Page:Centennial History of Oregon 1811-1912, Volume 1.djvu/881

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The oldest Congregational church in Oregon is that of the First church of Tualatin Plains, organized by Rev. J. S. Griffin in June, 1842. The second church is that of Oregon City organized ilay 25, 1844, by Rev. Harvey Clark; who also taught the first schools in Washington county, and organized a Congregational church at Forest Grove. And while the Pacific University at Forest Grove was founded by the Congregationalists, and has been in the main endowed by members of that church; yet it is and has always been non-sectarian.

The first member of the Presbyterian denomination in Oregon was Rev. H. H. Spalding, but as Whitman's mission was primarily to the Indians, and not to the founding of churches, it is considered in another chapter. The first Pi'esbyterian to come to Oregon to preach to white people was Lewis Thompson of Kentucky, a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, who came to the Pacific coast in 1846, and settled on Clatsop plains, where the first Presbyterian church on the Pacific coast was erected. Mr. Thompson on September 19, 1846, preached his first sermon at the residence of Wm. H. Gray, and to a congregation composed of Mr. and Mrs. Gray, and Alva Condit and his wife Ruth Condit, Mr. Condit being a ruling elder in the church from Missouri. Truman P. Powers of Astoria was the first ordained elder of the Presbyterian church on the Pacific coast. On the 19th of November, 1846, Robert Robe, a young minister from Ohio reached Oregon, and they, Thompson and Robe, together with Edward R. Geary of Lafayette in Yamhill county, organized the presbytery of Oregon at the house of Rev. Geary in pursuance of an order of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church made in 1846. By 1853 there were five Presbyterian ministers in Oregon—J. L. Yantis and J. A. Hanna, in addition to the three already named.

These efforts now noted were all the work of the old school division of the Presbyterians. But soon thereafter other branches of the same faith made their presence known. There were among the pioneers, Cumberland Presbyterians, Associate Presbyterians, and Associate Reformed. In 1851 James P. Millar of Albany, New York arrived in Oregon as a missionary of one of these latter societies. And finding here not more than 200 members and half dozen ministers of the two societies he proposed a plan of uniting them all in one organization under the name of the "United Presbyterian Church of Oregon," constituting one presbytery and being independent of any allegiance to any religious organization outside of Oregon.

The men who entered into this agreement on October 20, 1852, to form an independent Presbyterian church were James P. Millar, Thomas S. Kendall, Samuel G. Irvine, Wilson Blain, James Worth, J. M. Dick and Stephen D. Gager. They completed their organization on October 11, 1853, with a membership of 14 persons, Mr. Millar becoming the first pastor of the church. In 1858, they founded the Albany Academy, with Thomas Kendall, Delazon Smith (afterwards U. S. Senator), Dennis Beach, Edward R. Geaiy, Walter Monteith, J. P. Tate. John Smith, James H. Foster and R. H. Crawford, as the first board of trustees. This school was superseded by the Albany Institute in 1866, with