Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 37.djvu/362

 charter similar to those of our other schools." The resolution was adopted.

Records show that on August 8, 1855, Thomas H. Pearne, agent for the missionary society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, purchased from the president and board of trustees of the Clackamas County Female Seminary the school building including the eight lots of ground as well as all furniture and apparatus for a sum of $10,000. George H. Atkinson was president of the seminary.

The territorial legislature of 1856, granted the school a charter on January 10, 1856, with the following men as trustees: Charles Pope, Jr., Thomas Pope, A. E. Wait, James K. Kelly, W. P. Burns, Gustavus Hines, H. K. Hines, George Abernethy, Amory Holbrook, P. H. Hatch, C. F. Beattie, William Roberts, and Charles Adams. The institution was named the Oregon City Seminary.

The report of the committee of the Methodist Episcopal conference for 1856 on education, showed that all of the Methodist schools in Oregon were in a prosperous condition except the Oregon City Seminary which had been closed during the past year because no teacher had been secured from the states to conduct the classes. The committee recommended transferring a man from one of the other schools to operate temporarily the Oregon City Seminary. The committee strongly urged the opening of the seminary because no school of a high standard existed in Oregon City at that time, and also because the building and equipment were deteriorating from non-use.

There is no evidence to show that the school was opened after the 1856 meeting of the conference. Apparently the building was idle until May, 1858, when the Reverend F. D. Hodgson of Philadelphia, was sent out to take charge of the school. Mr. Hodgson was advertised as an "experienced and competent teacher who intends to make his connection with the Seminary permanent." The notice described the school but little, say-