Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/674

 sary requirements in every well regulated newspaper office, the sufferings of all connected with the establishments were made intolerable.

On September 2, 1847, Mr. Curry apologizes for the lack of editorial matter by saying that he had gone to climb Mount Hood. Two weeks later it is apparent that the trip was not successful. At this time the printer was W. P. Hudson, who came to Oregon in 1846, Mr. Colwell having retired. He had been the printer for several months, and in addition to printing the paper, printed a spelling book, the first English book issued on the Pacific coast. This bore the date of February 1, 1847. During the fall of that year Mr. Hudson printed an almanac—the first on the Pacific coast—for the year 1848. This was compiled by Henry H. Everts. Through this source it is learned that there were eight counties in the territory—Clackamas, Champoeg, Tualatin, Yamhill, Polk, Clatsop, Vancouver and Lewis—their area being all of the territory now included in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and those parts of Montana and Wyoming, west of the Rocky mountains. This was a publication of twenty-four pages, five by seven inches, and in addition to the twelve usual calendar pages and remarks on astronomical matters, it contained a list of the officers of the provisional government, the members of the legislature, lists of officers for each county, times and places of holding courts, a list of the officers of the United States in Oregon, and in addition the following interesting information: Public debt, October 1, 1847, $3,243.31; population, same date, about six thousand; vote for governor on the first Monday in June, 1847, one thousand and seventy-four immigration now beginning to arrive, about three thousand; estimated annual value of imports and exports, about $130,000; estimated amount of wheat raised in the territory for the last two years, about one hundred and fifty thousand bushels each year.

Mr. Hudson went to the gold mines in the fall of 1848. He soon found a rich gulch from which he dug $21,000. He then returned to Oregon, but did not remain long. He took passage by sailing vessel for San Francisco in December, 1850, and died at sea while on the way thither.

While not strictly connected with the newspaper history of Oregon, it is not out of place to give a brief account of the spelling book above referred to.

It was an abridgement of the old Webster's Elementary Spelling Book, and was about two thirds the size of the original, the long words and quaint illustrations in the back being omitted. As this was practically a foreign country at that time, the printer was not particularly sensitive about violating the copyright law. After this book was printed the question of binding became a serious one, there being no binder in the settlement, so far as known. With the immigration of 1846 there came a bookbinder, who sometime after his arrival went to Oregon City. His name was Carlos W. Shane, and he had learned his trade in the Methodist Book Concern, Cincinnati, where he had been employed a number of years prior to coming to Oregon. Instinctively gravitating toward the printing office, he discovered the unbound sheets and he was awarded the job of binding them. Improvising such implements as he needed, with the crude material at hand, he bound up the edition, numbering 800 copies, which was soon absorbed by the primitive schools then existing. For years effort has been made to secure a copy of this book, but so far without success. I have, however, obtained a fragment of the book, probably twenty pages. These I found in a farmhouse garret near Oregon City about eight years ago, where it had been placed, doubtless, by the original owner of the place, the late M. M. McCarver, a pioneer of 1843, with other old documents, more than forty years before. More than a dozen years ago the whereabouts of a perfect copy was discovered, but upon further investigation, it proved that this book, a number of early newspaper files, a lot of miscellaneous letters, all of undoubted historic value, had been considered "worthless trash," and burned. Mr. Shane taught a number of the very early schools in Clackamas County, was something of a rhymester, and a frequent contributor of verse as well as prose to the press of the early days. He was a man of fine clerical ability, and for many years followed conveyancing. He died at Vancouver, Washington, in 1901.