Forest Grove Gospel Hall, OR
History
An influx of believers from North Dakota led to the start of the Forest Grove Gospel Hall in the town of Forest Grove, west of Portland (see North Dakota). Dick and Fanny Goff arrived first and purchased a farm in the Hillside district eight miles northwest of the town. A few weeks later the Hazlitt family arrived and settled on a farm in the Thatcher district. The Alex Hunter family came with the Hazlitts and bought a house on the Gales Creek Road.
On the last Sunday of 1901, this little group of eight first met to Remember the Lord in a rented house on 17th Avenue in Forest Grove. Within a few weeks, Mrs. Emma Goff and her son Edward arrived. Edward purchased a farm in the Hillside district. For the next eight years, the assembly met in that home.
In the spring of 1902, James Harcus and W.C. Arnold held a series of Gospel meetings in the Thatcher Community Church, at which many were saved. Over the next decade, a steady flow of brethren preachers, including J.J. Rouse, Alex Matthews, David Scott, and W.J. McClure, as well as Messrs. Harcus and Arnold, held Gospel meetings in the area. A Sunday School work was established, at which upwards of 30 children attended. Nevertheless, the assembly remained small. From 1911 until 1919, the assembly met in the Jacob Hazlitt home on Thatcher Road.
In 1919, the assembly started meeting in the Thatcher Community Church and met there through 1946. They neither owned the building or paid rent, but maintained and improved the building, sometimes with help from neighbors. This was their Gospel Hall, and they would refer to it as Community Hall or Thatcher Hall. Gospel meetings were held in a hall on Pacific Avenue that B.B. Goff had purchased in 1922. In 1946, the Christians moved into their newly built Forest Grove Gospel Hall at 21st and Cedar Streets, where they still meet.
At the end of 1920, although only about 13 were in fellowship, some 70 were attending the Sunday School. The assembly grew slowly but steadily. Records show 48 in fellowship in 1947. In 1958, the Sunday School and Sunday Bible Class reached 144. In 1964 there were 79 in fellowship. However, that year was also a time of testing for this and other assemblies in the state and as far away as Seattle, and numbers decreased.
In 1969, a new assembly was begun in Salem, some 50 miles to the south. The Salem Gospel Hall and Forest Grove Gospel Hall are in happy fellowship.
B.B. Goff, W.C. Arnold, and E.G. Goff were the principal leaders of the assembly at Forest Grove for the first 50 years. B.B. was the energetic leader, Ben Arnold was the teacher, and E.G. was the shepherd. Other leaders have been Harry Goff, Ralph Goff, Frank Goff, John Robertson, David Williams, and Richard Goff. Gaius Goff joined Herbert Harris in Newfoundland to work on his Missionary Gospel Messenger boat for the summer of 1960, and has continued to minister there and elsewhere on the continent. The assembly commended Fanny Mae Goff to the field in Venezuela, whereshe eventually became director of the Colegio Evangelico in Puerto Cabello.
Who's Who
References
- Alfred Corduan - August 2019
- Robert L. Peterson's history of assemblies