Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 19.djvu/81



Joel Ware was a pioneer of Lane County, Oregon, and although he did not attain statewide celebrity, his local distinction and worth were such as to entitle him to worthy mention in the annals of the state.

Joel Ware was living in Eugene when the writer of this sketch came to that place in the fall of 1858. He was a compositor by vocation and at that time was employed on the People's Press, a free soil paper, which had been established during the previous summer. As the writer recollects it, in addition to being a typesetter for that paper he was proof reader and pressman as well; he also had charge of the local column and occasionally did editorial writing. Mr. Ware had fine mental poise, sound judgment and a dry humor which enlivened whatever he said or wrote. His editorials were models of clearness and directness. I do not suppose he ever attempted to compose an ornate or eloquent sentence. To express his thoughts in plain vigorous language was always his aim. This was manifest not only in his occasional editorial writing but also in the reports he prepared for the Surveyor General when chief clerk in his office.

How long he remained with People's Press is not remembered by the writer, but probably until the midsummer of 1861, when he was appointed to a position in the U. S. Surveyor General's office by B. J. Pengra, Surveyor General, one of the founders of the People's Press, who consequently had personal knowledge of Ware's capability for any line of service he engaged to perform. The Surveyor General made no mistake in inducting him into his official family when it is remembered that he continued his connection with the Surveyor General's office nine years, the greater part of the time as chief draftsman and chief clerk, when he voluntarily resigned 1 in order to answer the call of his fellow-citizens to come up higher. This call may truly be considered a reward of merit.