USA > Oregon > Marion County > Salem > Oregon and its institutions; comprising a full history of the Willamette University, the first established on the Pacific Coast > Part 9
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receive that intellectual and moral training which alone can prepare them for respectability and use- fulness; therefore a respectable number of the in- habitants of the Willamette settlement have entered into arrangements for the purpose of raising funds and carrying into operation a respectable boarding- school.
It is also contemplated, so soon as the community and the resources of the institution shall justify it, that it will become a university. The contemplated institution is to be called the "Oregon Institute," and to be located on the Wallace Prairie, on an eminence about one half mile south of the place occupied by Baptist Delcour, near a fountain of living water. A constitution has been adopted which, in order to secure the best education of the pupils in science, morality, and piety, places the institution in the hands of that society of evangelical Protestant Christians which shall first pledge itself to sustain it, and also making it the right of any person who shall subscribe at any one time fifty dollars or more, and pay the same according to the terms of subscription, to be associated with said society in the transaction of all business pertaining to the institution.
A board of nine trustees has been appointed, whose terms of office are to expire as follows : three at each annual meeting of the society pledged to sustain the school, at which time there shall be three others elected to fill their place.
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CONSTITUTION OF THE OREGON INSTITUTE, ADOPTED MARCH 15, 1842.
ARTICLE I.
Whereas the Oregon Institute is designed not only to promote science, but morality and piety, therefore this institution shall always be under the supervision of some evangelical branch of the Protestant Church.
ARTICLE II.
The institution shall be an academical boarding school as soon as practicable ; and whenever it shall be deemed expedient by the proper authorities to make it a university it shall be so constituted.
ARTICLE III.
The primary object of this institution is to educate the children of white men; but no person shall be excluded on account of color, provided their character and qualifications be such as are required in the by-laws of the institution.
ARTICLE IV.
There shall be nine trustees for this institution, who shall be elected tri-annually by the society which shall first pledge itself to sustain the institution, two- thirds of whom shall be members of said society, whose duty it shall be to hold in trust for said society all the property of said institution, consisting of real estate, notes, bonds, securities, goods and chattels,
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etc., belonging to it; and any person who shall sub- scribe at any one time fifty dollars or upward shall be entitled to a voice in all the business meetings of the society which relate to the institution.
ARTICLE V.
There shall be a visiting committee appointed by the society contemplated in the fourth article, or by such organized body of the same Church as shall be selected by said society, whose duty it shall be to examine all the departments of the institution, and report the result to the public at large.
ARTICLE VI.
There shall be a steward connected with the insti- tution, who shall have the charge of the boarding department, and also of all the children who board in the institution while they are not under the care of their instructors.
ARTICLE VII.
In the literary departments there shall be a male and female branclı, subject to the control of male and female teachers, and so conducted as best to promote science, morality, and piety.
ARTICLE VIII.
This Constitution may be altered at any annual mecting of the society above named by a vote of two thirds of the members present, excepting article first, which shall not be altered or amended.
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ARTICLE IX.
There shall be an annual meeting of the society pledged to sustain the institution, to be held the last Monday in May in each year. Said annual meeting shall fill all vacancies in the Board of Trustees, and either appoint the visiting committee or make choice of some organized body for that purpose, and trans- act such other business as may be deemed proper which does not contravene this Constitution.
ARTICLE X.
Should no society pledge itself to sustain the institution previous to the last Monday in May, A. D. one thousand eight hundred and forty-two, then the business of the institution shall be transacted by those who subscribe fifty dollars or upward at any one time for the support of the institution, till some society shall give a pledge to sustain it.
BY-LAWS ADOPTED MARCH 15, 1842.
SECTION I.
As soon as four thousand dollars shall be sub- scribed the trustees shall proceed and erect buildings, and prepare for the contemplated school.
SECTION II.
Any person of color who may desire to be ad- mitted as a pupil shall procure testimonials of a good moral character, and that the candidate can read
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and write so as to be understood, and speak the En- glish language intelligibly.
SECTION III.
