Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/701

 while a second building was erected at a cost of $3,000, the second session doubling the number of students. The attendance increased to 150 in 1857, but again, on the night of the 26th of February, 1858, the college was burned. A stone building was then begun, and the walls soon raised. Before it was completed a division took place on the issue of bible-reading and prayer in the school, and those opposed to these observances withdrew their aid, and the unfinished building was sold by the sheriff to satisfy the mechanics. I find among the Oregon Special Laws of 1857-8 an act incorporating the Union University Association, section 4 of which provides that the utmost care shall be taken to avoid every species of preference for any sect or party, either religious or political. This was probably the form of protest against sectarian teaching which destroyed the prospects of the Cumberland school. Henderson, after a couple of sessions in a rented house, seeing no hope for the future, closed his connection with the school, which was suspended soon after, and never revived.

About 1875 W. R. Bishop of Brownsville completed a commodious school building as an individual enterprise, and established a school under the name of Principia Academy, with a chapel attached. In 1861 the Oregon Cumberland presbytery was divided, by order of the Sacramento synod to which it belonged, and all of Oregon south of Calapooya Creek on the east side of the Willamette River, and all south of La Creole River on the west side of the Willamette, was detached and made to form the Willamette presbytery, while all north of that retained its former name. In 1874 the Oregon presbytery was again divided, that part east of the Cascade Mountains and all of Washington being set off and called the Cascade presbytery, with four ordained ministers, the Oregon presbytery having begun its operations in the Walla Walla Valley in 1871, when A. W. Sweeney organized a church at Waitsburg with eighteen members, since which time several others have been formed, and churches erected. By order of the general assembly of the Cumberland in May 1375, the Oregon synod was constituted, composed of these three presbyteries, which have in communion 700 members, and own thirteen houses of worship, worth $19,000. See centennial sketch by Neill Johnson, in ''Portland Pac. Christian Advocate'', May 4, 1876.

Among the early immigrants to Oregon were many Baptists, this denomination being numerous in the western and south-western states. As early as 1848 a society was organized and a church building erected at Oregon City. Other churches soon followed, Portland having an organized society in 1855, although not in a flourishing state financially. It was not until June 1860 that a missionary, Samuel Cornelius of Indianapolis, arrived, appointed by the American Baptist Home Mission, to labor in Portland. His introductory sermon was preached in the methodist church on the first Sunday in July, but a public hall was soon secured, and the organization of the Frst Baptist Church of Portland took place on the 12th of August, with twelve members; namely, Samuel Cornelius and wife, Josiah Failing and wife, Douglas W. Williams, Elizabeth Failing, Joshua Shaw and wife, R. Weston and wife, and George Shriver and wife. First Baptist Church Manual, 1. This small body made a call on Cornelius to become their pastor, which was accepted, and on him and the two deacons, Williams and Failing, devolved the task of building a house of worship. A half-block of land on the corner of Fourth and Alder streets had been donated for the site of a baptist church by Stephen Coffin several years before, and on this was begun a building, which was so far completed by January 5, 1862, that its basement was occupied for religious services. In September 1864 Cornelius returned to the east, leaving a membership of 49 persons, and the church was without a pastor for two years, during which the deacons sustained as best they could the burden of the society to prevent it from falling to pieces. Then came E. C. Anderson of Kalamazoo, Michigan, sent by the Home Mission Society to act as pastor, in December 1866. The church was incorporated in March 1867. Anderson continued in the pastorate five years, and increased the membership to seventy, the church edifice costing $12,500, being dedicated in January 1870. The incorporators were Josiah