CORRESPONDENCE 283
I supplied Br. Wheeler's 180 place in this town last Sab. while he is making a visit (and I hope an important one) to Pueblo, about 40 or 50 miles south of this place. One important object he has in view is to secure, if possible, a site for a literary institution. The location must be favorable if se- cured.
Wrote you on the 29th of Feb. last, at which time I made my report up to that time and, as I left before the middle of March, I shall not think of being chargeable to your Board till the time I arrive again at my own home. It af- forded me great pleasure to meet Br. Wheeler and wife as missionaries at San Francisco, when I reached here last April. He needs at least three or four able, efficient fel- low laborers. 181 I hope your Board have them already un- der appointment. For my part, I think my first business after reaching home and spending a week or two in Clatsop will be to visit the Willamette churches and endeavor to do something with the friends of education by way of agreeing upon a site and securing it for an institution of learning for the denomination in Oregon.
I have just received a letter from my dear wife inform- ing me of the arrival of several boxes and a barrel of goods at Oregon City, directed to me; also one box directed to Elder Johnson. I shall attend to that business as soon as possible and acknowledge the receipt of the goods donated by letters to the donors. I answered most or all of the let- ters of which you speak in your last during last winter and you have probably received the answers before this. Many of our Oregon men are returning from the mines and I fondly hope the great gold excitement will gradually abate in Ore- gon from this time. Yet it is hard to predict what will be the end of this unparalleled state of things. I understand that Br. Snelling is at the mines. An excellent brother in Oregon has given me the assurance that he will join me in
1 80 Rev. O. C. Wheeler arrived in California in February, 1849. Bancroft, Hist, of Calif. 11:727. See also note 148.
181 Two other missionaries for California were appointed by the Baptist Home Mission Society in 1850. Bap. Home Missions t N. Am. 1832-1882, n. 339.
