An etching of the former Oregon Indian Mission Manual Labor School. It later became the Oregon Institute for children of settlers and was eventually served the first campus of Willamette University. (Courtesy/City of Salem)
The city of Salem will start excavation at two sites of the former Oregon Indian Mission Manual Labor School, built on the current Willamette University grounds.
The boarding school only operated for two years but was attended by Native American Children from across the Pacific Northwest, according to a Friday statement from the city.
Focused on the boarding school and its administrative building, the work is part of a city-led archaeology project and is intended to help give context to the buildings’ history, the statement said.
Missionaries from the Methodist Episcopal Church built the structures southeast of the mission headquarters in what is now Salem. The buildings were among the earliest and largest in the area, and helped establish “community structures that continue to the present day,” the city’s website said.
According to an article published by Willamette in 2017, It was difficult for the school to find students it could steadily retain, or who would permanently convert to Christianity. The school “enforced Western dress,” and students had a high mortality rate due to diseases transmitted by European settlers.
When the mission closed in 1844, the boarding school followed suit. European settlers including missionaries raised money to buy the school building and charter the Oregon Institute, a new school for children of settlers, according to the city’s website.
The state Legislature granted a charter in 1853 for Willamette University, for which the former boarding school was the campus until Walter Hall was built between 1864 and 1867.
A fire in 1872 destroyed the old boarding school building, the city’s website said.
The Methodist Church used the former administration building as a parsonage, which was moved twice and has since remained on the Willamette Heritage Center grounds.
Starting this month, Archeologist Ross Smith will supervise the field work done by Oregon Archaeological Society volunteers and Willamette University Students. Greek students visiting the university will do photogrammetry, converting pictures into digital models, according to the statement. The volunteers will record and process any artifacts uncovered in the dig and store them in “archival-quality” materials in the Willamette Heritage Center’s collections.
The project is partly funded by a grant Oregon Heritage, the state’s historic preservation office, awarded to Willamette University.
-Ardeshir Tabrizian