The present trustees shall divide themselves into three equal classes by casting lots. The offices of those composing the first class shall terminate in May, A. D. 1843, the second class one year, and the third class two years thereafter, at each of which times there shall be three trustees chosen to fill such vacancies ; and there shall be annually thereafter as many trustees chosen as shall fill all vacancies which may be occasioned by death or otherwise.
SECTION IV.
Any person who shall subscribe to the funds of the institution fifty dollars or more at any one time, and shall pay the same according to the terms there- of, shall receive a certificate of patronage, signed and sealed by the president and secretary of the Board, which certificate shall entitle the receiver to a voice in all the business of the society relating to the institution during his natural life.
SECTION V.
Any person who shall subscribe to the funds of the institution at any one time five hundred dollars, and pay the same according to the terms thereof, shall receive a certificate of scholarship, signed and sealed as in the above, which certificate shall entitle him or
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his heirs to the tuition of one scholar perpetually in the institution.
SECTION VI.
All subscriptions less than fifty dollars shall be paid within six months from the time of subscribing.
SECTION VII.
All subscriptions of fifty dollars, and not exceeding three hundred dollars, shall be paid in four equal in- stallments, due semi-annually from the time of sub- scribing.
SECTION VIII.
All subscriptions of three hundred dollars or more shall be paid as follows: One fourth at the annual meeting next succeeding the time of subscribing, the remainder in semi-annual payments of fifty dollars each till the whole shall be paid.
SECTION IX.
Any person who has subscribed to the funds of the institution at any one time one hundred dollars or more shall be allowed at any one time thereafter to increase his subscription to five hundred dollars, in which case his former subscription shall be reckoned as a part of the sum necessary to entitle him to a certificate of scholarship as provided for above.
SECTION X.
No person shall be eligible to the office of trustee, or steward, or visiting committee, or receive employ-
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ment as a teacher, who denies the authenticity of the sacred Scriptures.
SECTION XI.
The steward and teachers shall draw up a code of regulations for the internal management of the insti- tution, which shall be laid before the Board of Trust- ees for amendment or approval.
SECTION XII.
The above sixth, seventh, and eighth sections of by-laws shall not take effect until the pledge of sup- port contemplated in the constitution shall be given.
SECTION XIII.
The chairman of the Board of Trustees is hereby authorized to call a meeting of said Board whenever he shall be requested to do so by three of the mem- bers of the Board.
SECTION XIV.
The chairman and secretary of the Board shall be elected annually, at which time there shall be three trustees elected.
SECTION XV.
It shall be the duty of the trustees to report the state of the finances to each annual meeting.
For the purpose of carrying into effect the objects set forth in the foregoing prospectus, constitution, and by-laws, a subscription paper was drawn up and 10
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circulated through the community to raise the neces- sary funds.
The history would not be complete if this paper in its original form were not to be printed.
The following is a true copy of this first subscrip- tion raised in Oregon for the establishment of a lit- erary institution, and the names of all the subscribers, with the amounts donated.
SUBSCRIPTION.
We whose names are hereunto appended promise to pay to the collector of the Board of Trustees the sums set to our names, according to the following conditions : All subscriptions less than fifty dollars within six months after subscribing ; subscriptions of fifty dollars, and less than three hundred, in four equal semi-annual installments from the time of sub- scribing ; subscriptions of three hundred dollars, and upward, one fourth at the first annual meeting suc- ceeding the time of subscribing; the remainder in semi-annual installments of fifty dollars each.
The above conditions of payment are not to take effect until some evangelical branch of the Protestant Church shall pledge itself to sustain the institution.
All donations to the institution shall be paid as follows : At least one third in cash orders on the mission or Vancouver, and the remainder in tame neat cattle, lumber, labor, wheat, or cash, according to the choice of the donors, said property to be de- livered at the institution at the market prices.
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SUBSCRIBERS' NAMES.
AMOUNT.
L. H. Judson
$500
Joseph Gale 100
Jason Lee. 500
Gustavus Hines. 300
Hamilton Campbell.
