For years he was the wealthiest man in the Willamette Valley, outside of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Like many of the old, generous, and hospitable pioneers, he died poor—in his own home—a remarkable career man. The career of the intrepid George Kirby Gay ended, October 7, 1882. The Amity Church _Dr. James Matthew Alley_ [Illustration: (uncaptioned)] The Amity Church of Christ was born in a pioneer log cabin about two miles north of present-day Amity in March of 1846. This makes it the oldest Christian Church of the Disciples of Christ, west of the Rocky Mountains. Elder Amos Harvey, a pioneer of 1845, was the organizer of this congregation of thirteen charter members. In a letter to an Eastern religious journal, he tells of the humble beginning of this congregation in these simple words: “We met, as the disciples anciently did, upon the first day of the week, to break the loaf, to implore the assistance of the Heavenly Father, and to encourage each other in the heavenly way.” Amos Harvey was born of Pennsylvania Quaker stock. The Revolutionary Battle of Brandywine was fought on his kinsman’s land. When a young man, he married Miss Jane Ramage, a member of the Christian Church, and after their marriage he became a member of the same church. He was the organizer of Bethel College in Polk County, chartered in 1856. He had one of the first fruit nurseries in the Oregon Territory and was one of the first officers of the state horticulture society. He was one of the founders of the Republican party in the state. The second minister of the Amity Church of Christ was Glen O. Burnett, a pioneer of 1846. Soon after his arrival in the Amity area, we find him busy preaching, baptizing, marrying, and burying the citizens of this area. He performed his first marriage, shortly after his arrival in 1846, in the cabin of Joseph Watt, another pioneer of the Amity community. Elder Burnett was a hard-working circuit rider. He was a close friend of Amos Harvey, and the two of them kept the Amity church alive in its infancy. A great amount of credit goes to the laymen of the Amity church of this period. They were the real leaders of the community, and they in turn supported Harvey and Burnett with all that they had to offer in a material way, which was very little. But what they lacked in material help they made up in their faithfulness to this pioneer church.