 College advertisement in the Oregon Argus | |
| Type | Private |
|---|---|
| Active | 1849–1858 |
| Affiliation | Baptist |
| Location | , , United States 45°21′33″N122°36′02″W / 45.359242°N 122.600451°W |
| Fate | Assets from the school were given to McMinnville College (now Linfield College) |
Oregon City College was a short-lived school in what is today the U.S. state of Oregon. Organized by the Baptist Church in 1849, it was located in Oregon City and is partly a predecessor to Linfield College.
On September 21, 1849, the Oregon Baptist Educational Society was started in what was then the Oregon Territory. [1] [2] On September 27, 1849, a meeting of the group was held and they decided to build a school on the east bank of the Willamette River, approximately eight miles north of its confluence with the Calapooia River, and established a board of trustees. [3] The Rev. Ezra Fisher was asked to start the school, but when he went to the planned site it was not available and instead he started to teach school inside the Oregon City Baptist Church while leaders contemplated what to do for a permanent site. [1] [3] Meanwhile, the Rev. Richmond Cheadle was tasked with raising $2,000 to pay for construction of a school building. [1]
The society then met again on February 8, 1850, and Oregon City was selected as the permanent home for the school, which had grown to about 50 students. [3] At the meeting the society also hired Cheadle to raise $4,000 for the school building and decided to request textbooks and a bell from the Baptist Home Missionary Society. [3] On February 15, 1850, the school was named as Oregon City College. [1] [2] Soon after, Hezekiah Johnson, Ezra Fisher, and Joseph Jeffers purchased a 51-acre (21 ha) property and donated it to the school, while Dr. John McLoughlin donated a single lot in Oregon City. [3] The trustees decided to build the first building on the town lot, with plans calling for a two-story structure measuring 22 feet (6.7 m) by 42 feet (13 m). [3]
When school resumed in September 1850, the building was still under construction. [3] The California Gold Rush and the Donation Land Claim Act led to a decline in students, with enrollment dropping to around 50 in February 1851. [3] That fall, women were no longer allowed to attend, and George Chandler and James Read took over as teachers from Rev. Fisher. [3] Due in part to low enrollment, both teachers left the following year and eventually Erasmus D. Shattuck became the teacher until a Baptist from the east could arrive, who was Rev. J.D. Post who started in early 1854. [3] Meanwhile, the building was finished in 1852. [4] After disagreements with the board of trustees, Post left the next year. [3]
The school had never sought a charter from the legislature, but in January 1856, the Willamette Baptist Association organized Oregon City University and obtained a charter from the Oregon Territorial Legislature that transferred all assets of the former school to the new school. [3] However, classes were held intermittently, and in 1858 the school closed. [5]
After the school closed, the building slipped into disrepair and was taken over by vandals. In 1874, the building was torn down. [3] The board of trustees for the college last met on June 16, 1888, in which it donated the school bell and two books to McMinnville College, now Linfield College, along with the proceeds of the sale of the school's property. [3] Linfield considers Oregon City College as its forerunner Baptist institution. [6]
Linfield University is a private liberal arts college with campuses in McMinnville, and Portland, Oregon. Linfield Wildcats athletics participate in the NCAA Division III Northwest Conference. Linfield reported a total of 1,755 students after the fall 2022 census date. The institution officially changed its name from Linfield College to Linfield University, effective July 1, 2020.
Joseph Norton Dolph was an American politician and attorney in the state of Oregon. A native of the state of New York, he immigrated to Oregon over the Oregon Trail and settled in Portland where he became the state's federal district attorney. A Republican, he spent nine years in the Oregon State Senate before serving in the United States Senate from 1883 to 1895.
Asa Lawrence Lovejoy was an American pioneer and politician in the region that would become the U.S. state of Oregon. He is best remembered as a founder of the city of Portland, Oregon. He was an attorney in Boston, Massachusetts before traveling by land to Oregon; he was a legislator in the Provisional Government of Oregon, mayor of Oregon City, and a general during the Cayuse War that followed the Whitman massacre in 1847. He was also a candidate for Provisional Governor in 1847, before the Oregon Territory was founded, but lost that election.
Reuben Patrick Boise was an American attorney, judge and politician in the Oregon Territory and the early years of the state of Oregon. A native of Massachusetts, he immigrated to Oregon in 1850, where he would twice serve on the Oregon Supreme Court for a total of 16 years, with three stints as chief justice. Early in his legal career, he worked as a district attorney.
