Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/679

 usin of

Jubal Early, who became a noted confederate general during the Civil war. His parents removed to Palmyra, Mo., in 1839, ^"d to Hannibal, Mo., in 1841. On May 25th, that year, he became an apprentice on the Hannibal Journal. One of the type setters was Orion Clemens, a brother of Samuel L. Clemens, better known by his pen name, "Mark Twain." (Mark himself, learned the printing business in the same office.) Serving an apprenticeship of four and a half years, young Craig went to Illinois, and worked at Quincy, Peoria and Springfield, re- maining at the latter place four years, as an employee of the Illinois State Jour- nal, edited by Simeon Francis, and served in various capacities as compositor, re- porter, editorial writer and telegraph operator. While in Hannibal, Craig began reading law, and his spare moments in Springfield, were thus employed, part of the time in Lincoln and Herndon's office. In due time he passed a rigid examina- tion, B. S. Edwards, John T. Stewart, and Abraham Lincoln being his examining committee, and was licensed on September 15, 1850, the license being signed by S. H. Treat, chief justice, and Lyman Trumbull, associate justice. He practiced law as occasion offered, and performed editorial work on the journal until the latter part of 1852. He then went to Washington, spending the winter, and in the spring of 1853 started for Oregon via the isthmus. He remained at Panama a few months acting as foreman of the Panama Daily Star. He soon went to San Francisco but only remained a little while, when he started for Oregon, and arrived in the Columbia river, November 25, 1853. He soon found his way to Salem, and sought employment of Asahel Bush, then proprietor of the Oregon Statesman, on which paper he worked for a short time. Unable to get per- manent employment with Mr. Bush, he had to seek other fields, and hence began teaching school. It was while thus engaged that Mr. Adams sent for him, to act as his foreman in the spring of 1855. He became proprietor of the Argus on April 16, 1859, retaining Mr. Adams as editor until April 24. 1863, at which time the Statesman mainly owned by Bush and Jas. W. Nesmith. the latter United States senator, and the Argus were consolidated, and the publication continued under the name of The Statesman, by an incorporation known as the Oregon Printing and Publishing Company, composed of J. W. P. Huntington, Benjamin Simpson, Rufus Mallory, Chester N. Terry, George H. Williams, and D. W. Craig, with Clark P. Candall as editor. In time Craig acquired a majority of the stock, and in 1866 sold the paper to Benjamin Simpson, and his sons, Sylvester C. and Samuel L. Simpson, became the editors. Simpson afterwards sold to W. A. McPherson and Wm. Morgan, the owners of the Unionists, and on Decem- ber 31, 1866, it was merged into that paper, the name of The Statesman being dropped. Eighteen months later Huntington acquired control of the Unionist, and published the same up to the time of his death, in the spring of 1869, when the plant was bought at an administrator's sale by S. A. Clark, and the name "The Statesman" again adopted. In the merging of the Argus into the Statesman, in 1863, an extra plant was acquired, most of which, aside from the press, was sold to an association of printers in Portland, who began publishing the Daily Union, with W. Lair Hill as editor. The press was acquired by H. R. Kincaid, who be- gan publishing the State Journal, Eugene, in December, 1863 ; and in this office today, may be found the original press of the Spectator not much the worse for its almost constant use since February 5, 1846^ — fifty-six years. Thus may be seen the connection between the Spectator of February 5, 1846, and with the Oregon Statesman of today.

Before taking up the story of the next paper, in chronological order, a few words may be said about the first election tickets printed in Oregon. In a let- ter recently discovered dated "Oregon City, Willamette Falls, O. T., 27 June, 1845," written to "Samuel Wilson, Esq." reading. "Cincinnati, Ohio. Politeness of Dr. White," it being carried by Dr. Elijah White from Oregon City to the nearest post office, which was in Missouri, J. W. Nesmith, in speakino- of the supreme judge of Oregon, says: "I received the nomination of the Champoeg convention and ran for the office at the election which took place on the first