The eldest Presbyterian congregation organized on the Pacific Coast was that of the Willamette Church, Oakville, Linn County.  It was started by the Rev. T. S. Kendall, D. D. on July 9, 1850 – the first psalm-singing church in the western half of the United States (302).  The first members were:  Washington B. Maley and wife; John McCoy and wife; William Hamilton and wife; Joseph Hamilton, John  Hamilton and William McCoy.  Ruling elders were:  Dr. W. B. Maley and John McCoy, July 9, 1850; James Martin, David Irvin and John P. Smith, 1853; Alexander Crawford and Francis B. Stockton ordained and installed August 14, 1865; Mathew Acheson and David C. Currie, ordained, and they and William H. McBride installed March 18, 1877; Jos. C. Brown, Robt. A. Bamford and J. E. Hamilton ordained and installed March 29, 1891. Robt. E. Crawford ordained and installed March 31, 1895. 

At the first communion Washington L. Coon and Mrs. Caroline Hamilton were received. Cassimer Wallowich, a polish soldier, and Thomas Anderson, a Scottish sailor, were received at the same time. Wallowich was the first person buried in the Oakville cemetery. He and R. Maley and W. B. Maley, Jr., died the same year, 1853. 

Pastors were: Rev. T. S. Kendall from 1850 to 1852; S. G. Irvine, D. D. ordained and installed November 20, 1852; A. M. Acheson, ordained and installed July 12, 1877; G. E. Henderson, installed June 25, 1896.

The first building used by the Willamette Congregation was Maley’s Schoolhouse. In Oakville cemetery there is a bronze and concrete memorial showing a bas relief of a log building and the inscription:

  “SITE OF THE MEETING PLACE OF FIRST WILLAMETTE CHURCH, FIRST PSALM-SINGING CONGREGATION IN WESTERN UNITED STATES. EST. 1850. ORGANIZED AS UNITED PRESBYTERIAN, 1852, THOMAS S. KENDALL D. D. MINISTER IN WHOSE MEMORY THIS TABLET IS PLACED BY RELATIVES.”

When the founders of the Willamette Church built this first log house it was ninety miles to mill, and boiled wheat and venison often constituted the bill of fare. The first babies baptized in Willamette Congregation were rocked in cradles made from wagon boxes in which the families had crossed the plains. The Rev. Kendall dressed in buckskin and at times held service dripping with water (302).

Organization of the Willamette Congregation of the “Associate Presbyterian” Church marked the beginning of the “United Presbyterian” Church in Oregon. Members of the “Associate Reformed Presbyterian” Church, among them John Courtney, had also come west and settled close to the members of the “Associate” Church. The two church branches had their own ministers and missionaries. In 1847 the General Synod of the “Associate Reformed” Church had appointed the Rev. Wilson Blain as missionary to Oregon, while the Rev. S. D. Gagger of the same church arrived in December, 1851, and Rev. Jeremiah M. Dick came in February, 1852. The “Associate” Synod of Allegheny, Penn., appointed the Rev. James P. Miller and Rev. S. G. Irvine, D. D. as missionaries to Oregon in 1850. Wilson Blain and family arrived in 1848 and located at Linn City, across the river from Oregon City, where Blain, in addition to his church work, edited the Oregon SPECTATOR. In November, 1850, he moved to the upper Calapooia and in the spring of 1851 organized the “Associate Reformed” congregation of Union Point, with Josiah Osborne and John Pindley as elders. (Osborne and his family had come from the Whitman Mission Station where they had escaped massacre only by hiding under a building.) The Rev. S. G. Irvine was President of Muskingum College in the east when he was chosen for his Oregon post. He and family sailed from New York August 15, 1850, came by the Panama route and arrived near Oakville, Linn County, late the same year. The Rev. Miller started from Argyle, N. Y. in April, 1851, arrived in Oregon in June, 1851, and located permanently at Albany, Linn County (303).

The Associate Presbytery of Oregon was organized at Maley’s schoolhouse, November 28, 1851. The ministers were the Rev. James P. Miller, Dr. S. G. Irvine, and Dr. Thomas Simpson Kendall (303). Kendall was a graduate of Jefferson College, Ohio and the Theological Seminary at Canonsburg, Penn. (304). The subject of merging the two church branches -the Associate and Associate Reform - had often been discussed, and had long been under consideration by many ministers and members in the East. The brethren in Oregon, being few in number, located in the same territory, enduring the same hardships and privations, and separated from the churches in the east by what was then supposed to be almost impassable barriers, felt the necessity of union very keenly. At the organization of the Associate Presbytery this matter was brought up and discussed freely and the missionaries, Revs. Miller and Irvine, put the idea before the Associate Synod in the east in about these words: “We cannot remain separate; it is ecclesiastically our death if you command it.” The reply was extremely cautious and not at all satisfactory. The substance of it was: “If you cannot, you cannot, and we authorize you to act as the Lord gives you light” (303). 

