A. T. Smith Diary transcript 1849

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A transcription of a 1849 diary in which Alvin Thompson Smith writes about topics such as his daily life on the increasingly populated Tualatin Plains; his several contributing efforts to the establishment of the orphanage that would become Tualatin Academy and later Pacific University; his farmwork chores; his religious life; his trips to Fort Vancouver, Willamette Falls, and Portland; his business ventures; and his interactions with Henry Spalding, a Mr. Newbanks, a Mr. Wilcox, Andrew Harper, Joseph Gale, Mahlon Brock, Alanson Hinman, Orcus Brown, a Mr. Copenhaver, a Mr. Buxton, a Mr. Duane; Harvey Clark (or Clarke), Cushing Eells, Clark Pringle, a Mr. Coffinbury, and a B. Q. Tuckers. In March of this year, Smith describes how the boarding house (perhaps referring to the orphanage) held 16 children, including those from the Butts, Stoke, Stephens, Joes, and Terwilliger families.

Born in Connecticut in 1802, Alvin Thompson Smith, along with his wife Abigail Raymond, was amongst the first Euro-Americans to settle in the area on the Tualatin Plains that became Forest Grove, Oregon in the early 1840s. In his life, Smith was a missionary, a postmaster, a notable participant in the Champoeg Meetings, the builder of a 1856 house in Forest Grove that is today recognized by the National Register of Historic Places as the Alvin T. Smith House, and a contributor to an orphanage that became Tualatin Academy and later developed into Pacific University. Smith died in 1888 at the age of 85. This is one part of a collection of transcriptions of Alvin T. Smith's diaries from the years 1840-1853. The transcriptions, which are likely not identical to the diaries themselves and perhaps summarize some entries, were likely typewritten in the 1970s. The diaries are notable for their near daily entries. This year's diary was transcribed by M.S. Gilbert. The original diaries are held by the Oregon Historical Society (Mss 8).