Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/11



Umpqua Academy, located at Wilbur, Douglas County, Oregon, was chartered by the Territorial Legislature of Oregon, January 15, 1857, and its history as an academy ended October, 1900. Before the granting of the charter a school was taught in the same locality that bore the same name and was the shadow of the coming event.

James H. Wilbur was its founder and distinctively the author of the early events that led to its establishment and splendid career. Any historical sketch, therefore, that does not at least recite the principal events of his life and work will fail to satisfy those readers who are the grateful inheritors of his great work. He was born in Lowville, New York, September 11, 1811, and died at Walla Walla, October 8, 1887. He was married to Lucretia Ann Stevens, March 9, 1831. She died September 13, 1887, less than a month prior to her husband's death. From this union came one child, a daughter, who was married to Rev. St. Michael Fackler, an, Episcopal clergyman, in 1849. She died the following year, leaving a daughter who died in her eleventh year.

Mr. Wilbur's life was truly one of ministry. The pioneer spirit was in his blood and the call of God in his heart. He was one of the best of a type of early Methodist ministers, who were thrilled by the "Go Ye" of the Galilean and whose life work was mapped on a plan that made service to others of primary importance. To him, as to others of his time, the