Willamette University

“ Willamette University will graduate during the course of the following three years, and shall receive degrees indicative of the merger of the two schools, and the alumni of both schools will be consolidated under the Medical Department of the University of Oregon, which becomes at once the only school of medicine in the Pacific Northwest. This is the largest territory in the United States that is served by but one medical school. ”

“ Then comes that heroic pioneer Methodist missionary, Rev. Jason Lee, whose mission, as often has been the case, was to found schools as well as churches; and in 1842 the Oregon Institute at Chemeketa or North Salem, was begun primarily as a school for Indian children though the school was not formally opened till 1844. Out of this grew in time Willamette University, which received its college charter from the Territorial Legislature in 1853, just one year before Pacific University received its charter. ”

“ But this institute formed a nucleus around which all the Methodist sentiment and action rallied; and out of it grew the more pretentious enterprise of the Willamette University. And the University Sun had in turn its satellites, the Wilbur Academy in Umpqua county, the Sheridan Academy, the Dallas Academy, and the Santiam Academy at Lebanon in Linn county, and the Portland Academy. A seminary for young ladies was established at Oregon City, in 1851, and controlled and managed jointly by the Methodists and Congregationalists and of which Rev. Harvey Clark was the first teacher. ”

“ Among the educational institutions growing directly out of the labours of the missionaries we may mention Willamette University at Salem, the direct successor of the Methodist mission at Chemeketa; Whitman College at Walla Walla, founded by Cushing Eells as a memorial to Marcus Whitman; Pacific University at Forest Grove, Oregon, founded by a later set of Congregational Home Missionaries; and the Catholic College at St. Paul's, the successor of the school founded in 1839 by Blanchet.
They rest from their labours and their works do follow them. ”

“ The manual-labor school building, which had cost the Mission between $8,000 and $10,000, with the farm belonging to it, and the mill site, was sold to the trustees of the Oregon Institute for $4,000, and that institution was removed from the site first selected on Wallace Prairie by Jason Lee, to the larger and better building on Chemeketa plain, where in the autumn of 1844 a school for white children was first opened by Mrs Chloe A. Clark Willson, from which has grown the Methodist college known as the Willamette University. ”

“ The Donation Land Law of Sept. 27, 1850 had a bad effect on the school attendance. 20 . Any married man could get 320 additional acres of land for his wife. The result was that there were numerous cases of love at first sight and few "young ladies" over 15 were left in school.
On Jan. 12, 1853, the Territorial Legislature passed an act incorporating Willamette University. This was not the first educational institution incorporated in Oregon, but it was the first one designed for higher education. Tualatin Academy and two Catholic schools were chartered before this. ”

“ It was incorporated January 29, 1858, and has a population of about 5,000. The Willamette university, the state-house, county court-house, penitentiary, churches, and other public and private buildings, situated within large squares bordered by avenues of unusual width and surrounded by trees, make an im pression upon the observer favorable to the founders, who builded better than they knew. Salem has also a fine water-power, and mills and factories, and is in every sense the second city in the state. ”

“ The sale included, in addition to the real property, the bell, seats, and other equipment. The money received by the conference from this sale and from the rent due was transferred to the endowment fund of Willamette University. The piano belonging to the seminary was given to Umpqua Academy and the books and apparatus were given to the Portland Academy.
Thus the Methodist educational activities came to an end, just as all of the private and religious schools of early Oregon City were destined to do. The competition of the public school was too great for private enterprises. ”

“ Some of these institutions died early; others, as at Monmouth and Corvallis, were merged into state institutions. A few survive as Christian academies and colleges.
Among those which perished were the Clackamas "female seminary" at Oregon City, a college at Eugene, and academies at Sheridan and Santiam. Among the surviving schools are Willamette University, Pacific University, Albany College, and McMinnville College. To this last was turned over the remnant of the property of that Oregon City college, whose early history is given in these letters. ”