John Wesley Johnson was a famous figure in the early development of Oregon's higher education. He is probably best known today as the first President of the University of Oregon, serving from 1876 to 1893.
William Holden Willson was a pioneer of the U.S. state of Oregon and the founder of its capital city, Salem. A native of New Hampshire, he immigrated to the Oregon Country in 1837 to work at the Methodist Mission, and there would participate in the Champoeg Meetings. Willson served as the first treasurer of the Provisional Government of Oregon.
George Henry Atkinson was an American missionary and educator in what would become the state of Oregon. In Oregon, he served as a pastor for several churches, helped found what would become Pacific University, and pushed for legislation to create a public school system in Oregon Territory. The Massachusetts native later served as the county schools superintendent in Clackamas County and Multnomah counties.
Joseph Conant Avery was the founder of Corvallis, Oregon. Avery was the first postmaster for the community, and served as a legislator in the Provisional Government of Oregon and the government of the Oregon Territory. Avery House at Oregon State University was named after him.
William Williams Chapman was an American politician and lawyer in Oregon and Iowa. He was born and raised in Virginia. He served as a United States Attorney in Iowa when it was part of the Michigan and Wisconsin territories, and then represented the Iowa Territory in the United States House of Representatives. He later immigrated to the Oregon Country, where he served in the Oregon Territorial Legislature.
Reverend Josiah Lamberson Parrish was an American missionary in the Pacific Northwest and trustee of the Oregon Institute at its founding. A native of New York, he also participated in the Champoeg Meetings that led to the formation of the Provisional Government of Oregon in 1843. Parrish was married three times and was the first breeder of pure-bred sheep in Oregon.
Tualatin Academy was a secondary school in the U.S. state of Oregon that eventually became Pacific University. Tualatin Academy also refers to the National Register of Historic Places-listed college building constructed in 1850 to house the academy, also known as Old College Hall. The building now serves as the Pacific University Museum, and is one of the oldest collegiate buildings in the western United States.
Harvey L. Clarke was an educator, missionary, and settler first on the North Tualatin Plains which would become Glencoe, Oregon, and then on the West Tualatin Plains that would become Forest Grove, Oregon. A native of Vermont, he moved to the Oregon Country in 1840 where he participated at the Champoeg Meetings, May 2, 1843, and helped to found Tualatin Academy that later became Pacific University. Clarke also worked for the Methodist Mission and was a chaplain for the Provisional Legislature of Oregon in 1845.
Francis Southack Hoyt was an American educator from the state of Vermont. A minister and the son of a minister, he served as the first President of Willamette University in Salem, Oregon, where he and his wife were also teachers. Hoyt also taught at Ohio Wesleyan University and Baldwin University, and served as editor of several publications.
Portland University was a private, Methodist post-secondary school in Portland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1891 in a split from Willamette University, the school closed in 1900. The campus was located in what is now the University Park neighborhood and later became home of the University of Portland. The original campus building, West Hall, still stands and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
David Thomas Lenox was an American pioneer who settled in the Oregon Country where he organized the first Baptist Church west of the Rocky Mountains. A native of New York, he lived in Illinois and Missouri before he was captain of the first wagon train over the Oregon Trail to what became the state of Oregon. He also organized several schools and churches, and served as a judge and justice of the peace. In Oregon, he settled on the Tualatin Plains near what is now Hillsboro and later lived in Eastern Oregon.
Columbia College was a college in Eugene in the U.S. state of Oregon. Founded in 1856, the school was part of a system of churches established by the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The school's building burned down twice before the school closed in 1860. Today, the neighborhood in Eugene where the school was located is known as College Hill due to the former college.
Lot Whitcomb (1807–1857) was an American commercial entrepreneur and politician who established the city of Milwaukie, Oregon. After making a fortune milling and shipping lumber and timber for California gold miners, Whitcomb launched the first steamship in the U.S. state of Oregon.
The Rev. George Fisher Linfield (1846–1890) was an American clergyman and educator. Linfield College in McMinnville, Oregon, was named in his honor.
Frances Ross Linfield was an American educator, social activist and philanthropist. In 1922, she made a gift to McMinnville College worth $250,000, prompting the school to change its name to Linfield College, in honor of her late husband, the Rev. George Fisher Linfield. In 2020, the school became Linfield University.
Reverend Ezra Fisher was an American Baptist missionary and pioneer from Oregon.