Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/301

292 and jurist, purchased a half interest in the State Rights Democrat in 1869. His partner was Mart V. Brown. Mr. Bellinger retired from the firm July 12, 1870, removing to East Portland, where he re-entered the practice of law. He had already edited the Arena, a Democratic weekly, at Salem, and later edited and published the Salem Review. Soon after going to Portland he founded and for two years edited the Portland News, which in 1877 was succeeded by the Portland Telegram. The law, however, was his career, and on the death of United States Circuit Judge Matthew P. Deady in 1893 he succeeded to that position, which he held until his death twelve years later.

On Bellinger's retirement Mart V. Brown conducted the Democrat along until 1874, when he was elected state printer and left the paper, selling a half interest to his brother-in-law, Claiborne H. Stewart, who had been employed in the office for about seven years. The paper ran as an evening daily for a time, beginning in December 1875. Mr. Brown died in 1881, and Mr. Stewart brought into the firm with a half interest George E. Chamberlain, rising Albany lawyer, later to be governor and United States senator. Chamberlain bought into the paper June 23, 1882, and Stewart, who had been elected county clerk, sold his interest to T. J. Stites. Chamberlain in turn became too busy to look after the paper and sold his interest to Fred P. Nutting, who remained with the paper as part owner and later editor and publisher from December 22, 1882, to 1912. Mr. Stites remained for 12 years.

Soon after taking hold, Mr. Nutting had the State Rights part of the title removed and called the paper the Albany Weekly Democrat.

Mr. Nutting, who was to have a long and memorable history in Oregon journalism, had had little experience. He had learned the printing trade in New York state and had been admitted to the bar in Rochester, N. Y. "To make a newspaper prosper," he wrote in the Democrat-Herald 43 years later, "it was necessary in a place as small as Albany, with low prices, to get down and push the plow. And I pushed the best I knew how. I did the local work and helped in the mechanical department, particularly a while before press time, as well after starting the daily as before. . . . My proclivity seemed to be condensation. Most of us are cranky about some thing, and it seemed to be my part to boil things down, and get as many things to boil down as I could find, and to do it on time.

"While I was on the paper, I always had a special column of short paragraphs, wise and otherwise. For a while it was called The Man About Town, and then one day I changed it to "Misfits," which seemed to offer a wide range, from gossip to philosophy, and very few issues ever appeared without this column, or part of a column."