Alvin Thompson Smith (November 17, 1802 – January 22, 1888) was an American missionary and politician in what became the state of

Oregon Oregon () is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of its eastern boundary with Idaho. T ...

. A native of

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its capita ...

, he lived in

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

before moving to the Oregon Country to preach to the Native Americans in the

Tualatin Valley The Tualatin Valley is a farming and suburban region southwest of Portland, Oregon in the United States. The valley is formed by the meandering Tualatin River, a tributary of the Willamette River at the northwest corner of the Willamette Valley, ...

. There he served in both the

Provisional Government of Oregon The Provisional Government of Oregon was a popularly elected settler government created in the Oregon Country, in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Its formation had been advanced at the Champoeg Meetings since February 17, 1841, ...

and the government of the

Oregon Territory The Territory of Oregon was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from August 14, 1848, until February 14, 1859, when the southwestern portion of the territory was admitted to the Union as the State of Oregon. O ...

, as well as helping to establish

Tualatin Academy Tualatin Academy was a secondary school in the U.S. state of Oregon that eventually became Pacific University. Tualatin Academy also refers to the National Register of Historic Places-listed college building constructed in 1850 to house the acade ...

, later becoming

Pacific University Pacific University is a private university in Forest Grove, Oregon. Founded in 1849 as the Tualatin Academy, the original Forest Grove campus is west of Portland. The university maintains three other campuses in Eugene, Hillsboro, and Wo ...

. Smith’s former home, the Alvin T. Smith House in Forest Grove, is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...

Early years

Alvin Thompson Smith was born in

Branford, Connecticut Branford is a shoreline town located on Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut, about east of downtown New Haven. The population was 28,273 at the 2020 census. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a to ...

, on November 17, 1802, to Thomas Smith.Corning, Howard M. (1989) ''Dictionary of Oregon History''. Binfords & Mort Publishing. p. 226. In the early 1830s he moved to Quincy, Illinois, where he worked as a carpenterClarke, S. A. (1905)
''Pioneer Days of Oregon History''.
Portland: J.K. Gill Company. Vol. 2, pp. 449-451. and where he married Abigail Raymond (born April 21, 1793) on March 19, 1840.Raymond, Samuel. (1886)
''Genealogies of the Raymond families of New England, 1630-1 to 1886: With a Historical Sketch of Some of the Raymonds of Early Times, Their Origin, etc''.
Press of J.J. Little & co., p. 29. In 1840, he and his new wife crossed the Great Plains on what became the

Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what is now the state of Kans ...

with P. B. Littlejohn and the Reverend

Harvey L. Clark Harvey L. Clarke (October 2, 1807 – March 25, 1858) was an educator, missionary, and settler first on the North Tualatin Plains which would become Glencoe, Oregon, and then on the West Tualatin Plains that would become Forest Grove, Oregon. ...

and their wives, along with fur traders.Gray, William Henry. 1870. ''A history of Oregon, 1792-1849, drawn from personal observation and authentic information''. Portland, Or: Harris & Holman. pp. 188-190. They left in March after Smith had heard a speech about a group of Native Americans who had traveled to

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

, and asked to learn about Christianity. Clark and Littlejohn invited him to help establish a mission independent of the

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was among the first American Christian missionary organizations. It was created in 1810 by recent graduates of Williams College. In the 19th century it was the largest and most imp ...

Oregon

The group traveled first to

Independence, Missouri Independence is the fifth-largest city in Missouri and the county seat of Jackson County. Independence is a satellite city of Kansas City, Missouri, and is the largest suburb on the Missouri side of the Kansas City metropolitan area. In 2020, ...

, where they were joined by frontiersman Henry Black before heading west. Along the trail they caught up to a fur brigade of the American Fur Company at Hickory Grove and joined the group that included Joel Walker, Pleasant Armstrong, and Robert Moore among others. This larger group continued on to the

Rocky Mountain Rendezvous The Rocky Mountain Rendezvous was an annual rendezvous, held between 1825 to 1840 at various locations, organized by a fur trading company at which trappers and mountain men sold their furs and hides and replenished their supplies. The fur compa ...

where the Oregon bound missionaries continued on with guidance from Caleb Wilkins and Robert Newell to

Fort Hall Fort Hall was a fort in the western United States that was built in 1834 as a fur trading post by Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth. It was located on the Snake River in the eastern Oregon Country, now part of present-day Bannock County in southeastern Ida ...

where they abandoned their wagons and traded their cattle for Mexican cattle to be delivered once in the

Willamette Valley The Willamette Valley ( ) is a long valley in Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. The Willamette River flows the entire length of the valley and is surrounded by mountains on three sides: the Cascade Range to the eas ...

. Smith and the group continued on to the

Whitman Mission Whitman Mission National Historic Site is a United States National Historic Site located just west of Walla Walla, Washington, at the site of the former Whitman Mission at Waiilatpu. On November 29, 1847, Dr. Marcus Whitman, his wife Narcissa ...

, arriving on August 14, 1840. After arriving in the Oregon Country in September, the group wintered at Henry H. Spalding’s mission in what is now

Eastern Washington Eastern Washington is the region of the U.S. state of Washington located east of the Cascade Range. It contains the city of Spokane (the second largest city in the state), the Tri-Cities, the Columbia River and the Grand Coulee Dam, the Hanf ...

