Fort Hoskins also provided a training camp for western volunteers between 1862 and the end of the Rebellion, although few of the men who trained there ever heard the whir of Indian arrow or the whine of enemy shot. They did, however, learn the rudiments of the military discipline of living month in and month out with themselves and with crushing boredom. At first only a sutler’s store catered to the wants of the soldiers, but at length a Corvallis firm, hard on the trail of easy money, opened an establishment near the post that dealt in a commodity the sutler’s store was not allowed to sell: spirits. No Indians ever tried to attack Fort Hoskins, but during the turbulent days of the Civil War, threats were made against the undermanned Fort by Secessionists, of which there were many in the immediate neighborhood. The nearest town of any size, Corvallis, was notoriously sympathetic to the cause of the South and was contemptuously known in other parts of the state of Oregon as the only town that ever had a Copperhead mayor. To make matters worse, this worthy was twice elected. Certain Southern sympathizers were organized into a secret state-wide society called the “Knights of the Golden Circle.” Fort Hoskins was permanently evacuated on April 13, 1865, the last company to leave being Captain Waters’ Company F of the First Oregon Volunteer Infantry. A year later the buildings were auctioned off, and the land, which had been rented, was returned to the owners. In the accompanying photograph, the cluster of unpainted farm buildings, left of center, stand on what was once the parade ground of Fort Hoskins. The large farmhouse behind the trees, at the right, rests on the site of the old hospital. On the light-colored field between the trees and the hill, soldiers once drilled and learned how to shoot at distant targets. Time and distance have lent enchantment, of a sort that never really existed, to the history of a lonely little frontier Fort in an all-but-forgotten corner of Oregon. Bishop Simpson’s Chapel _Madeleine L. Nichols_ [Illustration: (uncaptioned)] In 1858, the old Simpson’s Chapel was completed. It stood on a hill about halfway between the present towns of Bellfountain and Alpine. The church was built of hand-planed lumber and was a plain oblong with three windows on each side and a porch in front. It was surrounded by oak trees, many of which are still standing and which served as hitching posts for horses.