Chapter M: M. McCARVER (12)

July 29, 1861, the _Overland Press_ was started in Olympia. A short time before the pony express had been put on the route between the Missouri River and Sacramento, carrying the news and a few letters, thus placing San Francisco and New York in communication with each other in from ten to twelve days. This suggested the name of the paper. It was enabled to give a brief summary of Eastern news only three weeks old. Prior to this it had been from six weeks to three months old when it reached Olympia.

The great Civil War had broken out only a few weeks earlier and the manager of the _Press_ of Victoria, British Columbia, with commendable business sagacity, determined to establish a paper in Olympia containing the latest war news, and have it ready to distribute at all Puget Sound ports and have a supply to distribute to its own readers in Victoria and other parts of British Columbia on the arrival of the weekly mail. The Eliza Anderson, then the crack steamer of Puget Sound waters, made weekly trips, leaving Olympia early on Monday morning, arriving at Seattle about 4 P. M., and at Victoria early Tuesday morning. The paper at once became very popular and gained an immense circulation for those days.

Early in the fourth volume its name was changed to the _Pacific Tribune_. Randall H. Hewitt, now living in Los Angeles, owned and published it for a time, when Charles Prosch acquired it and continued its publication at Olympia until 1873. By this time his son, Thomas W. Prosch, had manifested much newspaper ability and had become the owner of the paper. He moved it to Tacoma, the new railroad town, that year and continued there until the almost total death of the place forced another move and he came to Seattle with it. In 1878 Thaddeus Hanford bought it and merged it with the _Post-Intelligencer_. With but one change of name it had lived about seventeen years, or longer than any other of the early Washington papers, with one exception.

This exception was and is the _Washington Standard_ of Olympia, the most notable instance of newspaper longevity, with the exception of the _Oregonian_, in old Oregon. Its first number was largely written, set up and printed by its founder, John Miller Murphy, and now, almost forty-three years later, it is his proud boast that it has never missed an issue, has never changed its name and that not a single one of its weekly issues has failed to have more or less editorial matter from his pen. It was "Union" in sentiment during the war of the rebellion, but espoused the cause of Andrew Johnson in his contest with a Republican Congress, and since then has always been consistently Democratic. Mr. Murphy has always been too proud of his independence to subordinate his will or the expressions of his journal to the control of his party leaders, and has often refused preferment at their hands on that account. He still superintends the mechanical department of his office, as well as attending to his editorial duties. He had achieved a competence but the panic of 1893 and the ensuing period of financial depression made great inroads upon his fortune, so that necessity compels him to remain in the harness, though nearly a half century of continuous work has certainly earned him rest.

The _Seattle Gazette_ was the name under which the first paper published in Seattle appeared, dated December 11, 1863, nearly forty years ago. It was edited, set up, published, and with the assistance of an Indian for roller boy, printed by J. R. Watson. The office was in the second story of one of Yesler's buildings, then standing near the present north line of the Scandinavian Bank Building. The paper consisted of four pages, the printed matter on each page measuring 9½x14½ inches. The type and other material were destroyed many years ago, but the old Ramage[41] printing press is a relic highly prized at the State University. The _Seattle Gazette_, _Puget Sound Gazette_, and _Puget Sound Weekly_ continued nearly four years with frequent changes in form and ownership.

