Tabitha Moffatt Brown

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Tabitha Moffatt Brown (1780–1858) was an American pioneer and educator who helped found Tualatin Academy, which would become Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon. She was born May 1, 1780, in Brimfield, Massachusetts, to Lois Haynes Moffatt and Dr. Joseph Moffatt. She married Reverend Clark Brown in 1799, and they raised four children: Orus, Manthano, John Mattacks, and Pherne. Clark Brown died in 1817, and Tabitha supported her family by teaching.

In 1846, her son Orus moved to the Oregon Country and returned to bring his mother and the rest of the family. They began the journey in April 1846, traveling the Oregon Trail and using the Applegate Trail as a shortcut. A winter storm slowed them, but they reached the Willamette Valley by December 25, 1846. In Oregon, Tabitha helped with daily life, sewing and making gloves from buckskin to earn money.

She and Harvey L. Clark helped start an orphanage, and with Clark and Rev. George H. Atkinson they founded Tualatin Academy, which grew into Pacific University. Tabitha Brown died May 4, 1858, in Salem and is buried in the Pioneer Cemetery there. A tree was planted in her memory at Champoeg State Park (later cut down), and a World War II Liberty Ship was named in her honor. In 1987, the Oregon Legislature named her the "Mother of Oregon." Her great-granddaughter, Mary Strong Kinney, served as an Oregon State Senator.