Page:History of Oregon Newspapers.pdf/62

Rh the little paper to his unpaid printer-publishers, Waterman and Carter.

Carter and Waterman soon put over a spectacular move designed to stop the drain on their resources. Persuaded that the paper would have a better chance in Portland than in Milwaukie, but fearful of the wrath of Milwaukie facing the loss of its publicity organ, the partners one night picked up the little plant and secretly loaded it on the steamer. The next morning they and their newspaper plant were in Portland. Changing the name to the Portland Weekly Times, they got out their first issue under the changed status June 5, 1851. Carter sold out to Waterman in 1853, then bought the paper back again, with R. D. Austin as partner May 29, 1854. The new ownership retained Waterman as editor for three years, when he was succeeded by E. C. Hibben, who made the paper so pro-Southern in tone that he was recognized by the state Democratic convention of 1857 as "a worthy man." He remained until December, 1858.

Austin, whose son, Harry Austin, was for many years printer and proofreader on the Oregonian, bought the paper from Carter in May, 1859. Carter went into job printing. Austin changed the paper to a daily December 19, 1860, and conducted it as a Union newspaper, reversing the political stand of the former owners. Two of the six successive editors of the Times later became prominent in journalism and other fields. W. Lair Hill served for about five years as editor of the Oregonian (1872-77) and A. C. Gibbs became governor of Oregon.

Launching his daily, Austin made Alonzo Leland editor. Leland declared himself in the first issue as follows:

"We do not always expect to be brilliant and abounding in thought which will awaken the best energy of our readers.—But we promise to treat all questions discussed with candor and fairness, and to strive to be equal in interest to the temperature of the public mind."

In time Austin became more devoted to his violin than to the paper, and with Leland lacking the "stuff" provided by such editors as Simeon Francis and other fore-runners of Harvey Scott, the Times died in 1864. As daily or weekly it had eked out a career of 14 years.

When Whitcomb started the Star he set the subscription price at $7 a year for the 52 issues; but in 1876 a quarter of a century had added so much to the historical value of the paper, then 12 years defunct, that George H. Himes, a young man of 32 with keen historical interest, paid Mr. Waterman $160 for the file of volume I — a little more than $3 a copy.

Under the page 1 title the old Star carried the poetic albeit