On December 26, 1851, a convention of ministers and elders of the two church branches met in Maley’s schoolhouse to consider the question of union, and the following resolution was adopted:  “That the churches represented . . . ought to form an independent Presbytery”. A committee consisting of the Revs. Wilson Blain and James P. Miller was ap­pointed to prepare a basis of union, whereupon the convention adjourned to meet at Union Point on February 10, 1852 (303). 

At the February 10, 1852 meeting a common sense basis of union was unanimously adopted. At a third meeting at Maley’s schoolhouse on September 17, 1852, resolutions were adopted that said, among other things: “we do agree and resolve henceforth to unite in one body, to be known as the United Presbyterian Church of Oregon, trusting that the two bodies in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains will approve our course. . .“ On October 19, 1852 - the day before the union was to be con­sidered by the church courts - the United Presbytery was made a fact at Union Point, the roll call of ministers as follows: Revs. Wilson Blain, S. D. Gager, Jeremiah Dick and James Worth. On October 20, 1852, both Presbyteries met at the residence of Rev. Wilson Blain and each adopted the basis of union; and at the same place, on the same day, at 3 o’clock p.m., the United Presbyterian Presbytery of Oregon was formed (303). Because of this historic merger, the place took its name of Union Point. Now the town has vanished, but the Oakville church is still functioning. Maley’s schoolhouse burned in 1854, after which another structure was used until 1856 when the congregation erected a frame building on the site of the present church - a box of a place of boards without studding, the cracks battened and the inside of the boards planed. There was a simple, high pulpit and home-made benches. The present building was erected in 1878-79 on a cement base and moved about 100 feet in 1932 (305).

The Union Point church was first organized at the home of Mrs. Nancy Courtney at Calapooia, June 18, 1849, as an Associate Reformed church, with Rev. Wilson Blain officiating (306). Later meetings were held at the home of Rev. Blain. On August 8, 1854, Wilson and Elizabeth Blain deeded a parcel of ground to be used for the building of a church at Union Point (307). At just what time the church vanished is not definitely known - perhaps about 1878. It was moved to Brownsville where it occupied the structure “Father” John McKinney, Methodist Circuit Rider, had built on his own claim - the first Methodist church building erected in the region (308). The Kendall Bridge church was organized by Rev. Kendall in 1854. 

The first new congregation to be received into the United Presbyterian fold in Albany was organized October 11, 1853, by Rev. James P. Miller. He served as pastor until his death in the GAZELLE explosion at Canemah April 8, 1854 (309), whereupon Rev. S. C. Irvine became pastor and served for 40 years. Miller’s home was the first church. In 1861 a frame colonial style church with large front steeple was built at 5th and Washington streets. This was torn down in 1891 to make room for the present building.

In the course of time other United Presbyterian Churches were organized in various communities of Linn County. The Harmony (later Halsey) congregation was formed in 1856. Before a church building was erected services were held in private residences, especially at the William Shepherd home (310). In Brownsville the First Presbyterian Church was organized October 25, 1857. The first church building stood on the site of the present McKinney residence at the east end of Blakely Avenue and was erected in 1858. A second building rose in 1878. The present church edifice was raised in 1896 and dedicated on October 18 (311). Crawfordsville got a Presbyterian church in 1878; Lebanon in 1881; and Mill City in 1894.

Links:

Oakville Willamette Church

Mt. Pleasant Community Church -- formerly Cumberland Presbyterian

Albany -- First Presbyterian Church and United Presbyterian Church

Presbyterian Historical Society

Historical Foundation of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America 

Rev. William R. Bishop, Cumberland Presbyterian Minister

Church histories were  abstracted from:  " History of Linn County", Compiled by Workers of the Writer’s Program, Works Progress Administration, 1941.  See bibliography for above-cited references.  All photos from the collection of Lisa L. Jones, unless otherwise noted.  Lisa L. Jones contributed and is solely responsible for the content of these pages.  Copyright 2001.