. At the mission Smith assisted in building saw mills, a

grist mill A gristmill (also: grist mill, corn mill, flour mill, feed mill or feedmill) grinds cereal grain into flour and Wheat middlings, middlings. The term can refer to either the Mill (grinding), grinding mechanism or the building that holds it. Grist i ...

, and what was the first spinning wheel and loom in what became the Oregon Territory. He remained for nearly a year before leaving in September 1841 for the Willamette Valley. Smith settled on the

Tualatin Plains The Tualatin Plains are a prairie area in central Washington County, Oregon, United States. Located around the Hillsboro and Forest Grove areas, the plains were first inhabited by the Atfalati band of the Kalapuya group of Native Americans. Euro ...

near what became Forest Grove, Oregon. He and his wife were the first permanent Euro-American settlers at what would become Forest Grove.Mandel, Michelle. (March 10, 2005) "Restoration begins in earnest at historic house", ''

The Oregonian ''The Oregonian'' is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 18 ...

''. There he built a log cabin on his farm and later donated to

Tabitha Moffatt Brown Tabitha Moffatt Brown (May 1, 1780 – May 4, 1858) was an American pioneer colonist who traveled the Oregon Trail to the Oregon Country. There she assisted in the founding of Tualatin Academy, which would grow to become Pacific University in F ...

's orphan school in 1845 that grew to become Tualatin Academy and then Pacific University. The couple's first cabin was lost to a flood, but they built a new log cabin on the farmstead.

Political career

In May 1843, he participated in the

Champoeg Meetings The Champoeg Meetings were the first attempts at formal governance by European-American and French Canadian pioneers in the Oregon Country on the Pacific Northwest coast of North America. Between 1841 and 1843, a series of public councils was held ...

where pioneers debated on whether to create an independent government for the Oregon Country prior to the settlement of the

Oregon boundary dispute The Oregon boundary dispute or the Oregon Question was a 19th-century territorial dispute over the political division of the Pacific Northwest of North America between several nations that had competing territorial and commercial aspirations in ...

. At the meetings, Smith voted for the creation of the Provisional Government of Oregon and was elected as a magistrate for the Twality District, now Washington County. Smith was appointed by the

Provisional Legislature of Oregon The Provisional Legislature of Oregon was the single-chamber legislative body of the Provisional Government of Oregon. It served the Oregon Country of the Pacific Northwest of North America from 1843 until early 1849 at a time when no country had ...

as a road viewer for a proposed road from the

Willamette Falls The Willamette Falls is a natural waterfall on the Willamette River between Oregon City, Oregon, Oregon City and West Linn, Oregon, in the United States. It is the largest waterfall in the Northwestern United States by volume, and the seventeen ...

to the Tualatin Plains in 1844.“Accessions”
The Oregon Historical Quarterly. Oregon Historical Society, Vol. 6, p. 233. 1905. In 1851, he was elected as the

probate judge A probate court (sometimes called a surrogate court) is a court that has competence in a jurisdiction to deal with matters of probate and the administration of estates. In some jurisdictions, such courts may be referred to as Orphans' Courts o ...

for Washington County and received his commission from Territorial Governor

John P. Gaines John Pollard Gaines (September 22, 1795 – December 9, 1857) was a U.S. military and political figure. He was a Whig member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Kentucky from 1847 to 1849, and he served as Governor of ...

on July 3, 1851.

Later years

Smith volunteered in 1848 to fight in the

Cayuse War The Cayuse War was an armed conflict that took place in the Northwestern United States from 1847 to 1855 between the Cayuse people of the region and the United States Government and local American settlers. Caused in part by the influx of disease ...

that broke out after the

Whitman Massacre The Whitman massacre (also known as the Walla Walla massacre and referred to as the Tragedy at Waiilatpu by the National Park Service) was the killing of the Washington missionaries Marcus Whitman and his wife Narcissa, along with eleven others ...

, but was never called up for service.Dobbs, C. C. (1932). ''Men of Champoeg; A Record of the Lives of the Pioneers who Founded the Oregon Government''. Portland, Or: Metropolitan Press. pp. 85-87. In 1851, Smith was appointed postmaster of West Tualatin, now Forest Grove, serving in that position until 1855, with his wife assisting. The post office was located in the Smith’s log cabin, and was the first post office in the county. In 1856, he completed building a new two-story frame home, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 8, 1974, as the Alvin T. Smith House.Mandel, Michelle. (May 6, 2003) "Historic house awaits reawakening", ''

''. On April 17, 1858, his wife Abigail died, and later that year Smith assisted in building the Forest Grove Congregational Meeting House in September. Smith remarried on October 19, 1869, eleven years after his first wife died. Smith traveled home where he married Jane Averill from his hometown of Branford, Connecticut, before returning to Oregon and his farm.Bancroft, H. H., & Victor, M. F. A. F. B. (1886)
''History of Oregon''.
San Francisco: The History Co. Vol. 2, p. 762. He and Jane moved into Forest Grove proper in 1870, but continued to own the farm and old home. Alvin Thompson Smith died on January 22, 1888, in Forest Grove at the age of 85 and was buried at Mountain View Memorial Gardens in that city.

References

External links

Historic Forest Grove biography of Smith
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Alvin T. Oregon Territory judges 19th-century American judges Champoeg Meetings Members of the Provisional Government of Oregon People from Quincy, Illinois People from Branford, Connecticut People from Forest Grove, Oregon Pacific University people 1802 births 1888 deaths American carpenters