Page:History of Oregon Literature.djvu/179



CHAPTER 10

THE FIRST PERIODICAL LITERATURE

From Vol. 1, Oregon Spectator, 1846–1847 "I know of only three of the volumes of the first year of the Oregon Spectator now preserved in Oregon—one in the Portland Library, one in the of. Historical Society Library, and one in the hands of a private collector. ” e. Ruth Rockwood. THE Oregon Spectator at Oregon City seems to have started as an $800 enterprise, for the Oregon Printing Association that established it sold “about 80 shares, at $10 each.” We are told that the town at that time had about 80 houses and a population of something like 500. In addition to this metropolis, already of such healthy proportions and growing with every immigra tion, there were six other towns in 1846 from which subscriptions might be expected—Linnton, whose am bitious residents were “persecuted by mosquitoes day and night”; Portland, with a population of “more than 60 souls”; Astoria, with a population of about 30; Multnomah City, Linn City, Clackamas City; and Salem, hardly big enough to count, but hopefully laid out into lots. Then there were the various rural settlements, French Prairie, Tualaty Plains, Clatsop Plains, Sauvie's Island, and other old ones, and new ones springing up. But reading the neighbor's paper was apparently a practice irritating to publishers then as it is today. The circulation of the Oregon Spectator during the first year was 155. Those folios are rare and precious now. Only a very few have been preserved. The $800 was used to buy a press, type, paper, ink and other materials in New York. The type, i... s vicissitudes after the deat... the Spectato...