Almost every community has its favorite pioneer story. Meadow glade is no exception.

Meadow Glade, spread along Northeast 189th Street about 14 miles northeast of Vancouver, originally was a Seventh-day Adventist community built around a boarding school.

In 1912, the people decided to build a new church. As work progressed, the builders ran out of putty to fill the depressions in the pews left by screwheads. The children of the village were handed packages of chewing gum and told to start chomping.

When the gum was well chewed, it was used to fill the holes in the pews. After the pews were stained and varnished, according to observers, it was impossible to tell the difference between the putty and the gum.

Meadow Glade, a flat and fertile plain about 2 1/2 miles southwest of Battle Ground, once was covered by a thick stand of old-growth fir and cedar. The earliest pioneers carved small clearings from the forest and began farming.

Modern Meadow Glade, however, began with John R. and Fannie Clark, who left their native England 1869 on their honeymoon and set sail for Vancouver, Washington Territory.

The young couple settled in Vancouver and reared a family. Then, in 1903, the Clarks purchased 160 acres southwest of Battle Ground from Peter Onsdorff, a pioneer merchant. They donated 20 acres to the Seventh-day Adventist Church with the provision that a school be erected on the property.

The people of the community, of many religious beliefs, pitched in to help erect the first rude structure.

Lumber for the combination church and school was sawed at the Berry and Kays sawmill, located at what is now the southwest corner of Northwest 219th Street. The mill was owned by A.L. Berry and his uncle, E.E. Kays.

Gerald Berry, the son of A. L. Berry, in 1980 remembered his father's mill well.

"It was steam-powered," Berry recalled. "Sometimes the trees were so big, father had to split them by drilling a hole in the log, filling the hole with powder, and blowing the log into halves or quarters."

In those days, Berry said, top quality cedar, which grew in profusion in Meadow Glade, was sawed and delivered in Battle Ground for $7 a thousand board feet.

The first teacher at the original school was Nellie Clark, daughter of John R. and Fannie Clark. The first pastor of the church was J.J. Clark, their son.

Ruth Berry and Ermine Powell, daughters of J.J. Clark, said Meadow Glade was named by Fannie Clark, who was enchanted by a swale that lay in the area.

The original rough-sawn church and school building has grown into Columbia Academy, an Adventist school. Across the street from the academy is the big Meadow Glade Seventh-day Adventist Church. The descendant of the board church of 1903, this modern structure was built in 1946 and enlarged in 1969.

Next to the church is the Meadow Glade Elementary School, also a Seventh-day Adventist institution.