Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/58

Rh unfamiliar with printing, that in some cases the w was replaced by two v's.

The Free Press was started April 8, 1848, and ran until October. In March Curry had married Miss Chloe Boone, daughter of Col. Alphonse Boone, a great-grandson of famous Daniel Boone. The paper was suspended because of the rush of Oregon people to the California mines. The Spectator had been forced to suspend for a month and had just managed to resume with a new printer when the Free Press had to give up the struggle. The Curry paper had not met with the expected and necessary response in subscribers.

When Curry started the Free Press his differences with the Spectator publishers were still very much on his mind. In his salutatory, under the head of "A Word in Introduction," he made the Spectator incident his point of departure, saying:

"Some months ago, when we were so unceremoniously deprived of the honor of editing the Governor's paper—the "Oregon Spectator"—and no longer permitted to bask in the sunshine of official favor, we were, of course, dreadfully cast down, and being so "cut off from grace," had no idea, at the time, of coming before the public so soon again in our editorial capacity.

In reference to that expulsion, it may not be amiss here to remark, in passing, that we have been misrepresented and abused, by a few miserable scribblers, who scarcely know how to spell their own names correctly, (to say nothing about writing the English language decently), and after their abortions have been published by the only press, at the time, in the country, that press has been closed upon us, and ourself denied the privilege of occupying even a space of ten lines in its columns, in reply.

But we have more important matters to attend to at present, and are not at all anxious to obtrude our own grievances before the public; consequently, the entire concern, correspondents, and "directors," are perfectly welcome to any capital they may have made by the misrepresentations and untruths with which they so love to prostitute the press."

Curry proceeded to picture the difficulties under which he was undertaking publication of the Free Press. These are reflected in the small size and emergency typography; but the publisher's bubbling optimism led him to predict ultimate success for his little publication, in the face of all the difficulties:

We have made certain arrangements (he said) for ample supplies of material, which we expect to receive in the early part of next June; when the "Free Press" will be im-