Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 2.djvu/96

80 County, Missouri, and in 1845 Michael followed. At about this time, the followers of Dr. William Keil, a native of Prussia, but who had been preaching at various places in the United States, and had adherents in several states, such as Pennsylvania, Illinois, Iowa and Missouri, were collecting to form a community at Bethel near Shelbyville, and Rapps became a member of this organization. As he remembers, there were some five hundred, all told, finally collected at Bethel. Surrounded as they were by a fine prairie country, which was ready at the touch of the plow to produce abundant crops, and all being industrious and working to a common point, the community prospered greatly.

However, a movement to the farthest west began to be thought of, and in 1853 a number as pioneers of a larger party were sent forward by Doctor Keil to investigate the Pacific Coast. They came first into Washington by way of Olympia, and made their final location at Willapa, in Pacific County on Shoalwater Bay. The names of these as given by Mr. Rapps were Michael Schaefer, Adam Schuele, John and Hans Stauffer, Christ Giesy and Joseph Knight. These were well pleased with the region and made homes at Willapa Harbor as now called, and they were able to report favorably to Doctor Keil at Bethel, so that he was encouraged to come hither himself, with a considerable part of his Bethel community.

The general movement was consummated in 1855. There were four parties. One was a small train of six wagons that made the start about the first of April; another was a train of twenty wagons of the colonists, joined by two or three others not of the colony, that started some six weeks later; and the other two were small parties that came by water via Panama. Mr. Rapps belonged to the second wagon train of twenty-two