“ Toland Medical College requires in general terms that applicants shall furnish ' satisfactory evidence , show ing them to be of good moral character and of appropriate elementary education .' " Willamette University , our own school , provides that ' Every person desiring to attend as a student of medicine in this University shall satisfy the Dean of the Medical Faculty that he is possessed of the elements of a good English education . The adoption and observance of this law by our college last year very materially diminished the attendance it would otherwise have enjoyed ”

“ Hines' Or. and Institutions, 160. ↑ This constitution and by-laws may be found in full in Hines' Oregon and its Institutions, 143–51, a work of 300 pages, devoted to advertising the Willamette University. It was published in New York in 1808. By the first article the institute is placed forever under the supervision of some religious denomination. By the second it is made an academical boarding-school, until it shall be expedient to make it a university. The third declares that the object of the institution is to educate the children of white men ”

“ The course continued twenty weeks, and attendance at two courses of lectures was required for graduation . This department thus established represents the first attempt at professional education in the Pacific North west. A short time previously there had been established in San Francisco the Toland Medical College , so that the department established by Willamette University was not the pioneer in medical education on the Pacific Coast , but it appears to be the oldest which continued in oper ation without interruption until its absorption in 1913 . ”

“ Dear Sir :-You are hereby notified that at a meet ing of the Board of Trustees of Willamette University held in Salem on Wednesday , May 4 , 1887 , the following proceedings relative to the Medical Department of Wil lamette University took place : “The resignations of Dr. K . A . J . MacKenzie , as pro fessor of obstetrics ; Dr. H . C . Wilson as professor of theory and practice of surgery ; Dr. Geo . M . Wells as pro fessor of materia medica and therapeutics ; Dr. S . E . Josephi as lecturer on psychological medicine , and Dr. K. A . ”

“ The old trail through the mountains is almost obliterated and for a distance of fifty miles cannot be followed by automobiles. The party located the site of Camp Montgomery, southeast of Tacoma, the site of the old block-house on Yelm River, and the site of the stockades on Chambers' Prairie.
MISCELLANY
A pageant of Oregon history, displayed at Salem during commencement exercises of Willamette University, early in June, 1919, was brilliantly successful. The pageant was written by Professor Della Crowder-Miller, and commemorated the 75th anniversary of the university. ”

“ It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that whatever has a tendency to injure the influences or
16 The Indian Manual Training School property, one mile square, at Chemeteka (Salem) was sold for $4000, and became Oregon Institute, afterwards Willamette University. (Gustavus Hines, Wild Life in Ore- gon, p. 241.)
METHODIST REPORTS WILLAMETTE MISSION 335
prevent the success of our missionaries, should be at once removed. ”

“ Willamette mission, built, i. 64-5, 78-80; work at, 81-9, 154-63, 178- 9, 190; arrival of missionaries, 154, 161; hospital, 162; importance, 163; farming plan, 163; failure, 182; converts at, 178-9; quarrels at, 196-8; deaths, 201; sold, 221-2; Blanchet s endeavors, 318-19.
Willamette river, land grants, i. 375; ferry, 440, 443; navigation of, ii. 256; bridged, 746-7.
Willamette university, origin, i. 222.
Willamette valley, configuration, i. 1-2; settlers, 15-17, 66, 73-7, 251, 252, 465; missionaries in, 63-7; cattle introduced, 139-50.
Willamette Valley, Farnham s ob servations, 231 ”

“ At times the structure had been shaky , and in the light of present standards , far from sound , but to change the figure and express the situation in the spoken words of the first dean , “ You must creep before you can walk . " The Willamette Medical Department , since its return to Salem in 1895 , had made a valiant struggle for exist ence , but the limited facilities of a town no larger than Salem , and of a private university no wealthier than Willamette , made the effort to maintain the standards set by the Council on Medical Education impossible of realiz ation . ”

