"About ten years after Father Wilbur was over in the Palouse country on a preaching tour. Held night meeting at a certain place. At the close of the meeting a good looking, strong young man came forward to shake his hand. 'Father Wilbur, I suppose you will not recognize me. I am far from the place where you last saw me, and a very different man; thanks to God and to yourself. I am the man that tried to ruin your Indians with liquor, and you kept me on bread and water for three days. That little experience made me the man I now am. Come back here, I want to introduce you to my wife and children.' He had kept his word, and was now the strongest man in that church.
OUR CONFERENCE
"Convened in July that summer in the City of Walla Walla—first session of Columbia River Conference. Bishop Merrill presided. There were twelve preachers present, and that made the entire membership of the conference. Those twelve men covered the entire field embraced in the great district, called the Inland Empire. The towns were, The Dalles, Walla Walla, La Grande, Baker City, Boise City and the Village of Pendleton. Indeed all of these were but villages. Not one of them was approached by railroad, excepting The Dalles, not one by any other than stage coach or your own conveyance. Laborious travel was unavoidable. My first year in this territory I reached all the settled portions of two counties and rode 3,000 miles on horseback.
DAYTON CIRCUIT
"When I reached Dayton, my appointment, I found the situation about as frontier, in all respects, as the settlements of the Yakima. Dayton was a town of one hundred people. No church within the entire County of Garfield. The homes of the people were cabins and shanties. There I had the most wonderful revival in all my ministry. Brother Koontz helped me. The people came from the whole country 'round. We begun about the 1st of February with a deep snow and cold weather. Religious conditions seemed as cold as the weather. But soon the spiritual stream broke loose, and what a glorious tide of revival—a veritable stream of salvation. Well nigh one hundred were converted, and the whole country was turned from the service of Satan unto God. Dancing ceased, and it was many years before it could again be revived.
"We were able to build a good church in the town that year. This was the coldest winter that I have ever experienced upon this coast. Thermometer went down to 35 degrees below zero, and was near that for a while. I traveled all the time horseback and certainly had good chance to test the cold. One of my appointments was at a schoolhouse called the 'Turkey Pen,' eight miles out from Dayton. I rode out to the neighborhood on Saturday and to Brother Nealy's home. Next morning was bitter cold. We saddled our horses and started to the schoolhouse, which was about two miles away. We were well wrapped, but about half-way over I became unbearably cold. I tried walking a short way, but on arriving and getting into the house, found that both my ears had been frozen stiff. While Brother Nealy built a fire, finding some coal oil, I proceeded to apply it and thaw out. By the time about a dozen people had come in, I could feel the warm blood coursing all through again, and we went on with the meeting. People said I had preached the 'smartest' sermon that day that they had heard. 'Yes, no doubt, I am the smartest preacher you have listened to lately, physically—give the cold weather the credit.' We all consented.
"After dinner I got into the saddle again, and rode five miles right up that mountain, in face of the storm, to meet another appointment on head of the Patit. No one came out, and after various efforts to build a fire, being too cold to accomplish it—I got on my horse and rode him a mile away to the nearest house. When I dismounted I had to be helped into the house.
"I remained with that kind family until the weather moderated. My presiding elder, Rev. S. G. Havermale, traveled a distance reaching from Pendleton to the Colville, encircling the Spokane and the Clearwater country." This much from Brother Kennedy.
The Cumberland Presbyterian Church of Dayton was organized on September 6, 1874, by Rev. A. W. Sweeney, whose home had been at Walla Walla and then at Waitsburg. He was also a man of much power and connected with all the leading features of church life during that period.
He was succeeded by Revs. R. H. Wills, H. W. Eagan ("Father Eagan," who afterwards lived at Walla Walla and was said to have performed more wedding ceremonies than any preacher in the Inland Empire), and J. C. Van Patten, two of whose sons are noted physicians, one at Dayton and one at Walla Walla, while another son is one of the leading farmers of Columbia County.