100
Elmira Phillips
50
James Olley
100
Joseph Holman
100
David Leslie
500
J. L. Parrish. .
200
W. W. Raymond.
200
Joseph L. Whitcomb
100
J. L. Babcock
160
A. Beers.
300
Daniel Lee
100
H. B. Brewer
200
Robert Shortess
100
James Bates.
50
James S. O'Neil. 50
Orpha Carter 10
W. H. Gray
50
A. F. Waller
200
At the time this subscription was raised the entire business of the community was done by the way of barter trade, as, properly speaking, there was no cash or money in the country, and the cash men- tioned in connection with the subscriptions simply means accepted orders either upon the mission store at Oregon City, or upon the Hudson's Bay Company at Vancouver.
To show the earnestness and liberality with which this enterprise was carried forward it will be proper to observe that, in proportion to the means possessed, perhaps there never was a better subscription raised for any similar purpose, many of the persons cheer- fully giving from one quarter to one third of all they possessed in the world. The subscription, amounting to about four thousand dollars, was thought to be
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sufficient to warrant the erection of buildings ; but there were difficulties in the way ; the whole matter was yet afloat.
The constitution which the Board had adopted provided that the school should always be under the supervision of some branch of the Christian Church ; and further, that it should be that branch that should first come forward and enter into a pledge to patron- ize and sustain the institution. And the by-laws also provided that no subscription was binding until this pledge of patronage and support was duly given. It was therefore very clear that until some Church should assume this responsibility, and adopt this in- stitution as its own, all the efforts of the Board to build up the school would be greatly trammeled, and perhaps prove entirely abortive. The Congregational Church had already been organized, with its center at the Tuality Plains, but it was yet too feeble to sustain such a charge; and as there was no other branch of the evangelical Church in Oregon that seemed either disposed or prepared to occupy such a position, and as the public generally seemed to be looking to the Methodist Episcopal Church to take the initiation in this grand enterprise, a meeting was held at the house of Rev. Gustavus Hines, known as the " Old Parsonage," in which it was resolved that the Rev. Jason Lee, the superintendent of the Oregon Mission, be respectfully requested to call a meeting of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Oregon, both ministers and laymen, to take into consideration the importance of receiving the Oregon Institute under
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its care, and pledging itself to patronize and support it. Accordingly the Church and friends of the enter- prise were called to meet at the place of the above meeting on October 26, 1842, and there, after a most thorough investigation of the whole subject, on a mo- tion made by Dr. Elijah White, and seconded by Rev. A. F. Waller, it was unanimously resolved that, as a branch of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, we take under our care, and pledge ourselves to make every reasonable effort to sustain, the Oregon Institute. Previously to this act of the Methodist Episcopal Church as a body, of receiving the institute under a pledge of support, the property was in the hands of an irresponsible Board; but the conditions of ownership expressed in the con- stitution and by-laws having been complied with by this action of the Church, the school, and all that ap- pertained to it, was transferred to the proprietorship of that body. Lest there might be some doubt as to the propriety and validity of this course of procedure another general meeting of the Church and commun- ity was called on May 29, 1843, at the institute premises on Wallace Prairie, and a resolution was presented by Rev. David Leslie, and seconded by L. II. Judson, that this meeting, in behalf of the Meth- odist Episcopal Church and the subscribers to the Oregon Institute, do hereby recognize the present Board of Trustees, and approve of their doings. Nearly every subscriber was present on the occasion, and voted in favor of the resolution ; and henceforth the Oregon Institute was regarded as the property,
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and under the exclusive control of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Immediately after this action the Church, then assembled, proceeded to fill the vacancies which had occurred in the Board by resig- nation, and the expiration of the term of service of the first class. W. H. Wilson was elected to take the place of J. L. Babcock, who had resigned, and W. Hauxhurst, Alanson Beers, and W. H. Gray to fill the first class. Mr. Gray was a member of the Presbyterian or Congregational Church, and had been for some years connected with the mission in the interior among the Cayuses, under the direction of the American Board; but he had applied for and obtained a release from any further service to them, that he might become the general superintendent and secular agent of the Oregon Institute. He was accordingly engaged by the Board at a salary of four hundred dollars per annum. A building committee had also been constituted to take measures to erect a suitable house for the purposes contemplated, and Mr. Gray was authorized to draw upon the Board for the requisite funds, and up to November 16, 1843, there had been expended upon the house about three thousand dollars.