Pioneer printers have taken a great deal of interest in regard to the antecedents of this old press. Mr. George H. Himes was an Olympia boy, who served his apprenticeship in the office of the _Washington Standard_ under John Miller Murphy. From there he went to Portland and in time "Himes the Printer" became a household word in Oregon and Washington. He has of late years been prominent in the pioneer and historical societies of Oregon. He has given much time to research regarding this old press, and as a result gives it as his opinion that it was first sent from New York to Mexico, thence to Monterey, California, in 1834, where it was used by the Spanish governor for a number of years in printing proclamations, etc., and on August 15, 1846, the _Californian_, the pioneer paper of California, was printed on it. Late in 1846 it was sent from Monterey to San Francisco and used in printing the _Star_, the first paper of that city, issued in January, 1847. These two papers were combined at a later date, and in the fall of 1848 the first number of the _Alta California_ was issued from it. From San Francisco it went to Portland and the first number of the _Oregonian_ was taken off it. In 1852 it and the old plant of the _Oregonian_ was bought by Thornton F. McElroy and J. W. Wiley, who brought it around on the schooner Mary Taylor to Olympia, where the first number of the _Columbian_ was printed on it. In 1863 J. R. Watson brought it to Seattle, and December 10th the first paper, the Seattle _Gazette_, was printed on it. Again in 1865 S. L. Maxwell used it to print the earlier numbers of the _Intelligencer_.

There seems to be no doubt that it was used to print the first newspapers on the Pacific Coast, the first in Monterey, San Francisco, Portland, Olympia, Seattle.

Although Seattle's first paper was of much more modest proportions than any of its predecessors or contemporaries, it had the honor of starting the first daily paper in the territory, which appeared April 23, 1866, and continued to August 11th of the same year.

The Western Union Telegraph line was completed to Seattle October 26, 1864, and at 4 P. M. of that date the _Gazette_ issued its "Citizen's Dispatch," giving the first published dispatch coming by wire to this place. It gave the Eastern war news to October 24th, from Kansas City and from Chattanooga of the operations of Sherman against Hood in the Atlanta campaign.

Occasionally telegraphic dispatches appeared in succeeding papers, but not until about July 1, 1872, when the _Puget Sound Dispatch_ was established by Larrabee & Co., Beriah Brown, editor, was any regular publication of the press dispatches undertaken here.

In June, 1867, a suspension took place, and August 5th next S. L. Maxwell sent to press the first number of the _Weekly Intelligencer_. The plant had come into the ownership of Messrs. Daniel and C. B. Bagley, and Mr. Maxwell was permitted to use the same and pay for it as he could out of the earnings of the paper. The type, rules, press, and much of the advertising matter of the older paper, still standing in the forms, was used in the makeup of the new paper, so that it may properly be considered a lineal successor of the _Seattle Gazette_. Mr. Maxwell proved to be a good newspaper and business man, and as the town and surrounding country was having a vigorous growth, it did not take him long to pay off the small debt and to add much needed material to the office, which was moved across Yesler Way to a small wooden building, and, later, up Yesler Way to near the southwest corner of Second Avenue South. It gained influence as it grew, made money for its owner almost from the start, and had the local field to itself until the _Dispatch_ was started.

In the latter part of 1878 some of the prominent local office-holders and business men organized a company to start another paper, and November 21, 1878, the _Seattle Weekly Post_ made its first appearance, being made up from the _Daily Post_, which started on the 15th of the month. Its first quarters were in the two-story wooden building owned by Hillory Butler that stood on the ground now occupied by the southwest corner of the Hotel Butler. In passing it may be added that this building was, from time to time, the home of more early papers than any other in town--_Dispatch_, _North Pacific Rural_, _Chronicle_, _Post_, _Times_, _Press_, and others with single and hyphenated titles long since forgotten.

In the meantime the _Intelligencer_ had been installed in a larger two-story building then standing on the west side of First Avenue where it deflects into First Avenue South, and remained there several years.

About 1879 Thomas W. Prosch and Samuel L. Crawford had acquired ownership of it. Both had been printers from boyhood, and Mr. Prosch had gained much experience as a newspaper man in Olympia and Tacoma, and under their management it continued to grow in value and influence.

In 1881 the Post Publishing Company began the erection of a substantial brick building, two stories and basement on the northeast corner of Yesler Way and Post Street. As it was nearing completion negotiations were opened for a consolidation of the _Post_ and _Intelligencer_, and this was effected October 1, 1881, with Thomas W. Prosch owner of one half and John Leary and George W. Harris each one quarter. The basement and lower story of the new building were used by the company and the upper story rented for offices.

