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These are excerpts from memoirs of D.D. Clarke, a surveyor and engineer in the Pacific Northwest during the middle and late 1800s.  At this time, D.D. Clarke had just been hired in the land office in Olympia.
Sunday morning, in conformity with the custom of my New England forebears, I attended church service at the little church a few blocks distant from the hotel [probably First Presbyterian].  This was a Presbyterian Church as I afterwards learned.  There was a small audience attending the service, how many I do not remember, probably the room would not seat over 100 persons.  Neither do I recall either the preacher or his sermon, but I do remember the young lady with flowing tresses seated at the cabinet organ in the little choir loft near the front entrance, and the spirited manner in which she played the organ, keeping the choir strictly up to time. ...
[The organist was Miss Nellie Huntington, the daughter of Charles Andrew Huntington, the first pastor of the Congregational Church of Olympia which was organized some months later.  C.A. Huntington (1812-1904), a Congregational clergyman from Vergennes, Vermont, was loosely related to the other Huntingtons in the Pacific Northwest.  After losing most of what he had back East, he came West in 1865 to take a job as Chief Clerk in the Indian Affairs Office for this brother in law, William H. Waterman …  He remained with the Indian Service until 1878.  He served as an unpaid pastor of the newly formed church until he was called to serve the Indian agency in Neah Bay.  He also operated a boarding house, where D.D. Clarke occasionally stayed and courted Nellie.]
[Mr. Clarke was invited to dinner at the Huntingtons’ boarding home.]  When upon the appointed day and hour I was introduced to the assembled company around Mrs. Huntington’s table I was surely enough surprised to find that my unknown lady organist of the Sunday before was none other than Miss Nellie Huntington, the daughter of Rev. and Mrs. C.A. Huntington of whom I had heard in Portland.
… A few years before this Mr. Huntington who had been a teacher in early life, after and before his graduation from the University of Vermont, had been licensed to preach by the Oregon Congregational Association of Ministers, at a meeting held in Oregon City, and had been holding services occasionally in Presbyterian churches in Olympia and elsewhere.  About the time of my arrival in Olympia, or soon after, active steps were being taken looking to the organization of a Congregational church in Olympia.  Arrangements were not perfected, however, and the church organized until some months later.  During this period prayer meetings and conferences were held which I was permitted to attend, and I found the atmosphere of the home and its surroundings peculiarly congenial to me.
… There was one custom which prevailed in the Huntington home which I shall never forget.  It was Mr. Huntington’s practice to have family worship every Sunday morning, whenever he was at home, and usually all the boarders remained to join the service of song, scripture reading and prayer, each person joining in scripture reading …
Excerpts from “David D. Clarke 1864-1920”
Edited by Jerry C. Olson, PLS, PE
Contributed: Deb Ross , Feb, 2006