Alvin Thompson Smith was born in Branford, Connecticut on November 17, 1802. After spending his childhood nearby, he moved to Illinois to farm with his brother and work as a carpenter. The church was a major influence throughout his life and as an adult, he became interested in missionary work. Three days after marrying Abigail Raymond on March 19, 1840, the couple left for Oregon, arriving at the Whitman Mission in August of that year. They spent their first winter at the Spalding Mission in Lapwai.

On September 28, 1841, the Smiths arrived at their ultimate destination: the West Tualatin Plains, now known as Forest Grove. They were a part of an independent missionary party made up of three couples who all hoped to convert members of the local Atfalati tribe to Christianity. However, they soon became discouraged about their plans to start a mission, and they moved on to building houses, farms and schools instead.

In 1843, Smith was appointed as one of three magistrates at the Champoeg Meetings that established the first provisional United States government in Oregon. In 1845, he and his former missionary colleague Harvey Clark founded the local Congregational Church in Forest Grove, now known as the United Church of Christ. Four years later, Smith helped to establish Tualatin Academy, a college preparatory school that spawned Pacific University. This was the second university to be established on the West Coast, and one of the oldest co-educational colleges in the world. Smith became the Territorial Postmaster of the Tualatin Plains in 1850.

Many of these details are known from Smith’s diaries. He wrote regular entries from 1820 to 1887, including accounts of his journey west and his years in Oregon. The original diaries are preserved at the Oregon Historical Society. Transcripts of the A. T. Smith diaries have been an important resource for many organizations and particularly for Friends of Historic Forest Grove.

Using his skills as a carpenter, Smith built a two-story Classic Greek Revival house on the southern side of Forest Grove in 1854. Smith felled oak trees on his property, squared them using hand tools and constructed all the framing of the house using mortise and tenon joinery. The main beams of his home are 12” x 12” and run the length and width of the house. This was no small feat, given that a cubic foot of oak weighs about 40 pounds! A cellar was added after the house was built using the dry stack technique, a method of stacking rocks without mortar. It is believed that the rock is basalt and was sourced from Carpenter Creek near Forest Grove.

The house remains in its original location near the southern end of Elm Street. It was listed in the Historic American Building Survey in the 1930s and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974. Today, it is believed to be the oldest standing house in western Washington County. Unfortunately, by the 1990s it had slipped into a state of disrepair and risked being destroyed. Friends of Historic Forest Grove purchased the abandoned and neglected house in 2005, beginning a long process of custodianship so that the structure could be saved. Restore Oregon identified it as one of the 15 most endangered historic sites in Oregon in 2016 and 2017, recognizing both its significance and its fragility.

Recent restoration projects have included strengthening support beans to realign the two-story home and resetting basement support posts to level the main floor. The basement walls and sill plates are being rebuilt. Interior load-bearing walls have been reframed and wall surfaces will be completed as work progresses. The south one story section has been realigned, and flooring restored in two of the three south rooms.

Friends of Historic Forest Grove is working to preserve and restore the character-defining features of the house; add interpretive information on Indigenous land use; detail the impact of post-settlement development patterns on Forest Grove; and make the house site a center of civic pride and a destination for visitors to Forest Grove.