Page:The History of Oregon Bancroft 1888.djvu/706

 years of struggle against adverse circumstances, the building was sold by the sheriff in May 1875. Another lutheran church was organized in 1871, by A. E. Fridrichsen, from the Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians of Portland, and incorporated June 9, 1871, under the name of the Scandinavian Evangelical Lutheran Church of Portland. Being offered building ground in East Portland by James B. Stephens and wife, they built there, but services were also held in the basement of the first presbyterian church, where a discourse in the Swedish tongue was preached Sunday evenings. As there was considerable immigration from the Scandinavian and German countries, the lutheran church rapidly increased in Oregon and Washington. From centennial report by A. Emil Fridrichsen, in Portland Christian Advocate, May 11, 1876.

Portland had also a German church, an African Methodist Episcopal Zion church, two Jewish societies, Beth Israel with a synagogue at the corner of Fifth and Oak, and Ahavai Sholom with a synagogue on Sixth street, between Oak and Pine, and a Chinese temple on Second street, between Morrison and Adler streets.

The Seventh-Day Adventists had a church incorporated in September 1878, at Milton, Umatilla county, by J. C. Burch, W. Eussell, and W. J. Goodwin.

The First Society of Humanitarians of Astoria was incorporated in Janu ary 1878, by James Taylor, L. O. Fruit, and John A. Goss.

The Methodist G. Church South was organized at Wingville, Baker county, in 1878, Hiram Osborne, C. G. Chandler, and E. C. Perkins, trustees.

The Emanuel Church of the Evangelical Association of North America, of Albany, was incorporated July 22, 1878, by E. B. Purdom, F. Martin, and L. G. Allen.

There were Hebrew Congregations at Astoria and Albany. ''Or. Sec. State Rept'', 1878, 112–20.

The latest available statistics, those of 1875, gave the number of religious organizations in Oregon, of all denominations, at 351, with 242 churches. 320 clergymen, 14,324 communicants, and 71,630 adherents. The assessed value of the church property was $654,000. During the years following there was a large increase in numbers and property. With respect to numbers, the different denominations rank as follows: Methodists, baptists, catholics, episcopalians, congregationalists, and other minor sects.

That section of the organic act which conferred 1,280 acres of land upon every township for the support of public schools made a system of free edu cation obligator}^ upon the people, and one of the first acts of the legislature of 1849 was a law in consonance with this gift, providing for the appropriation of the interest of the money arising from the sale of school lands to the purposes of public insruction. The law, in a revised form, exists still. But the income of the school fund arising from sales of school land was not sufficient for the support of the common schools, and in 1853-4 the revised law provided for levying a tax in every county, of two mills on the dollar, and also that the county treasurer should set apart all moneys collected from fines for breach of any of the penal laws of the territory, in order to give immediate effect to the educational system. The legislature of 1854-5 made every school district a body corporate to assess and collect taxes for the support of the public schools for a certain portion of the year.

When Oregon became a state it was even more richly endowed with lands for educational purposes, and in its constitution generously set apart much of its dower for the same purpose. In 1876 the common-school fund amounted to over half a million dollars. For the school year of 1877-8 the interest on the school fund amounted to over $48,000. As the fund increases with the gradual sale of the school lands, it is expected that an amount will eventually be realized from the three million acres remaining which will meet the larger part of the expense of the public schools. In Portland, where the schools are