Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/512

366 the first school ever opened west of the Rocky mountains, on January 1, 1833, and had for his pupils about two dozen half-breed Indian children of all ages, from six to sixteen. And thus was lit the lamp of learning in the far western wilds of America. In a letter to Elwood Evans, author of the History of the Northwest, Mr. Ball gives the following account of that first school:

"The scholars come in talking their respective languages—Cree, Nez Perce, Chinook, Klickitat, etc. I could not understand them, and when I called them to order, there was but one who understood me. As I had come from a land where discipline was expected in school management, I could not persuade myself that I could accomplish anything without order. I therefore issued my orders, and to my surprise, he who understood, joined issue with me upon my government in the school. While endeavoring to impress upon him the necessity of discipline and order in the school, and through him making such necessity appreciated by his associates, Dr. McLoughlin, chief factor, entered. To the doctor I explained my difficulty. He investigated my complaint, found my statements correct, and at once made such an example of the refractory boy that I never afterward experienced any trouble in governing. I continued in the school over eighteen months, during which the scholars learned to speak English.

Several could repeat some of Murray's grammar verbatim. Some had gone through arithmetic, and upon review copied it entire. These copies were afterward used as school books, there having been only one printed copy at Fort Vancouver. The school numbered twenty-five pupils."

In his journal Ball gives a somewhat different account of this first school, as follows: "Not liking to live gratis, I asked the doctor for some employment. He repeatedly answered me that I was a guest, and not expected to work. But after much urging, he said if I was willing, he would like me to teach his own son and the others boys in the fort, of whom there were a dozen. Of course I gladly accepted the offer. So the boys were sent to my room to be instructed. All were half-breeds, as there was not a white woman in Oregon. The doctor's wife was a "Chippewa" from Lake Superior, and the lightest woman was Mrs. Douglas, a half-breed from Hudson's bay. I found the boys docile and attentive, and they made good progress. The doctor often came into the school, and was well satisfied and pleased. One day he said: "Ball, anyway, you will have the reputation of teaching the first school in Oregon." So I passed the winter of 1832 and 1833."

John Ball, the teacher of this first school in Oregon, was the youngest of ten children born on Tenny's hill, Hebron, Grafton county, New Hampshire, November 12, 1794. His childhood was spent on this farm. Of schooling he had but little before he was twenty years old. In 1814 he was sent to a clergyman in Groton, the next town, to be taught. From there he went to Salisbury academy and entered Dartmouth College in 1816, spending his summer vacations on the farm, and teaching country schools in the winters. After graduating, he studied law, teaching school to meet his expenses. He was admitted to the bar to practice law, at Utica, New York, in 1824. One of his father's neighbors being John Ordway, who had been out here in the Lewis and Clark party in 1805, and returned safely to his old home, had so filled the boy up with the great reports about this Oregon country, that when Wyeth called for men to go to Oregon in 1832, Ball quickly joined the Wyeth party—and the school teaching experience was the best luck he had in Oregon.

The first school south of the Columbia river was the Mission school, taught by Philip L. Edwards in 1835, near Old Champoeg, in what is now Marion county. Commencing with only a few pupils, twenty-five more were brought in from the settlers on French prairie, and from native Indians, on either side of the Cascade mountains, until all the persons, pupils and others at the mission.