Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/33

26 the Whitman massacre—all names that go right back to the beginning of things in Oregon.

The Spectator had a modal beginning. The paper was of four pages, 11½×17 inches over all and four columns wide, and it was issued only twice a month. T'Vault, the editor, was not a newspaper man but a lawyer. Real journalists, indeed, were scarce all over the West. Lee, the Virginian, a man of good education, a former speaker of the house in Oregon's provisional legislature, was first choice for the position. He failed to get it, and T'Vault was chosen, supposedly because Lee wanted $600 a year for the work and T'Vault was content with $300.

For this salary T'Vault attended to just about everything on the paper but the printing, which, as the masthead indicated, was done by J. Fleming. So far as this writer knows, the only surviving bit of the original plant is the old Washington hand-press, manufactured by R. Hoe & Cor, world-famous pres~builders. In those days this was a remarkable piece of machinery, for many years supreme in the hand-press field. Fast workers could turn out 150 to zoo impressions an hour, making it the work of an hour or two to print the Spectator's whole list, which totaled 155 at the height of the paper's popularity.

This type of press remains in use in some few country newspaper plants nearly too years alter the establishment of the old Spectator. This bit of the original equipment is now stored as a relic in the plant of the University of Oregon Press at Eugene. It was presented, together with other printing material, by Harrison R. Kincaid, pioneer Oregon journalist, after he had discontinued publication of the Oregon State Journal, a paper he had founded in 1864, which had spanned the period from early statehood well into the twentieth century. The press brought from the Sandwich islands (Hawaii) and used by H. H. Spalding and other missionaries at Lapwai, is several years older, but it had not been used for newspaper purposes when the Spectator made its bow.

The unquestioned priority of the Spectator in western journalism seems to call for a more extended treatment for this paper than would be called for by its modest merits as a newspaper.

The printing plant was obtained in New York through the instrumentality of Mr. Abernethy. Ten months after the start the Spectator carried a resolution passed by the printing association thanking Francis Hall, Esq, of New York, for "his kindness in forwarding the press etc., for this association, and for his generosity in giving his valuable time in selecting the articles without making any charge for his services."

Mr. Hall, who also purchased the press and machinery for some other Oregon papers, including the Pacific Christian Advocate, was