Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 16.djvu/98

 Elder Fisher preached his last sermon on October 18, 1874. While away on a forty-mile trip visiting the schools of Wasco county, he contracted a cold, which resulted in typhoid pneumonia. He was brought home to the Dalles, and there died November 1, 1874. He would have been seventy-five in January. His will provided that, at the death of Mrs. Fisher, onethird of whatever remained of his estate, which was small, should go to McMinnville College.

From those who knew him in the East, among the number two of his classmates at Amherst, from men and women who had lived near him in the Middle West, from California acquaintances and from the pioneers of Oregon has come the testimony of what he was. It has been unanimous that his was a character of the highest type.

The Society in whose employ he labored so indefatigably for nearly twenty-five years has placed the name of Ezra Fisher high on the roll of its missionary heroes. Many words of praise from men who have guided its affairs might here be quoted. But from a most unexpected source came a simple testimony from one who crossed the plains with him, and, since no better test of character could well be imagined than the trials and vexations which attended the journey by ox team to Oregon, it is here given. It came from Andrew Rodgers, who fell with the Whitmans at Waiilatpu. In a letter to Mrs. Whitman's sister, Miss Jane Prentiss, written from Tshimakain and dated April 22, 1846, he wrote:

"There were three ministers in the company, one a Seceder minister [Dr. T. J. Kendall] from about Burlington. The other two were Baptist ministers, one from Iowa, the other from Rock Island, Ill., whose name was Fisher, and who was formerly of Quincy, and is doubtless well known there. He manifested more of the true spirit of Christ while on the road than any other man with whom I was acquainted."

None but God knows how the influence of Ezra Fisher lives on in the lives of many. He was an apostle of Jesus Christ sent to the frontiers of this country to have a part in shaping the destinies of the West.