REV. ELKANAH WALKER
Dec. 1, 1877; Oregonian, p 2
 
"A Pioneer of Oregon; Reminiscences of Rev. E. Walker, Who Died At Forest Grove,
Oregon, Nov. 21, 1877"
 
   His birth (August 7, 1805) and early youth were in North Yarmouth, near
Portland, Maine.  The son of a farmer in that seaport town, the path of life
opened naturally to him and his brothers there, either on the farm or in the
ship yard, or upon the sea.  The sons of Maine have made a record in all these
callings alike honorable to themselves and to their state.
   But during that series of revivals following the labors of Mills and
Nettleton and their compeers through New England and the middle states, the
interest in missions was invigorated and widely extended.  Men and women gave up
home and country and went abroad east, west, north and south, knowing little
that should befall them, only that Christ bade them "go and teach all nations,
and promised to be with them to the end of the world."
   Such was the air in which Mr. Walker began to live and move after his
conversation in 1831. Shortly after this he was led by a favorite instructor,
Rev. Mr. Newell, to enter the Kimball Union Academy at Meriden, New Hampshire,
and prepare for college.
   But in 1834, instead of following his classmates to Dartmouth of Bowdoin, he
took the "short course" into the ministry, much to his regret afterwards, and
entered the Bangor Theological Seminary that fall, and remained three years
under the instruction of Drs. Pond and Shepherd and other teachers.
   The calls for missionary labor abroad enlisted him, as it did his loved
classmate, Rev. Cyrus Hamilin, D. D, now so eminent for his efforts in founding
churches and schools and colleges in and around Constantinople.
   Mr. Walker and Mr. Eells, his co-worker, from Massachusetts, were soon in
1837 booked for Zulu Land, South Africa.  A few months passed in initial
preparations, when a tribal war, fierce and bloody and merciless began between
the two border chieftains there, Dingaan and Meselekatze.
   Meanwhile a strange voice had been heard from beyond the Rocky mountains.
Four Flathead Indians, so styled, but true Nez Perces, had come that long
journey to St. Louis in 1832-3, inquiring for the "white man's God."  It seemed
like a call of God.  The Methodist church responded instantly, and sent Rev.
Jason Lee with the first company of missionaries to Oregon in 1834.
   The American board of commissioners for foreign missions sent Messrs. parker
and Whitman to explore, in 1835.  In 1836, Mssrs. Whitman and Spaulding and
their wives, the first white women that ever crossed the Rocky mountains, and
Mr. Wm. H. Gray, began their mission work in the basin of the Columbia.
   Favorable reports of the journey and their welcome among the Indians, and the
need of more laborers for new fields, easily (on request of the board) led
Messrs. Walker and Eells, then waiting to sail for Africa, to listen and follow
this providential call to Oregon.  Not many weeks were given to preparation and
farewells, for very early March 6th, 1833, on the next day after marriage, Mr.
Walker and wife, started on their bridal trip enroute for Boston, New York, St.
Louis and  the wide plains, roamed by the buffalo, the Indian and the trapper.
The enterprise, though tested by the first company of pioneer families, demanded
courage, and to it he and his wife, and Mr. Eells and his wife, and Wm. H. Gray,
who had returned, and his wife, gave a heroism born of faith and nursed in
prayer.
   Four thousand miles from their home on the Atlantic, they built their log
house among the Spokanes, expecting seldom or never to see the faces of friends
again, or hardly of white people.
   Their mission was to unfold the gospel of Christ to these dark-minded men and
women and children, first chiefly by the example of their own Christian home.  A
Christian family in the best witness of God.  It ranks higher than the school.
It photographs the divine word.  Imagine those two godly families, living among
the huts of the savages, daily making known the simple stories of the Bible, and
that for ten years, with no reward but the food and clothing for themselves and
families, and you have a picture of mission life.  Such was Mr. Walker's work,
while and after learning the language.  Little was done or could be done to
reduce it to written forms or to print it.  One small primer, prepared and
printed by his own hand on the mission press at Lapwai, in 1841, was the only
book in that language.
   Incidental lessons were in the garden and on the farm, with hoe and plow and
sickle and ax, with all the conveniences that they could make for the comfort of
domestic life.  These latter are supposed to be prime in the steps of
civilization.  The fact is they are its fruits.  Ideas are the roots of things.
Out of germ thoughts come the higher forms and amenities of home life and social
relations.  Plant truths first and gather fruits afterwards.  To that line of
action Mr. Walker and his co-laborers gave a steadfast mind and patient effort,
both witnesses of intelligent faith in and true devotion to the Great Teacher
and His methods.  Accustomed so long to address Indians only in a conversational
way, it was hard for Mr. Walker, in later life, to be free from a tremor, or
seeming timidity before a common Sabbath audience, but in prayer he was happy in
speech and most tender in appeal.  The Indians learned to respect him as a man
of true courage, a quality which they always test, and to esteem him as a
friend, and to trust him as an honest man.  One of them, a young man, who lived
with him a year, made such progress in new thought that an old chief, jealous of
his influence with the tribe, persuaded him away, and by a kind of plagiarism
obtained his new views and gave them to the tribe as his own, and thus retained
his own influence over them.  That young man became a Christian and a chief, and
did much by his counsels to allay the war fever that was rising so high among
them last summer, and to keep his part of the tribe true to the whites, as Rev.
