Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/680



Tuesday of the present month, at which I received the unanimous vote of the w^hole territory, happening to be on all the tickets, two of which I send you en- closed, which were printed for Champoeg County. They are the first tickets printed in Oregon. You should preserve them as curiosities." Now, the ques- tion is, where were those tickets printed ? Not at Oregon City, because the Spec- tator plant had not yet arrived; probably at the mission press at Lapwai, on the Clearwater, about four hundred miles distant by the most direct route of that day.

The second and third papers in the territory of Oregon, the Free Press and the Oregon American and Evangelical Unionist, having already been referred to, I will pass to the fourth. This was the Western Star, first issued at Mil- waukie by Lot Whitcomb, November 21, 1850, with John Orvis Waterman and William Davis Carter, printers, the first of the two being the editor. Those young men were thorough printers, and learned their trade in Montpelier, Ver- mont, from whence they came to California in 1849, ^^d to Oregon early in 1850. Lot Whitcomb was a native of Vermont, and the founder of Milwaukie.

This paper was twenty-four by thirty-four inches in size, with twenty-four columns, with a good assortment of display type for advertising, and job work, and was democratic in politics. In May, 185 1, Portland having begun to lead Milwaukie in growth, the paper was moved away from the latter place between two days, during the last week of the month, whereat Whitcomb and the Mil- waukie people generally were much incensed. At the time it was charged that Waterman and Carter stole the plant, but as a matter of fact, Whitcomb, owing his printers, more than he could conveniently pay, had given them a bill of sale of the whole establishment, and they had a right to do as they pleased with it. They took it away at night on a flatboat to save time, avoid open collision, and all further controversy. In this connection it may be of interest to note that with The Star, Dr. Oliver W. Nixon, for more than twenty-five years past the literary editor of the Inter-Ocean, Chicago, began his newspaper career, by as- sisting in the midnight adventure above described. He was an Oregon pioneer of 1850, and in 1851 taught school at Milwaukie. Afterwards he was a purser on the steamer Lot Whitcomb.

The Star of March 19, 185 1, states that a paper is about to be started at Salem by Joseph S. Smith, to be called the Salem Recorder. On the 27th No. i, Vol. I, of the Oregon Statesman, was received, and in commenting upon it, Edi- tor Waterman says: "We should judge from the style of the leaders that the editor had been dining on pickles and case knives since the adjournment of the legislature."

After going to Portland the name Western Star was dropped and on June 5, 185 1, the paper came out under the name of Oregon Weekly Times. Water- man and Carter were the proprietors until June 13, 1853, when Carter sold to Waterman, who continued it until May 29, 1854. He then sold to Messrs. V.. D. Carter and R. D. Austin, but retained editorial control until November 8, 1856. Some time after that Mr. Waterman was elected probate judge of Mult- nomah County, or Washington, as it was then, and later he practiced law for a time. The closing years of his life were spent in school work, sometimes in teaching and sometimes as county superintendent. He died at Cascades, Ska- mania County, Washington, a number of years ago.

Austin continued the publication of the Times, and on December 19, i860, started a daily, the third in Portland. In 1861 he made it a Union paper, sup- porting the nominees of that party composed of the republican and Douglas dem- ocrats. Austin was not a man given to "diligence in business." He was a "good fellow," hail-fellow-well-met with all, and was passionately fond of playing the violin. On this account he was much in demand at balls and parties. This caused more or less inattention to business, and by the early part of 1864, the paper suspended. Mr. Austin died in Portland about nineteen years ago. Among the editors of the Times in its later years, were the late A. C. G