Ellis W. Dixon Scrapbook

Ellis Watson Dixon was a pioneer and a clergyman who lived in various locations in Oregon, California and Washington between 1850-1905. He was born in Bond County, Illinois, on November 18, 1830. At the age of 19, he emigrated to California with a company led by two men named King and Pierce. He fell seriously ill with a fever along the way and was nearly abandoned en route. After arriving in California, he caught cholera and was barely able to work for several months. He moved to Oregon and joined his brother, Samuel A. Dixon, who was a minister living in Forest Grove. There he married Mary Jane Catchings in 1854 and had four children named Charles, Ellen, William and George. Mary died while they were still young, in 1867.

While living in Washington County, Oregon in the 1860s, Dixon became involved with various protestant churches, including the Congregationalists and the Presbyterians. He had a falling out with a prominent member of the Congregationalist Church in Oregon, a "J. Conner," in 1869. Although he believed he got the better of his opponent, he writes in his autobiography that Conner "persecuted me out of the Church." Dixon was next ordained by the Presbyterians, and preached for them in Douglas County. He returned to preaching for the Congregationalists at Yakima City, Washington, in 1880. He helped to revitalize two other churches nearby in Ahtanum and Wenas.

Dixon remarried in 1886 to Sarah W. Hiatt. In increasingly poor health, he eventually left the Yakima area and moved back to Forest Grove in 1888. He kept a store near Gales Creek before his death in 1905.