Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/699

 his wife. Truman P. Powers of Astoria was the first ordained elder of the presbyterian church on the Pacific coast. He came to Oregon in 1846. In October Thompson was joined by a young minister from Ohio, Robert Robe, and on the 19th of November they, together with E. R. Geary of Lafayette, at the residence of the latter, formed the presbytery of Oregon, as directed by the General Assembly at its session in that year.

In 1853 there were five presbyterian ministers in Oregon, the three above-mentioned, J. L. Yantis, and J. A. Hanna. The latter had settled at Marysville (now Corvallis) in 1852 and organized a church, while Yantis had but recently arrived. A meeting of the presbytery being called at Portland in October, Hanna and Yantis became members, and it was determined to organize a church in that place, of which Yantis was to have charge, together with one he had already formed at Calapooya. This was accordingly done; and through the stormy winter the resolute preacher held service twice a month in Portland, riding eighty miles through mud and rain to keep his appointments, until an attack of ophthalmia rendered it impracticable, and George F. Whitworth, recently arrived with the design of settling on Puget Sound, was placed temporarily in charge of the church in Portland. On his removal to Washington the society became disorganized, and finally extinct.

Meantime Thompson had built a small church at Clatsop, and was pursuing his not very smooth way in that foggy, sandy region, where he labored faith fully for twenty-two years before he finally removed to California. Robe organized a church at Eugene City in 1855, remaining there in the ministry till 1863, during which time a building was erected. Geary, who had undertaken a boarding-school, became involved in pecuniary embarrassment, and was compelled to take a clerkship under Palmer in the Indian department; but being discharged for seeming to covet the office of his employer, he took charge of the Calapooya church, and organized that of Brownsville, where he fixed his residence, and where a church building was erected by the members. A charter was procured from the legislature of 1857-8 for the Corvallis college, which would have been under the patronage of the presbyterians had it reached a point where such patronage could be claimed. There is nothing to show that it was ever organized.

An effort was made about the beginning of 1860 to revive the presbyterian church in Portland. McGill of the Princeton seminary, being appealed to, procured the cooperation of the Board of Domestic Missions, and P. S. Caffrey was commissioned to the work. He preached his first sermon in the courthouse June 15, 1860. On the 3d of August the first presbyterian church of Portland was reorganized by Lewis Thompson of Clatsop, with seventeen members, and regular services held in a room on the corner of Third and Madison streets. Caffrey's ministrations were successful; and in 1863 the corner-stone of a church edifice was laid on Third and Washington streets, which was finished the following year, at a cost of $20,000. Geary's Or, Presbytery, 2; Portland Herald, Jan. 26, 1873; Deady's Scrap- Book, 43, 85. When in 1869 Caffrey resigned his charge to Lindsley, there was a membership of 103, and the finances of the church were in good condition. In 1882 the church divided, arid a new edifice was erected, costing $25,000, at the north-east corner of Clay and Ninth streets, called Calvary Presbyterian Church, with E. Trumrell Lee first pastor. The church edifice at Corvallis was begun in 1860 and completed in 1864, at a cost of $6,000, Hanna contributing freely of his own means. Richard Wylie, assigned by the board of missions to this place in the latter year, was the first pastor regularly installed in this church. Richard Wylie was one of three sons of James Wylie, who graduated together at Princeton. In 1865 the father and James and John, Richard s brothers, came to the Pacific coast, James accepting a pastorate in San Jose, California, and John being assigned to the church in Eugene City. James Wylie, sen., was examined for the ministry by the Oregon presbytery, licensed to preach, and finally ordained for the full ministry. ''Geary's Or. Presbytery'', 2.

In 1866 the presbytery consisted of the ministers above named, with the addition of W- J. Monteith, Anthony Simpson, and J. S. Reasouer, the former