This building continued to be the home of the paper under several managements, until the great fire of June 6, 1889, destroyed it and most of its plant.

Early in 1886 a joint stock company, consisting of Frederick J. Grant, C. B. Bagley, Griffith Davies, Jacob Furth, John H. McGraw, E. S. Ingraham, W. H. Hughes, Thomas Burke, and Dr. Thomas T. Miner, bought the _Post-Intelligencer_ from T. W. Prosch. Grant continued editor-in-chief, Bagley was business manager, S. L. Crawford city editor and reporter, and E. S. Meany had charge of the carrier service.

Near the close of the same year L. S. J. Hunt purchased the controlling interest in the paper and assumed management at once. He had come to Seattle with large financial backing, determined to go into the newspaper field, and the majority of the stockholders, fearing he might establish another paper and make it a powerful rival, sold him their interests. He proceeded to spend money most lavishly upon it and soon built it up into a great paper.

In May, 1871, a small printing outfit that had been in use at Sitka, Alaska, was brought to Seattle, and for a few months the _Seattle Times and Alaska Herald_ was printed from it.

Later this material became the nucleus of the office of the _Puget Sound Dispatch_, which was established by Beriah Brown and Charles H. Larrabee. The latter was then a prominent attorney in Seattle. He was among the killed at the time of an appalling tragedy at Tehachipe Pass, on the line of the Southern Pacific, between Los Angeles and San Francisco. He soon retired from the paper, leaving Beriah Brown in sole control, which he retained with an occasional intermission until about 1878, when it was merged with the _Intelligencer_.

Mr. Brown was one of the old school newspapermen, who were writers of editorials worthy of the greatest papers of the United States. He was a friend of Horace Greeley, the elder Bennett and others of the noted editors of a half century ago. He rarely wrote anything for his own paper. His custom was to go to the case and put his articles in type as he composed them. Few can realize the difficulties occasioned by the dual processes of thought thus brought into play. Local news is the life of all newspapers in young communities. This he could not purvey, nor was his business management a success.

Thaddeus Hanford, the eldest of the brothers of that name, in his early boyhood showed ability as a writer and after he had passed through college with honor he returned to Seattle and engaged in newspaper work. For a year or more he was the owner of the _Intelligencer_, but sold it about 1879 as is noted elsewhere.

One of the most widely known as well as popular of the old-time newspaper men was E. T. Gunn. He worked in the _Oregonian_ office as early as 1851 and was one of its owners for a time. In 1855 he was engaged in newspaper work at Steilacoom. November 30, 1867, he started the _Olympia Transcript_ and its publication was continued regularly until his death in 1883. The _Transcript_ was the neatest and best-printed of all the early papers and for many years exerted much influence in political affairs of the territory. A split in the Republican party occurred in 1867 and was the cause of the _Transcript_ being started, and for about six years while this schism continued it championed the cause of the "bolting wing" of the party. In 1872 an alliance between the bolters and the Democrats resulted in the overwhelming triumph of the fusion party, Judge O. B. McFadden being elected to Congress over Selucius Garfield, the Republican candidate. All the newspapers in Olympia were in sympathy with the fusionists, and this led to the organization of a company which established the _Puget Sound Courier_.

This company was under the leadership of Elisha P. Ferry, then Surveyor-General, who became Territorial Governor in 1873, and the first Governor of the State of Washington in 1889.

The _Daily Courier_ made its first appearance January 2, 1872, and the weekly later in the week. During that year H. G. Struve, then practicing his profession in Olympia, did much editorial work, while the late Fred Prosch had charge of the mechanical department. In December C. B. Bagley became business manager and city editor, and in June, 1873, he bought the office and newspaper. The daily was discontinued at the close of 1874. Mr. Bagley was appointed Territorial Printer in 1873, and held that position for ten years. He continued the _Weekly Courier_ until late in 1884, when he sold out to Thomas H. Cavanaugh, who changed the name of the paper to the _Partisan_.

