Alvin T. Smith

Alvin Thompson Smith (November 17, 1802 – January 22, 1888) was an American missionary and politician in what became the state of Oregon. A native of Connecticut, he lived in Illinois before moving to the Oregon Country to preach to the Native Americans in the Tualatin Valley. There he served in both the Provisional Government of Oregon and the government of the Oregon Territory, as well as helping to establish Tualatin Academy, later becoming Pacific University. Smith's former home, the Alvin T. Smith House in Forest Grove, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Early years Alvin Thompson Smith was born in Branford, Connecticut, on November 17, 1802, to Thomas Smith. In the early 1830s he moved to Quincy, Illinois, where he worked as a carpenter and where he married Abigail Raymond (born April 21, 1793) on March 19, 1840. In 1840, he and his new wife crossed the Great Plains on what became the Oregon Trail with P. B. Littlejohn and the Reverend Harvey L. Clark and their wives, along with fur traders. They left in March after Smith had heard a speech about a group of Native Americans who had traveled to St. Louis, Missouri, and asked to learn about Christianity. There he built a log cabin on his farm and later donated to Tabitha Moffatt Brown's orphan school in 1845 that grew to become Tualatin Academy and then Pacific University. The couple's first cabin was lost to a flood, but they built a new log cabin on the farmstead. In 1851, he was elected as the probate judge for Washington County and received his commission from Territorial Governor John P. Gaines on July 3, 1851. In 1851, Smith was appointed postmaster of West Tualatin, now Forest Grove, serving in that position until 1855, with his wife assisting.

On April 17, 1858, his wife Abigail died, and later that year Smith assisted in building the Forest Grove Congregational Meeting House in September. He and Jane moved into Forest Grove proper in 1870, but continued to own the farm and old home. Alvin Thompson Smith died on January 22, 1888, in Forest Grove at the age of 85 and was buried at Mountain View Memorial Gardens in that city.