Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 21.djvu/95



METHODIST EDUCATIONAL EFFORT IN OREGON TO 1860 85

dent of the Board of Trustees; T. J. Dryer, vice-president; Calvin S. Kingsley, secretary ; and W. S. Ladd, treasurer.

The school flourished as Portland developed. By 1864, it had 241 pupils in attendance as above noted, only 13 less than Willamette University itself. Up to the time of its extinction in 1878, Portland Academy was one of the most important educational institutions in Oregon.

SANTIAM ACADEMY

Jan. 18, 1854, the legislature passed an act making John McKinney, Aaron Hyde, Thomas H. Pearne, Wm. C. Gallager, Andrew Kees, Alvan F. Waller, Morgan Kees, Jeremiah Ral- ston, Luther T. Woodward, Delazon Smith, Luther Elkins, John Settle, and David Ballard, trustees of Santiam Academy at Lebanon. The yearly income was limited to $10,000; the trustees were to meet and divide themselves into three classes to retire in rotation. 26

Later, on Jan. 25, 1856, the Euphronean Society was given a charter to exist in connection with the Academy. The Philo- mathean Society of Willamette University was incorporated Jan. 29 of the same year.

The M. E. Church was to have power to fill vacancies in the Board of Trustees and to visit the institution and confer with the Trustees.

Santiam Academy grew out of a term school conducted in a log cabin in 1852. Jeremiah Ralston and Morgan Kees each donated five acres, money was raised by subscription, and a two-story building containing four large school rooms was built, 1854-55. A smaller frame building had been constructed the year before. It was moved over to the new Academy building and served as the dwelling of the "professor" until the space was required for school purposes. Santiam Academy was never anything other than a primary and secondary school. It was co-educational, had no boarding school facilities, although it drew students from as far away as Jacksonville

26 Or eg, Ter. Special Laws, 1854, p. 37.