During the period between 1873 and 1883 Olympia had four weekly newspapers most of the time, while several small dailies appeared from time to time, but never for more than a few months. Until the Seattle papers began to take telegraphic dispatches the Olympia papers had most of their circulation at Seattle and points further down Sound, but this gradually ceased, and long before the admission of the state their patronage had become almost wholly local in character.

Steilacoom, until about 1880, when Tacoma began its second growth, was a favorite field for newspaper ventures. Mr. Charles Prosch held the field there nearly six years, much longer than anyone else, and while some of his early contemporaries manifested more vigor and belligerency in their editorial columns, none of them gave so much local news or possessed one half the literary merit of the _Herald_.

Francis H. Cook also moved from Olympia to Tacoma, with a newspaper plant, on which he had for a time published the _Echo_. This paper was started in 1868 by Randall H. Hewitt, and that year in its office the writer began work as a printer. James E. Whitworth, now of Seattle, Nathan S. Porter, of Olympia, and Ike M. Hall worked together in that office. Hundreds of the older residents of Seattle remember Judge Hall, who died here about ten years ago. Early in 1869 C. B. Bagley became the owner and publisher of the _Echo_ for about a year. Like most of its fellows, it underwent all manner of changes of ownership, of form and place of publication during an erratic career of about eight years.

During the eight or ten years following the founding of Tacoma in 1873, many attempts were made to establish newspapers there, but most of them were far from profitable to their backers. In fact, it has been frequently reported that their more pretentious successors have not been far from financial stress.

The _Beacon_ was brought from Kalama by Mr. and Mrs. Mooney, which had been the organ of the Northern Pacific Railroad. This soon died. In 1880 there started the _North Pacific Coast_, but its life was brief.

R. F. Radebaugh, of San Francisco, and H. C. Patrick, of Sacramento, came to Tacoma and started the _Weekly Ledger_ April 23, 1880. April 7, 1883, the _Daily Ledger_ was started, and both the weekly and daily are still appearing regularly, having long passed the usual period that has been fatal to so many papers on Puget Sound.

Mr. Patrick left the _Ledger_ in 1882 and bought the _Pierce County News_, which had been started August 10, 1881, by George W. Mattice. Mr. Patrick changed the name to _Tacoma News_, and it appeared as a weekly paper until September 15, 1883, when he started the _Daily News_. It continues to occupy the evening field, while the _Ledger_ retains the morning field.

The limits of this article do not permit mention of many papers which have appeared from time to time in every town and almost every village. In the writer's collection there are not less than one hundred publications, daily, weekly, or monthly, that have sprung into life since 1852. Most of them are forgotten in the communities where they appeared. Success has come to but here and there one.

Kirk C. Ward was a fluent writer and a promoter of no small sagacity. Having lost control of the _Post_, he soon induced some friends to back him and started the _Chronicle_. It had a variegated career and finally became the property of one of the leading law firms of the city, McNaught, Ferry, McNaught & Mitchell. They employed a Bohemian from Kansas, named Frank C. Montgomery, as editor, who conducted it until May 1, 1886, when Homer M. Hill, who is now engaged in other business in Seattle, bought it.

The Hall brothers were conducting the _Call_ and the two papers were consolidated, and on Monday, May 3, 1886, the paper came out with Vol. 1, No. 1 of the Seattle _Daily Press_. A weekly paper was also run in connection with the daily. Mr. Hill ere long acquired the entire ownership of the paper. He was a shrewd, capable business man of untiring industry, and under his management the paper became a valuable property. Interests in it had been sold and bought back from time to time, and at the time Mr. Hill closed out his ownership Harry White held some of its shares. At that time the paper was absolutely free from debt and had a good bank account and was making money for its owners.

