS., 27.
- ↑ I find in the S. I. Friend, Sept. 1847, the following computation: Inhabitants (white), 7,000. This, according to immigration statistics, was too small an estimate. About 400 were Catholics. Methodists were most numerous. There were 6 itinerating Methodist Episcopal preachers, and 8 or 10 local preachers, besides 2 Protestant Methodist clergymen. Baptist missionaries, 2; Congregational or Presbyterian clergymen, 4; and several of the Christian denomination known as Campbellites; regular physicians, 4; educated lawyers, 4; quacks in both professions more numerous. I have already mentioned the accidental death of Dr Long by drowning in the Willamette at Oregon City, he being at the time territorial secretary. He was succeeded in practice and in office by Dr Frederick Prigg, elected by the legislature in December 1846. He also died an accidental death by falling from the rocky bluff into the river, in October 1849. He was said to be a man of fine abilities and education, but intemperate in his habits. Or. Spectator, Nov. 2, 1849; Johnson's Cal. and Or., 274.
- ↑ Deady's Hist. Or., MS., 71. Harvey Clark first organized the Congregational church at Oregon City in 1844. Atkinson's Address, 3; Oregon City Enterprise, March 24, 1876. In 1848 Rev. Horace Lyman, with his wife, left Boston to join Atkinson in Oregon. He did not arrive until late in 1849. He founded the first Congregational church in Portland, but subsequently became a professor at the Pacific University. Home Missionary, xxii. 43–4; Or. Spectator, Nov. 1, 1849.