Mr. Eels testifies, who was among them at the time.
   When the terrible news came by a rumor to the Spokanes in November, 1847,
that the Cayuse had killed Dr. Whitman and family, and that a band would soon
come and cut off the mission families, a Spokane chief at once told Messrs.
Walker and Eells, and said, "Do not fear; we will defend you."  On some signs of
danger, he collected his armed and mounted warriors, rode to their station,
surrounded their dwellings, and thus always ready became a bodyguard to them and
their households during that long winter, until a company of Oregon Volunteer
Cavalry, under Major Magone, came to rescue and escort them to the Willamette
valley in the early summer of 1848.
   Witnesses of the honesty and faithfulness of those Indians and of their
desire to improve themselves and their children come from many and various
sources.  The Christian integrity of those of them now in Rev. Mr. Cowley's
church is attested by him, and the loyalty of that people and government has
been steadfast for nearly forty years.
   Rev. Mr. Walker came to this valley almost thirty years ago, from the
threatening dangers in the upper country.  His desire was to preach the Gospel
here also, but the needs of a large family called him to toil early and late for
their support and education.  He was a member of the Oregon Congregational
association of ministers and delegates of the churches who, in September, 1848,
by vote approved and accepted the plan suggested by Rev. Theon Baldwin,
secretary of the American College Society, to start an academy that should grow
into a college in Oregon.  He voted for the first board of trustees, with
recommendations to adopt the proposed plan and become incorporated.  He would no
doubt have been chosen one of the board then if his relation to the A.B.C.F.M.
had been dissolved.  The idea of this academy and college helped in his decision
to abide in Oregon and here educate his children.
   Soon after, in 1848, the trustees chose the site of what is now Forest Grove,
then mostly an open plain, with here and there a log house, as the location of
the academy and college.  Mr. Walker also chose it for his abode and moved
thither in 1850, having bought the claim on which part of the village has grown
up.  For the school he prayed and labored, and to it he gave $1,000 worth of
property.
   When he became a trustee his counsel and zeal for it were more efficient.
Into its original purpose of a school for Christ and his church he entered with
all the spirit of its early friends, Baldwin, Clarke, Naylor and those saintly
women who have gone before to the heavenly rest.
   For about fifteen years he acted as pastor or joint pastor of the
Congregational church of Forest Grove.  Though for the most part
self-supporting, he was glad to drop all business and prepare for the pulpit and
the prayer meeting.  He was ever ready to visit the sick and of quick sympathy
for mourners.  At communion seasons, where he had the joy to welcome a majority
of the church to membership, at these sessions in the general association, he
was very happy and tender in remark and prayer.
   He educated and joyfully gave one son to Christ for China.  All were equally
consecrated and freely given to whatever post the Mater shall assign them.  He
was glad that one son had freely done missionary work for several years on a
reservation, and now that another has promptly taken his place, made vacant by
sickness.  He gave $1,000 to build and  complete the house of worship at Forest
Grove.
   As a citizen he was deeply interested in the growth and welfare of our state.
Its progress in industrial and business enterprises, in schools and churches, in
general intelligence and good society, so surprised all his early expectations
that it became a constant surprise and gladness.
   Foremost of causes in his heart for forty years, the mission work, his first
love, its savor was fresh to the last.  His plea for the Indians at our
association in June last, and his testimony for them showed his fervor and his
faith in the Gospel of Christ to win all men, Indian and African, European and
Asiatic.
   A record of integrity and piety he has left among his loved and loving
family, among his fellow members of the church, and among his neighbors.  Such
will be his memory among us all who have known him.  All ever devoted wife and
seven children, six sons and a daughter, and fourteen grand children survive
this patriarch missionary to bear up his name and exemplify his virtues.
   It was a joy to him seven years ago, with his wife, to return to Maine to
mingle for a few weeks again with brothers and sisters and friends after 33
years of separation, and to attend the anniversary of the A.B.C.F.M., which sent
them forth, and there in person, and before the churches, give tidings from his
field.
   It was a greater joy, as the first rays of morning entered his window, to
hear and quietly obey the Master's summons to leave all and ascend to the
promised "Mansions," to join the company of Newell and Carruthers, Mills and
Nettleton, Green and Treat, Baldwin and Finney, and hosts of others before and
after them who have been redeemed, and here before the Throne to give an account
of his stewardship.
   A large audience of citizens, with trustees, the faculty and students of
Pacific University, attended his funeral on the 23d of November.
   At the request of his family, the discourse, with extended reminiscences,
given at the funeral, will be published in pamphlet form.
                           G. H. Atkinson.