Mr. W. E. Bailey, a wealthy young man from Philadelphia, had large interests here, and he became the victim to an ambition to conduct a big newspaper. Under these circumstances Mr. Hill had no difficulty in getting his price for the _Press_. Mr. L. S. J. Hunt of the _Post-Intelligencer_ conducted the negotiations and made the purchase and at once transferred the property to Mr. Bailey. He made important additions to the mechanical department and engaged a large news and editorial force, whose chief instructions were to make a clean, live newspaper.

At the time Mr. Hill bought the _Chronicle_ it owned the Associated Press evening franchise, which was its most valuable asset.

In passing, it is proper to note the fact that the present _Times_ is the lineal successor of the _Chronicle_, and while for a brief period there was a break in the legal succession, it may be truthfully said that the historical succession to the Associated Press franchise is derived from the _Chronicle_ down through the _Press_ and the _Press-Times_ to _The Times_ of to-day.

The consolidation of the _Chronicle_ and _Call_ threw a lot of printers and newspaper men out of employment, including Thomas H. Dempsey, the foreman of the _Chronicle_ office. The latter was a keen business man and a competent printer. He and the late Col. George G. Lyon and James P. Ferry at once organized a new company, and secured a printing outfit that served their purpose temporarily. The same day, May 3, 1886, that the _Press_ was issued, No. 1, Vol. 1 of the _Daily Times_ also appeared. Seattle, then a little city of about 10,000 population, was thus the proud possessor of three daily papers.

The starting of these two papers just preceded the "boom" in Seattle real estate, when the volume of advertising was vastly increased as well as population of the city, and both papers made money rapidly.

February 10, 1891, Mr. Bailey bought the _Times_ from Lyon and Dempsey, paying for it $48,000. He had paid somewhere from $20,000 to $25,000 for the _Press_. He consolidated the two under the name of the _Press-Times_.

The period of financial depression which followed a couple of years later bore heavily upon Mr. Bailey and and he was finally compelled to give up the paper to his creditors, having lost not less than $200,000 during his journalistic career.

The history of its subsequent vicissitudes and difficulties would fill a volume, but can be touched upon but briefly here. The paper was on the market for a long time. John Collins had it for a time and sunk a lot of money in it, having acquired it through a mortgage of $15,000. John W. Pratt, whose recent lamented death is fresh in the memories of a host of friends, secured control of it for a time. At times it was published by a receiver. Hughes and Davies came into possession of it through ex-Sheriff James Woolery, who had taken it over under the mortgage given to John Collins.

During this troubled period among other happenings the name was changed back to _The Times_, and also the Associated Press franchise was surrendered and that of the United Service taken over. Later, and subsequent to the mortgage of $15,000 given to John Collins, the Associated Press franchise was again secured, and this was a vital point in the legal contest that arose, The Times Printing Company, headed by Col. A. J. Blethen on one side, and Hughes & Davies on the other.

Colonel Blethen bought _The Times_ August 7, 1897, and his first editorial appeared in it three days later. He came well equipped for newspaper work and management by reason of wide experience in other fields, and month by month he and his sons, Joseph and Clarence B., have made it better and better, and to-day is one of the most valuable newspaper properties on the Pacific Coast and one of the great dailies of the United States.

FOOTNOTES:

[41] The Ramage was so called because it was constructed by Adam Ramage, who went to Philadelphia about 1790, and is believed to have been the first press builder in America. For many years he constructed all the presses used in this country. The posts and cross-pieces of the larger sizes of his early presses were made of wood, and the bed, platen, tracks, springs, screw, lever, etc., of iron. The largest Ramage press I ever saw had a bed 22x32 inches, with platen 16x22 inches. This was used in printing the _Oregonian_ for the first four months of its life, December, 1850, to April, 1851, and required four impressions to perfect a paper--an impression for each page. Sixty to seventy perfect papers per hour was the limit of a pressman's capacity. During the summer of 1853 a wooden extension was added to the platen of the press by an Olympia (Wash.) mechanic, thus doubling its capacity. The extra strain upon the muscles of the pressman as a result of this enlargement caused the old machine to be dubbed a "man-killer."--GEORGE H. HIMES.

