Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/376

366 ). Walk up, gentlemen—a few chances for subscription left. Only five dollars a year—"And a-going, and a-going!" Ten copies, did you say?—Thank you, sir. Sale closed. Be patient, gentlemen. Open again to-morrow morning at 8 o'clock, precisely.

The paper was neutral in politics and religion. At the end of six months Editor Wiley says that he "will venture the assertion that not another newspaper in the United States—nay, not in the world—that has existed for six months with more economy than has the Columbian. * * We commenced its publication without a subscriber and without a dollar. Since that time we have 'kept bach,done our own cooking, our own washing, our own mending, cut our own wood, made our own fires, washed our own dishes, swept out our own office, made up our own beds, composed our own editorials out of the cases—writing paper being a luxury which we have been deprived of—and done our own presswork. Now we have three hundred and fifty subscribers. * * What has been accomplished for the Territory of Columbia—or rather what has Northern Oregon accomplished for herself—during the last six months? History—in the future history of the State of Columbia may be found an answer."

Wiley withdrew from the paper on March 13, 1853. On March 26th J. J. Beebe appears as a partner with McElroy, but retired on July 13th. In the first number of the second volume the name of Mat. K. Smith appears as editor, and he conducted it as a whig journal, until November 26th. In the next issue the names of J. W. Wiley and A. M. Berry appear as proprietors, and the name is changed to the Washington Pioneer, with Wiley as editor, who says that as long as he has anything to do with it it will "be a straight-out, radical democratic journal." In the issue of February 4, 1854, the name is changed to Pioneer and Democrat, and it is printed on a