Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/596



Oregon Association of Congregational Ministers ; also the Oregon Tract Society, and joined in the efforts to found a school at Forest Grove. Dr. Atkinson became pastor of the congregational church at Oregon City, in 1853, a-^d was for many years pastor of the First Congregational church of Portland. In 1852 Dr. At- kinson returned to the eastern states to solicit aid for the Forest Grove school, and especially from the College Society, which had promised to endow a college in Oregon. He succeeded in getting the sum of $600 a year pledged from that society, and obtained from other sources the sum of $800 in money, and $700 worth of books to start the college library. And looking about for a permanent teacher, found Sidney H. Marsh, a young graduate of Burlington college, and son of a Professor Marsh of that college ; and with young Marsh, the funds and the books, returned to Oregon in 1853.

The work of Dr. Atkinson, afterwards honored with a degree of D. D., con- tributed much toward the foundation of the Pacific university. For while the school was congregational, it was not conducted in a sectarian spirit ; and Dr. Atkinson's labor, influence and character, exercised in behalf of the infant col- lege, was largely instrumental in securing patronage to it from Portland, Oregon City and other points.

Dr. Atkinson continued to labor, as a minister to the Portland and other churches, until his health failed in 1866; and then devoted his remaining years to missionary and other general field work in behalf of education, religion and temperance. He was a most engaging and effective public speaker, and his ser- vices were in demand far and wide

As a sample of his thoroughly Catholic interest in the cause he professed, it is remembered that when no other minister would consider so small a place, Dr. Atkinson, upon request, readily went out to the little village of Gaston in Wash- ington County, where the boys had always spent their Sunday's at base ball, and there in a warehouse, held repeated Sunday services until first a Sunday-school was organized, then the base ball boys dropped their games and attended the school, then a little church was built and is yet used, and now there is a Congre- gational church of over one hundred members. All this service was without money and without price on his part ; and this is but one of hundreds of instances of George H. Atkinson's truly missionary spirit. Where can we find anything like it now-a-days ? Where can we find such noble hearted, truly Christian, un- selfish men?

Not alone in Oregon City and Portland, where he lived so many years, but throughout the state and the entire northwest, was his influence felt ; not only in churches and meetings and through the press, but in the multitude of homes of the pioneers, where his word of sympathy, his prayer and his exhortations, left a hallowed memory with men, women and children, who, ever afterward, said, "That was a true man of God. His first home missionary work was in Oregon City," where in the early migratory character of the population, he used to say it was like standing on the street corners, and preaching to the passer-by.

Here in 1850 he built a church costing about $4,000, and although lumber was $80 per thousand, and carpenters' wages $10 per day, he did so much work himself, clearing lots, stacking lumber, and carrying brick and mortar, that a respectable edifice for those times, was built.

From this time onward, as long as he lived, there was scarcely a Congrega- tional church organized, or a sanctuary built, but that felt the touch of his genial enterprise and loyal encouragement. But the story of Dr. Atkinson's worth and influence would be incomplete without consideration of a large work, outside of what men call religious service, though with him all work was dominated by a deeply religious spirit.

As was truly said of him by H. W. Scott, the editor of the Oregonian, when he passed away, "in all the industries and activities of life. Dr. Atkinson, saw forces that contributed to the growth of the Kingdom of God, and part of his