Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 17.djvu/172



164 REVEREND EZRA FISHER

Feb. 2nd, 1849. 151 Dear Brother Hill : The want of direct conveyance to New York has occasioned this long delay and I will now make up my report from Sept. 19, 1848, up to this time, making 19 weeks.

Preached 24 sermons, delivered no lectures on moral and benevolent subjects, attended 18 prayer meetings, four cove- nant meetings, one temperance meeting, visited 49 families and individuals, three common schools; baptized none; ob- tained two signatures to the temperance pledge; organized no church, no ordination, traveled 412 miles to and from my appointments; received no persons by letter, none by experi- ence; no person preparing for the ministry. Monthly con- cert of prayer is observed at one station. My people have paid nothing for missionary or other benevolent societies. Paid $45 for my salary. We have one Sunday school, six teachers, 24 scholars, 125 volumes in the library. No Bible class. I attend our Sunday school and usually explain the lessons ; distribute tracts and pamphlets among the children. We have entirely separated from the Presbyterians in our S. S. and congregation, or rather they have separated from us. Our congregations have diminished during the winter from the fact that numbers of our citizens are in the mines in California. Yet the people at home are quite as attentive to the preaching of the Word as usual. Part of our church will soon move to California and all the rest will spend next summer at least in the mines, except my family, and this is somewhat a specimen of the gold excitement throughout Oregon. But a small portion of the men will remain at home during the summer, except as they return to harvest their crops in July, Aug. and Sept. Many families will prob- ably leave for California, among which will be found more than a fair proportion of business men. Immediately on the confirmation of the report of much gold in California our

151 The letter of Sept. 10, 1848, was inclosed with this of Feb. 2, 1849, and with those of Sept, 2oth and Oct. iQth, 1848, was not received until past the middle of June, 1849.