Reverend Eells, the founder of the Congregational Church in Chewelah in 1879, was the first missionary to enter the area, spending parts of the rest of his life serving the populace, both European and Native, of the area.
Born in Blanford, Massachusetts on February 16, 1810, Cushing Eells was graduated from Hartford Theological Seminary. The day following his marriage to Myra Fairbank on March 5, 1838, the bridal couple, accompanied by two other newly married couples started out to do missionary work among the Indians in Oregon Territory.
On August 29, the party arrived at Dr. Marcus Whitman’s home in Walla Walla Valley after traveling across the continent by stage, train, steamboat and horse-back.
On the 19th of September, Cushing Eells and Elkana Walker started out to select a station among the Spokane Indians. They arrived in Chewelah, there on the following day, through the aid of a poor interpreter, they conducted services for the Indians there assembled. This was the first religious service ever conducted in the Colville Valley. The place was the crossing of the stream that flows near the old Thomas Brown residence.
Thirty six years later in 1874, Rev. Eells returned to Chewelah and conducted two services in English and two in Indian. The estimated number of the English speaking congregation was near forty and sixty Indians. One family of the former came from a point of more than ten miles distant. A portion of the Indians came about forty miles.
On September 14, 1879, Cushing Eells again came to Chewelah and formally organized the Congregational Church. Four members met with him in the Thomas Brown residence. They included George F.C. McCrea, Mrs. Margaret McCrea, Mrs. Jane Brown and Andrew Mowatt. Rev. Eells was considered pastor of the new organization for nine years, although he visited Chewelah only occasionally, for his activity of organizing and ministering to other churches took him far afield. Services were held in the schoolhouse and in the home of Thomas Brown.
On August 18, 1890 Articles of Incorporation for the First congregational Church of Chewelah were filed in Stevens County. The church had for its first regular pastor, Rev. Mr. Clark and it is during his pastorate that the church building was erected with the help of the Church building Society which granted $499.00 to aid in the erection of the building. The balance of $1,000.00 was raised on the field. Mr. Clark was succeeded by Rev. Mr. Daley and during his ministry the building was dedicated on September 18, 1892. Father Eells, now in his 82nd year, came from Tacoma to assist in the dedicatory ritual. Said he: “It may seem a weakness for me, an old man, to go so far, but if anybody else had camped on that spot and held services there 54 years previous, he would have had the same weakness.
On the day of his death in 1893, the Father Eells bell arrived for the Congregational Church. Thus, in the words of his son Myron, writing about the life and works of his father, “His first and last work in the state of Washington was in Chewelah.”
From the Chewelah UCC