Ezra Fisher
{{short description|American missionary}}
Reverend Ezra Fisher (1800 – 1874) was an American Baptist missionary and pioneer from Oregon.{{cite book |last= Cogswell, Jr. |first= Philip |title= Capitol Names: Individuals Woven Into Oregon's History |publisher = Oregon Historical Society |year= 1977 |location= Portland, Oregon |page=47}}
Biography
Ezra Fisher was born in Wendell, Massachusetts on January 6, 1800.{{cite journal |first1=Sarah Fisher |last1=Henderson (editor) |first2=Nellie Edith |last2=Latourette (editor) |first3=Kenneth Scott |last3=Latourette (editor) |title=Correspondence of the Reverend Ezra Fisher |publisher= Oregon Historical Society |journal= Oregon Historical Quarterly |date= March–December 1915 |volume= 16 |pages= 65–104}} He attended Amherst College beginning in 1822, graduating in 1828 after illness delayed his studies. He entered Newton Theological Seminary in 1829. In 1830, he was ordained as a minister and he married the same year. Fisher came to the Oregon Country in 1845, with the Rev. Hezekiah Johnson and their families as employees of the American Baptist Home Mission Society.{{cite web |url= http://baptisthistoryhomepage.com/oregon.first.period.html |title= Baptist Annals of Oregon |last= Mattoon |first= C.H. |year= 1905 |accessdate= April 26, 2014}} The Fisher family spent winter in the cabin of fellow Baptist David T. Lenox and his family on the Tualatin Plains. Later, he joined the California Gold Rush and returned to Oregon with about $1,000 in gold. In 1850, he bought Sam Barlow's original land claim near Oregon City. He helped found Oregon City College, a predecessor of Linfield College. Fisher moved to The Dalles in 1861, where he preached and served as the Wasco County school superintendent.
Legacy
Ezra Fisher is one of the 158 names of people important to Oregon's history that are painted in the House and Senate chambers of the Oregon State Capitol. Fisher's name is in the Senate chamber.
See also
References
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External links
- {{Internet Archive author |sname=Ezra Fisher |sopt=t}}
- {{Find a Grave|40700491|Rev Ezra Fisher}}
- Correspondence of the Reverend Ezra Fisher: Pioneer Missionary of the American Baptist Home Mission Society in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Oregon (and subsequent articles also published in the Oregon Historical Quarterly, volumes 16, 17, 19, and 20)
- {{cite book | title=The Souvenir of Western Women | last=Douthit |chapter=Ezra and Lucy Taft Fisher |year=1905}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20140427114125/http://shop.ohs.org/item.asp?catalogtype=photog&did=1793&invid=100470 Image of Ezra Fisher] from Oregon Historical Society
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Category:Amherst College alumni
Category:Baptist missionaries from the United States
Category:People from Wendell, Massachusetts
Category:School superintendents in Oregon
Category:Baptist missionaries in the United States
Category:19th-century Baptists
Category:19th-century American clergy
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