At this date ceased the action, in connection with the Board, of one of its most prominent and efficient members, and one whose name is to occupy in the history of Oregon the first place among the pioneers of Christian civilization upon the Pacific slope, namely, Rev. Jason Lee. This indefatigable laborer in the cause of humanity received his birth in the
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township of Stanstead, Canada East, but was mainly educated in the Wilbraham Academy, in the state of Massachusetts, under the tuition of the lamented Dr. Wilbur Fisk. When it was determined by the Church to send missionaries to Oregon over the Rocky Mountains, he was selected by the authorities of the Church as a suitable person to be placed at the head of the grand enterprise. Yielding to the solicitations of Dr. Fisk, from a conviction of duty he left the domains of civilization, and, accompanied by a few self-denying and kindred spirits, in the year 1834 he penetrated the deepest recesses of savage barbarism, and finally emerging from the defiles of the Cascade Mountains into the lovely valleys of Oregon, he commenced the work of laying the foundations for the erection of a Christian civilization upon these western shores. Oregon became at once the country of his adoption and the country of his love; and from the beginning he showed clearly that he had all the moral, religious, and educational interests of the country deeply at heart.
At the first annual meeting Mr. Lee had been elected president of the board of trustees, and, as he was about to visit the Atlantic States for the purpose of promoting both the civil and religious interests of Oregon, he proposed to accept an agency from the Board if it should be their pleasure to confer it upon him. Accordingly it was resolved that the Rev. Jason Lee be requested and authorized to act as agent in the United States to solicit funds and donations for a library, philosophical apparatus, etc.,
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for the Oregon Institute. Mr. Lee had buried two wives and an infant son beneath the evergreens of Oregon, and his affections now, in all their strength, twined around a little daughter of two years old, whom he had committed to the care of a friend, and who constituted the only family tie that bound him to earth; yet he considered the objects to be accom- plished in Oregon's advancement and elevation to be of such paramount importance that he could, under the conviction that duty called him, tear him- self away from all he held dear on earth to secure this one desire of his heart. On taking leave of this western world he indulged the pleasing hope, that after accomplishing his mission in the East he would be permitted to return to the land he loved better than life, and employ his waning energies in the cause of humanity on the Pacific shores, and finally to lay his, bones by the side of those of his two com- panions who had fallen as martyrs in the work to which they had consecrated their all. But an in- scrutable Providence ordered it otherwise. In April, 1845, he fell in the midst of his friends, and they dug his grave near the shores of Lake Memphremagog, in the province of Lower Canada. A marble slab, bearing a suitable record of his life and labors, marks the spot where his dust reposes ; but while vitality remained his heart dwelt in the regions of the setting sun. Possessing but little of this world's goods, he clonated to the Oregon Institute six hundred dollars, one hundred of it just before he breathed his last.
In the month of May, 1844, energetic measures
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were taken to advance the interests of the Board by the survey, appraisal, and sale of lots; and by for- warding the institute building, so that early in the season a school might be put into successful opera- tion. But an event was about to transpire which was destined to change the whole aspect of things in rela- tion to the locality of our school, and show conclu- sively that the interests we sought to promote were under the immediate supervision of the wise provi- dence of God. This event was the revolution that was effected in our missionary policy in Oregon. This revolution originated in the action of the Mis- sionary Board in New York, which, for reasons which appeared justifiable, at a regular meeting held July 19, 1843, recommended to the bishop having charge of foreign missions either the appointment of a spe- cial agent to proceed to Oregon, and investigate the financial concerns of the mission, or supersede Mr. Lee by a new superintendent. The latter course was decided upon by the bishop, and in September following it was announced that the Rev. George Gary, of the Black River Conference, was appointed to the superintendency of the Oregon mission. The instructions of the authorities of the Church to the new superintendent were few, but he was clothed with discretionary power, and had the destiny of missionaries, laymen, property, and all, put into his hands. With this almost unlimited authority Mr. Gary arrived in Oregon on the first day of May, 1844, and entered at once upon the delicate and responsible duties devolved upon him. It was a
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somewhat singular coincidence that Mr. Lee, not knowing that he had been superseded, was on his way to New York at the same time that Mr. Gary was approaching the Pacific shores. They never saw each other. Mr. Lee, as above stated, fell in Canada, and Mr. Gary assumed the responsibilities of superintendent of the mission in Oregon, which had devolved upon Mr. Lee for the period of ten years.
