Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 21.djvu/90



80 READ BAIN

W. H. Gray was employed to construct the building. About $4,000.00 was pledged and before the year 1843 was over, Gray had spent about $3000 on the construction of the building.

Lee was very busy organizing the Provisional government and laying his plans to get the United States to confirm the titles of the several mission properties on which he had built stations, including the valuable Oregon City claim to which it seems McLoughlin had prior rights, moral, if not technical. So in pursuit of this object. Lee left for the States in Feb. 1844. In June of the same year George Gary arrived at Oregon City as the new Superintendent of Missions, with power to close them all if he thought that were best. This he proceeded to do, while Lee was laboring with Congress to get title to the lands on which he had built his missions. He succeeded in getting these confirmed, but in the meantime, Gary had sold them all 19 for a song, and the Methodist Missions in Oregon were no more.

The Salem Mission Manual Labor School was sold to the Trustees of the Oregon Institute for $4,000.00, although the Catholics were in the market and offered $8,000.00 for the property. Later, the building on Wallace Prairie was sold for just about what it cost. So the Trustees of the Oregon Institute made a pretty good investment, even for those days, when real estate was very cheap, a $10,000.00 building and 640 acres of fine fertile land, all for $4,000.00. This old mis- sion land claim, of course passed to the Institute. At present, the State Capitol grounds, the campus of Willamette Uni- versity, and the best part of the business and residence section of Salem are on this old mission claim. The broad, regular, tree-lined streets and spacious lawns of Salem speak well for the city-planning foresight of these missionary pioneers.

So it was in this new building, 78x45 feet, three and a half stories high, that the Oregon Institute, the first organized school for white children west of the Mississippi, began its

19 The Dalles Station was kept in the hope of getting a clear title to the prop- erty. This was accomplished by J. Lee in 1844-5 before his death. The Dalles claim was sold to Dr. Whitman in 1847. The actual confirmation of the titles is found in the Enabling Act (1848) for the Oregon Territory. Ores. Ter. Laws, 1849 (U. of O. vault.) This is also called the "Organic Law."