“ The paper mill at Oregon City was projected in 1889 ( The Oregonian , October 11 , 1889 ) . The first name of the locality was Willamette , or Willamette Falls . It is referred to by that name in correspondence of the Methodist mission , established there in 1840 on the arrival of the "great reinforcement ” in the Lausanne. After 1840 the place grew as a political and trade center . ”

“ The sun sinks downward thro' the silver mist
⁠That looms across the valley, fold on fold,
And sliding thro' the fields that dawn has kissed,
⁠Willamette sweeps, a chain of liquid gold.
Trails onward ever, curving as it goes. ”

“ Douglas, who also tendered one of the company’s boats to convey the missionary band to Willamette. Their journey to this place was a real triumph, such was the joy and excitement produced among the inhabitants by the accession of these new laborers to the vineyard. The sisters [of] Notre Dame soon occupied the building which had been undertaken for their purposes, and in the month of December it was opened as a boarding academy for girls. ”

“ We can agree, however, more unreservedly with another enthusiast who speaks in terms of scenic beauty and pastoral prosperity rather than square miles and population:
“A broad valley, rich, prosperous, and beautiful to look upon is the Willamette, and a valley of many moods. Neither in scenic charms nor agricultural resourcefulness is its heritage restricted to a single field. ”

“ Other countries, less favorably situated for agricultural and other forms of organized industry, take on new ways and get ahead rapidly in population and wealth, while the Willamette Valley moves along in the old grooves, being today in essentials largely what it was thirty years ago, namely, a pioneer country. ”

“ From Franchere we glean more facts than from either of the others. The first record regarding the Willamette states that on May 2, 1811, a party consisting of Alexander McKay [4] and Robert Stuart, [5] partners, and Ovide de Montigny [6] and Gabriel Franchere, clerks, together with a Clatsop chief, Coalpo, set out for a trip up the Columbia. On May 6, 1811, they passed for the first time the mouth of the Willamette. Coalpo informed them that about a day's journey up this river there was a considerable fall, beyond which the country abounded in deer, elk, bear, beaver and otter. ”

“ The country on the Eastern Side of the Willamette, is very similar to that on the West, excepting that is rather more level, and not so high, or uneven, near the river, and is not separated from the Columbia, by any high range of hills, as it is on the Western side. There is an abundance of excellent timber in this valley, the greatest portion of which is Fir. ”

“ This aged couple, whose lives are fast drawing to a close, look back with pride to the many changes that the fast-fleeting years have wrought in this country, and contrast the improvements and conveniences of to-day with the dreariness and discomforts that surrounded them when they, with brave hearts, hopeful for the future, settled on the east banks of the Willamette. ”

“ The only immediate hope of such a wake-up and shake-up of the Willamette Valley as will stir its latent forces and bring the country into line with modern industrial life and spirit, lies in the possibility of effort from the outside. The valley will do little for itself. The power of adaptation to new ways and new uses lies not within the present population. If the successors of the pioneer had his push and hardihood something might be expected from them ”

“ Willamette is a Methodist institution, in Salem, Ore., which educates young men for the ministry as one of the branches of its work. The boxing classes are conducted on the tournament plan, in order that every man may engage in at least two fistic contests. ”

“ On the west the great valley is separated from the Pacific by a low range of well timbered mountains, that give rise to numerous streams and small rivers, some of which are lately found sufficient to admit vessels. On the east it is bounded by the Cascade or President's range, everywhere abounding with white pine and cedar. The Willamette river rises in latitude 42° and runs north and empties itself into the Columbia river 85 miles above its mouth. The falls of the Willamette are about thirty miles above its mouth, and must ever add a vast interest to the country. ”

“ Willamette.—The subscribers, proprietors of this Town, situated at the foot of the Clackamas Rapids, on the west side of the Willamette River, having just completed a survey and plan of the place, would call the attention of the public to this location, as one of importance, and possessing undoubted natural advantages as a point for business ... With the prospect of having a Plank Road, or a Rail Road to go by horses to the head of the Falls, they feel confident that persons wishing to take an interest will not be disappointed in its ultimate success. ”