Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/311

302 the Spectator's old Washington hand-press, which is now preserved relic at the University of Oregon Press, Eugene, having been presented to the School of Journalism by H. R. and W. L. Kincaid after the suspension of the State Journal.

The Marine Gazette, a four-page paper of six wide (15-em) columns, died with No. 6 of volume 3 (September 24, 1866); but it is remembered as a good little paper, which left its mark in Oregon as having published anonymously in serial form W. H. Gray's History of Oregon until its suspension interrupted.

Announcement of publication of the history was made in the issue of August 15, 1865, under the general head of "Local and Miscellaneous Items." The sidehead read: "Interesting History," and here is the announcement:

"We have engaged one of the earliest American settlers on the Oregon coast, an intelligent and entirely reliable person, to write a complete history of Oregon settlers and settlements, their influence upon each other and upon the natives, and foreign settlements among them, from about 1836 to 1850, giving a complete political, religious, and social history of the country during that period, which we shall publish in the Gazette, commencing with the next number, and occupying from one to two columns in each paper. These articles, which will last a year or more, will be worth more than the price of the paper a year."

It was D. W. Craig, Adams' warm friend and former associate on the Argus, friend and law pupil of Abraham Lincoln, who suggested to Mr. Gray that he publish his history in book form. Gray and Craig corresponded in 1867, the year after the Marine Gazette's demise. Craig wrote Gray (March 31 of that year): "Not one in a thousand ever saw or heard of that sheet (the Gazette), on account of its limited circulation, and your writing through that medium was like wasting your breath on the desert air. I would like very much to see your history undertaken and finished in a permanent form as the events embraced in the time it treats of were of vast moment in the life of the Northwest coast." (73).

A prospectus of Gray's history was issued by H. G. Walling & Co., book and job printers of Portland, in the same year, but Gray's book ultimately was done in 1870 by another house.

The history was carried in the Gazette under the heading: "History of the First Efforts to Settle an American Family in Oregon" by "An Oregonian Since 1836." Six columns of this was carried in the issue of July 2, 1866.

The paper carried considerable news, written rather formlessly. The victory of the Union party at the preceding election received nine lines, together with a two-column table of the general results by