count of the private schools, many of which were excellent institutions of their kind; but a few of them demand a brief notice.
In 1856 the Cumberland Presbyterian Church of Oregon established at Eugene the so-called Columbia College. About the time that the first school was kept in the new district schoolhouse on Eleventh Street, this institution on College Hill also opened its doors for the reception of students. Rev. E. P. Henderson, a graduate of the Cumberland Presbyterian College at Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, was its head. Under his direction the school was carried successfully to the conclusion of its third year in spite of the great misfortunes which it suffered.[1] In 1859 Mr. Henderson resigned the principalship, and a Mr. Ryan of Virginia was secured to take his place. But the times were troubled, and in the bitter political struggle of the following year the life of Columbia College was sacrificed.[2]
But its work was not lost; its influence can be traced far beyond the crucial time in which the institution perished. The school had enjoyed a very respectable patronage from all sections of Oregon, and to some extent from California. It turned out a number of men who have left their impress upon the state, and at least one whose fame has become world-wide, the "Poet of the Sierras," Joaquin Miller.
- ↑ The building was burned to the ground a few days after the school was opened November, 1856; another structure erected to take its place was in turn destroyed before the close of the third year.
- ↑ The board of control being divided on the slavery question, were unable to work harmoniously together. The principal was a strong pro-slavery man. He wrote several articles for the Pacific Herald in which he took occasion to score the anti-slavery party rather vigorously. He signed the communications "Vindex." Mr. H. B. Kincaid, then one of Ryan's students, replied to him in the People's Press over the signature "Anti-Vindex." Ryan, not suspecting Kincaid, and assuming that B. J. Pengra, the editor of the People's Press was himself the author of the replies, made an attack upon the latter with a revolver. After this tragic episode, although he failed to slay his would be victim, this militant schoolmaster fled from the state. The board, in their state of factional disintegration could evolve no positive policy. Therefore, when the People's Press, in October, 1860, propounded the question, "Is Columbia College Dead?" it was stating in this form an accomplished fact.
