house in Oregon. Home Missionary, xxvi. 115–6. About 1871 a brick edifice, costing 35,000, was completed to take the place of this one. A methodist church was also erected at South Salem.
The methodist church of Portland was organized in 1848, a church building was begun by Wilbur in 1850, and the first methodist episcopal church of Portland incorporated January 26, 1853. The original edifice was a plain but roomy frame building, with its gable fronting on Taylor Street, near Third. A reincorporation took place in 1867, and in 1869 a brick church, costing $35,000, was completed on the corner of Third and Taylor streets, fronting on Third. A second edifice was erected on Hall Street. During the year 1884, a new society, an offshoot from the Taylor-Street church, was organized under the name of the Grace Methodist Episcopal Church, taking with it $40,000 worth of the property of the former. The methodist church at The Dalles was built in 1862 by J. F. Devore, at a time when mining enterprises were beginning to develop the eastern portion of the state.
The methodists have been foremost in propagating their principles by means of schools, as the history of the Willamette University illustrates. In new communities these means seem to be necessary to give coherence to effort, and have proved beneficial. Willamette University, which absorbed the Oregon Institute, was incorporated January 12, 1853. It opened with two departments, a preparatory, or academic, and a collegiate course, and but few pupils took more than the academic course for many years. It had later six departments, thirteen professors and tutors, and four academies which fed the university. The departments were college of liberal arts, medical college, woman's college, conservatory of music, university academy, and correlated academies. College Journal, June 1882. The correlated academies were those of Wilbur, Sheridan, Santiam, and Dallas. The medical college, one of the six departments of the university, was by the unanimous vote of the faculty removed to Portland in 1877.
The Clackamas seminary for young ladies, established at Oregon City in 1851, was the combined effort of the methodists and congregationalists, and prospered for a time, but as a seminary has long been extinct; $11,000 were raised to found it, and John McLoughlin gave a block of land. Harvey Clark was the first teacher, after which Mrs Thornton and Mr and Mrs H. K. Hines taught in it. Or. Spectator, June 6, 1851; Or. Argus, Nov. 10, 1855. Santiam and Umpqua academies were established about 1854. La Creole Academic Institute, at Dallas, was incorporated in 1856. The incorporators were Frederick Waymire, William P. Lewis, John El Lyle, Horace Lyman, Reuben P. Boise, Thomas J. Lovelady, Nicholas Lee, James Frederick, and A. W. Swaney. Or. Laws, 1860, 93. The act provided that at no time should a majority of the trustees be of one religious denomination. The academy is nevertheless at present one of the branches of the Willamette University. Philomath college, a few miles from Corvallis, is also controlled by a board of trustees elected by the annual conference. This college has an endowment of over $16,000 and a small general fund. The buildings are chiefly of brick, and cost $15,000.
The Portland academy was opened in 1852 by C. S. Kingsley and wife, who managed it for several years, and after them others. The property was worth, in 1876, $20,000, but the usefulness of the school, which had no endowment, had passed, and it has since suspended. Hines' Or., 105–6; Olympia Columbian, Sept. 18, 1852; Pub. Instruc. Rept, in Or. Mess. and Doc., 1876, 146. Corvallis college was founded by the methodist church south, in 1865, and incorporated August 22, 1868, since which time it has had control of the state agricultural college, as stated in another place; 150 students were enrolled in 1878. The Ashland college and normal school, organized in 1878 from the Ashland academy, is also under the management of the conference.
The Catholic Church, next in point of time, had a rude church at Champoeg on their first entrance into the Willamette valley in the winter of 1839-40. In February 1846 a plain wooden church was dedicated at Oregon City, and in November St Paul's brick church was consecrated at Champoeg. In
