The Camp Meeting at Salem, Oregon

Haskell's report concerning the meetings in western Oregon read:3BIO 141.2

We left Milton, Monday, May 31, for western Oregon. Thursday night Sister White spoke to a crowded house at Beaverton; and in Portland, on the evening after the Sabbath, before the Temperance Society in the rooms of the Christian Association. On Sunday she spoke twice in the Methodist chapel. There are about twenty keeping the Sabbath in Portland; these are scattered over the city, and owing to distracting influences in the past, they have not held regular meetings.—The Signs of the Times, June 24, 1880.3BIO 141.3

The May 6 issue of Signs announced concerning the plans for the Western Oregon camp meeting:3BIO 141.4

It will be held in the city of Salem. It is a beautiful location. Marion Square is well set with shade trees, and the whole city will have an opportunity to hear, on the same ground where the truth was first proclaimed there.—Ibid.3BIO 141.5

Twenty-five tents were pitched in the square, and the camp meeting opened Wednesday evening, June 9. The townspeople manifested a good interest. Of the closing meeting held on Tuesday evening, Ellen White wrote to Edson and Emma in Battle Creek:3BIO 141.6

Last night, weak and trembling, I took the stand, but oh, what a solemn sense of the condition of the people and their unprepared state for the judgment—Letter 32a, 1880.3BIO 141.7

The plan was that she and those with her would leave at once for California, but some of the Methodists who had heard her temperance address Sunday afternoon sent a request for her to speak on the subject in their church. How could she turn down such an “appeal from outsiders, prominent men,” for her to remain over another week (Ibid.)? The meetings in the tent had created a deep interest; prejudice had disappeared. “Now we can do something,” she declared.3BIO 141.8

Haskell returned to California, but Ellen White and Mary remained for a week to fill the appointment in the Methodist church. She described the meeting in a letter to James:3BIO 142.1

Sunday evening the Methodist church, a grand building, was well filled. I spoke to about seven hundred people who listened with deep interest. The Methodist minister thanked me for the discourse. The Methodist minister's wife and all seemed much pleased.—Letter 33a, 1880.3BIO 142.2

And Ellen was pleased that a number of people remained after the meeting to chat with her. In her letter she said that “one of the Methodist ministers said to Brother Levitt that he regretted Mrs. White was not a staunch Methodist, for they would make her a bishop at once; she could do justice to the office.”—Ibid. Monday night she and Mary left on the return trip to San Francisco.3BIO 142.3

Between meetings she was busy writing, particularly for some of the workers in the Northwest. [Her messages of counsel and reproof written there and read to those involved, are found in Testimonies for the Church, 5:249-289, 298-309.]3BIO 142.4