After Mr. Gary had given himself sufficient time to survey the ground, and form some just conception of the magnitude of the work committed to his hands, on the 7th of June following his arrival he called a meeting of all the missionaries, ministers and lay- men, at the old parsonage, in what is now Salem, then occupied by Rev. David Leslie, for the purpose of consultation concerning the various departments of our missionary work. The meeting commenced at an early hour of the day, and such was the im- portance of the interests involved that the investiga- tion continued until daylight the next morning.
The principal points arrived at, however, in this instance, was a decision to sell the mission property at Clatsop, near the mouth of the Columbia River, consisting of a farm, buildings, and stock. Mr. Gary also informed the laymen connected with the mission that he intended to dismiss them, and proposed to defray their expenses home if they wished to return, or pay them an equivalent in such property as the mission possessed in Oregon. With the exception of one, Dr. J. L. Babcock, they preferred to remain
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in the country, and accordingly mission property was distributed among the different families to the amount to each family of from eight hundred to a thousand dollars. And here it should be observed that the course adopted by Mr. Gary in disposing of the laymen belonging to the mission was as satisfac- tory to the latter as it was just and honorable in the superintendent.
It will have been already discovered that one of the objects of the missionary enterprise of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Oregon was the establishment and maintenance of a Mission Manual Labor School for the benefit of Indian children. This school had been established by Mr. Lee, in the fall of 1834, on the old mission premises, ten miles below Salem, and, un- der the care of Cyrus Shepherd and others it assumed an interesting and promising aspect. In 1841 this Indian school had increased to about forty children, and these were crowded into a small log-house, and it became evident that more commodious quarters must be provided for it. It was also ascertained, by an ex- perience of a few years, that the original locality of the mission was comparatively an unhealthy one, - and it was determined in council to remove the head- quarters of the mission to Chemekete, now the city of Salem. In connection with this removal it was determined by Mr. Lee, by the consent and advice of the Missionary Board in New York, to build a suit- able house for the accommodation of the Indian Mis- sion School. Accordingly, in 1842 this determination was carried into effect by the erection of the old
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wood house still standing upon the institute grounds, and costing the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church when erected ten thousand dol- lars. The Indian Mission School moved into this building in the fall of 1842, and for a few months it seemed to be flourishing; but a strange fatality finally fell upon it. A fatal disease carried away many of the children, others ran away, and some were stolen by their parents, until but few were left, and these withering under the influence of the fatal scrofula; so that, on the arrival of Mr. Gary in 1844, a dark cloud rested upon the prospects of our Mission School. On the 26th of June the superin- tendent called a general meeting of the missionaries and members of the Methodist Episcopal Church at the Mission School-house, to take into consideration the subject of the school, and determine whether it should be continued or disbanded. The matter was thoroughly investigated pro and con, and it was finally determined to bring the Indian Mission Manual Labor School to a close. This was immediately done, and now the house and premises, which had cost the Missionary Society more than ten thousand dollars, were in the hands of Mr. Gary, to be disposed of and put to some other use. The question, How can this property be best employed to promote in Oregon the true objects contemplated by the Church in this expenditure? became a matter of grave investigation, and as a result, Mr. Gary proposed to sell the Oregon Mission School-house and lands connected with it to the trustees of the Oregon Institute for the sum of
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