Failing, Joseph N. Dolph, W. S. Caldwell, John S. White, George C. Chandler, and W. Lair Hill. Again no one was found to supply the place of pastor for a year and a half, when A. R. Medbury of San Francisco accepted a call, and remained with this church three years, during which forty new members were added, and a parsonage was presented to the society by Henry Failing, since which time the church has been fairly prosperous. In 1861 the number of baptists in Oregon was 484, of churches 13, and ordained ministers 10.
The first baptist school attempted was Corvallis Institute, which seems not to have had any history beyond the act of incorporation in 1856-7. An act was also passed the following year establishing a baptist school under the name of West Union Institute, in Washington county, with David T. Lennox, Ed H. Lennox, Henry Sewell, William Mauzey, John S. White, and George C. Chandler as trustees. At the same session a charter was granted to the baptist college at McMinnville, a school already founded by the Disci ple or Christian church, and turned over to the baptists with the belongings, six acres of ground and a school building, as a free gift, upon condition that they should keep up a collegiate school. The origin of McMinnville and its college was as follows: In 1852-3, W. T. Newby cut a ditch from Baker Creek, a branch of the Yamhill River, to Cozine Creek, upon his land, where he erected a grist-mill. In 1854 S. C. Adams, who lived on his donation claim 4 miles north, took a grist to mill, and in the course of conversation with Newby remarked upon the favorable location for a town which his land presented, upon which Newby replied that if he, Adarrn, would start a town, he should have half a block of lots, and select his own location, from which point the survey should commence. In the spring of 1855 Adams deposited the lumber for his house on the spot selected, about 200 yards from the mill, and proceeded to erect his house, where, as soon as it was completed, he went to reside. Immediately after he began to agitate the subject of a high school as a nucleus for a settlement, and as he and most of the leading men in Yamhill were of the Christian church, it naturally became a Christian school. James McBride, William Dawson, W. T. Newby, and Adams worked up the matter, bearing the larger part of the expense. Newby gave six acres of land. The building erected for the school was large and commodious for those times. Adams, who was a teacher by profession, was urged to take charge of the school, and taught it for a year and a half. Among his pupils were John R. McBride, L. L. Rowland, J. C. Shelton, George L. Woods, and Wm D. Baker. But there had not been any organization, or any charter asked for, and Adams, who found it hard and unprofitable work to keep up the school alone, wished to resign, and proposed to the men interested to place it in the hands of the baptists, who were about founding the West Union Institute. To this they made no objection, as they only wished to have a school, and were not secta rian in feeling. Accordingly, Adams proposed the gift to the baptists, and it was accepted, only one condition being imposed, and agreed to in writing, to employ at least one professor in the college department continuously. It was incorporated in January 1858 as the baptist college at McMinnville, by Henry Warren, James M. Fulkerson, Ephriam Ford, Reuben C. Hill, J. S. Holman, Alexius N. Miller, Richard Miller, and Willis Gaines, trustees. The Washington county school was allowed to drop, and the McMinnville college was taken in charge by G. C. Chandler in the collegiate department, and Mrs N. Morse in the preparatory school. The incorporated institution received the gift of twenty acres of land for a college campus from Samuel and Mahala Cozine and Mrs P. W. Chandler. It owned in 1882 three thou sand dollars in outside lands, a building fund of twenty-one thousand dollars, and an endowment fund of over seventeen thousand, besides the apparatus and library. From addresses by J. N. Dolph and W. C. Johnson in McMinville College and Catalogue, 1882. A new and handsome edifice has been erected, whose corner-stone was laid in 1882. The Beacon, a monthly denominational journal, was published at Salem as the organ of the baptists.
Several attempts were made to have colleges free from sectarian influence, which rarely succeeded. The Jefferson institute, incorporated in January
