Women at Pacific

'Brimfield Heroine' account of Tabitha Brown's journey on the Oregon Trail and the founding of a school in Forest Grove

A transcript of a letter by Tabitha Brown describing her overland journey to Oregon in 1846 at age 66, as well her founding of a school in Forest Grove in the late 1840s. The school, Tabitha Brown's 'Orphan Asylum,' would later become Tualatin Academy and Pacific University. She wrote the letter to her brother and sister who were living on the East Coast in 1854. It was later printed as an article under the title 'Brimfield Heroine,' in reference to her hometown of Brimfield, Massachusetts. Tabitha Brown's account includes: leaving Missouri in 1846 with her brother-in-law Captain Brown, her son Orus Brown, and other relatives; Tabitha Brown departing from the standard route via the Columbia River and instead following the Applegate Trail via Utah and California; suffering hardships in the desert and losing nearly all her possessions; arriving in the Umpqua Valley in winter; nearly starving while passing through the mountains; arriving in Salem on Christmas Day, 1846; making some money by sewing buckskin gloves; moving to West Tualatin Plains (now known as Forest Grove) where her son Orus Brown had claimed land; with help from former missionaries Harvey and Emeline Clark, opening a school for local and orphaned children known as Tabitha Brown's Orphan Asylum; the Orphan Asylum becoming a college (first under the name Tualatin Academy, which offered classes through the high school level, with college classes under Pacific University being offered several years later); becoming a prosperous homeowner in Forest Grove while in her 70s; a description of the lands and farms around Forest Grove by 1854.

Brown, Tabitha

PUA_MS113_51

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