Hines, H. K. "An Illustrated History of the State of Oregon." Chicago: Lewis
Pub. Co. 1893.  p. 447.
 
REV. CHANCEY OSBORN HOSFORD

     Came to Oregon in 1845 and for forty-seven years has been one of her widely
known and highly esteemed pioneers.  He was born in Greene county, New York,
December 27, 1822.  His father, Willis Hosford, was born in Connecticut.  The
great-grandfather, Gideon Hosford, came from England and settled in New England.
His son, Reuben Hosford, was a pioneer New York lawyer and a member of the State
Legislature.  Willis Hosford was a Colonel in the war of 1812, and was prominent
in the militia.  He married in the State of New York, Miss Lucia Osborn, born in
Goshen, Connecticut.  They had ten children, seven of whom are living.
     Chancey was the sixth child and was raised in Lexington, Greene county, New
York.  From there he went to Indiana in the fall of 1844, and from there crossed
the plains in 1845 with ox teams.  Four young men made the trip together, one of
them being Erwin F. Hosford, Chancey's brother.  They had three yoke of oxen, a
wagon and a cow.  The trip was an exciting one, on account of their hunting and
fishing expeditions.  In the Indian country they fell in with other emigrants.
At night they were obliged to make a circle, in which their cattle were guarded.
After arriving in Oregon Mr. Hosford worked for Mr. Foster, near Oregon City, on
a little farm, until spring, then went to Salem and worked for Rev. David Leslie
for his board.  While working for him he attended the Willamette Institute, now
the university, where he was licensed to preach.  He taught one term in the
primary department in the institute and several terms in the district schools.
He was employed as preacher in the mission conference and when the Oregon
Conference was organized he was admitted to that.  While he was studying
theology at Oregon City, in 1847, Elder William Roberts, the preacher in charge,
told him to ride down to Portland and make an engagement for him to hold
service.  He had some difficulty in reaching the little hamlet of fourteen log
houses and one frame store building, on account of the rivers to be forded, but
he arrived at his destination in safety.  He visited every house and read the
Scriptures and prayed with every family in the place.  Being young and zealous
he was welcomed very kindly by all the people.  He made the appointment for Rev.
Roberts and it was probably the first sermon preached in Portland.  When the
gold excitement broke out he went to California under license from Elder
Roberts, and preached in West's boarding house in San Francisco.  That winter
Rev. T. Dwight Hunt was there as a missionary under the Presbyterian Board, and
Mr. Hosford worked in harmony with him.  When the Sacrament was administered he
also assisted and there were just thirteen present.  This was probably the first
time that the sacrament had been administered by Protestants in San Francisco.
While he was mining at Hangtown with Colonel Chapman he preached to the miners
and hundreds of them gathered to hear him.
     In the spring of 1849 he was married, in San Francisco, to Miss Acenith
Glover, one of five American young ladies who constituted the unmarried portion
of society in San Francisco at that time.  Their wedding was one of the first
Protestant ones in San Francisco.  Soon after their marriage they came to Oregon
by water and went to Salem, where Mr. Hosford joined the conference.  He took
his donation claim three miles down the river on the west side.  He preached for
sixteen years all through the valley and was at Vancouver two years, and built
the first Protestant Church in that place.  His churches were in log
schoolhouses, but there were many revivals, and as he says there was no need to
wait then for evangelists.  During all this time he was raising a family.  He
never received money enough for his support and for this purpose he had to sell
some of his land:  thus it was reduced from 640 to 150 acres.  In 1861 he was on
the Mount Tabor circuit, filling a place that now employs sixteen preachers.
While there he traded his Salem land for 200 acres running clear over the hill
at Mount Tabor.  He sold forty acres over the top of this hill for $500 and took
his pay in work on his land.  This same land is valued at $1,500 an acre.  In
1865 he lived in a little log cabin on the property, possessing only a cow and a
horse, but no money, having severed his connection with the itinerancy.  He and
his sons cleared the land.  In 1887 he sold twenty-two and one-half acres of his
home at $500 per acre.  In 1865 he built a cottage and in 1882 he remodeled and
enlarged it and now has one of the finest rural houses in the country.  He has
eighteen acres, worth $4,000 per acre, one mile east of the city at Mount Tabor,
and also some property in Portland.  Fortune has at last smiled upon his honest
efforts, and he and his wife are at last surrounded by the comforts which they
so much deserve, and he is still able to go out nearly every Sabbath and freely
preach the gospel.
     Mr. and Mrs. Hosford have had eight children.  The first died in infancy;
the second, Frederick Flinn, died in his eighteenth year.  His two remaining
children, Captain Olin W. and Pearn L. Hosford, are steamboat men, owning with
their father the steamer Ione, running on the Willamette and Columbia rivers.
Their eldest daughter is the wife of John Haskins, superintendent of the
car-building department of the East Portland car shops of the Southern Pacific
Railroad Company.  Lilly M. is married to L. R. Fields, superintendent of the
Oregon Division of the Southern Pacific road.  Viletta Lincoln married E.
Peterson; a wealthy farmer at Mount Tabor and Cora P. is at home with her
parents.  Mrs. Hosford's brother, Aquilla Glover, with whom and his family
she crossed the plains in 1846, with the Donner party, who mostly perished in
the snow, left with the family a few days before and traveled safely to the
valley of the Sacramento.
     

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Submitted to the Oregon Bios. Project in March 2006 by Diana Smith.  Submitter
has no additional information about the person(s) or family mentioned above.