Supplina Hamilton References in Pioneer Oregon Disciples of Christ Newspapers

Glen M Hamilton · October 3, 2020

Supplina Hamilton, “S. Hamilton”, born in 1832 in New Lexington, Morgan county, Illinois was a 19 year old Oregon Trail pioneer arriving in the Willamette Valley in Sept 1851, a teamster on the Powell wagon train. Supplina wrote that he came west to ‘grow up with the country’ and ‘see the elephant’ (have an adventure), and that he did. He became a respected western renaissance man of sorts on the Oregon and Eastern Washington frontier: Blacksmith, farmer, indian war vet, patented inventor, rural doctor, county commissioner, school administrator and dedicated Disciples of Christ minister. Supplina married Sarah Jane “Jane” Sumpter in Linn County, Oregon in 1858. They raised a large family in Oregon and Washington Territory, finishing their days on their 800 acre wheat farm just south of St John, Washington. The references to Supplina below are in pioneer newspapers affiliated with the Disciples of Christ movement. The publications covered the northwest frontier and the church work of the denomination. The papers were mainly published from Monmouth, Oregon where members of the church established the first college in the region in 1856. That college is now Western Oregon University.

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