IN MEMORIAM OF WILLARD H. REES.

It is a labor of love to say that when the writer first met W. H. Rees in 1844, the latter was, for a man in his twenty-fifth year, in advance of his general surroundings. His intelligence and manner of telling what he knew on any subject drew men near his own age to him strongly. There were, I found on riper acquaintance, family reasons for part of this. His father (then a citizen of Hamilton County, Ohio), had been a member of the legislature of his native state of Delaware, and his mother had a place in the _literati_ of her day. The father was of Welsh stock, and judging by the son, an active, ardent member of the Whig party at the time. Willard and I were thrown together in the tide of emigration setting out from Saint Louis towards the rendezvous of proposed emigrants to Oregon. The boat we were on landed at Weston, and from thence we hired a team belonging to other emigrants to haul our effects, and we walked to Saint Joseph. From thence Rees and I footed it ten miles higher up the Missouri to the camp of the emigrants under Gilliam's leadership. Learning there that a man living but three miles off needed two assistants to get his family and effects to Oregon, we were at his residence next morning as he rose from breakfast, and within five minutes were engaged to come to Oregon with him as his assistants. Within twenty-five minutes, mounted on a good horse, with gold coin to purchase breadstuffs for ten persons for three months' journey, Rees was on his way back to Saint Joe. He and I then began a year of such intimate relations to each other as leads me to say Capt. R. W. Morrison, our employer, made no mistake in trusting Mr. Rees with the most important acts in conducting his preparations for the journey to Oregon. When we effected a military organization for the trip, no mistake was made in the election of Rees as first sergeant, with the duties of adjutant. And when, after arrival in Oregon, fifteen of us near the same age were employed logging and running Hunt's saw mill, on the Lower Columbia, Rees was easily our leader. Leaving that in June, 1845, and coming to Oregon City to vote, he still, without effort on his part, was by common consent in the first place. There were at Oregon City two young men I might claim as his peers at that date--Charles E. Pickett and J. W. Nesmith. It was the former and Rees, I believe, who led to the formation of the first literary association. Mr. Pickett was at that time reader from the public news box. The contents were volunteer contributions, each writer choosing his subject, and of course extending from harmless fun to the most serious questions. This suggested the formation of the literary society, naturally.

J. W. Nesmith stood among the young men of 1843 immigration to Oregon as W. H. Rees stood among those of 1844. Both observers and helpers in the history being made, the former watching and participating personally in almost every forward movement, the latter wielding perhaps a greater personal influence, but manifesting no ambition for personal advancement. Mr. Rees worked as a carpenter at Oregon City from June, 1845, to June, 1846 (the exact dates are not remembered), but between these dates had purchased a claim in the northern portion of Champoeg, [Marion] County. At the finishing of Doctor McLoughlin's flouring mill he with other American mechanics celebrated the occasion with a ball, which was attended by most of the leading people of parties having interest in the Oregon Boundary Question. Lieut. Wm. Peel was there using his tongue, eyes and ears, we may suppose, to give reliable information in regard to Americans in Oregon to his father, then premier of the British Government. Lieutenant Peel was of the British navy, but not of the _Modeste_ whose officers generally were in company with him when mingling with Americans as on this occasion. There was no dancing going on. It was a time of social relaxation. Doctor Newell, a Rocky Mountain doctor, and a man of sterling good sense, had been giving his opinion of some of Peel's social behavior as not such as was beyond criticism among Americans. Peel replied, "Well, Doctor, Americans believe in the rule of majorities, and I think the British are in a majority here." Mr. Newell thought not. A Britisher will settle any question by a bet, and Mr. Peel offered the bet of a bottle of wine that a majority of those then present were for the British side of the Oregon Boundary Question. Doctor Newell took the bet. A count was made and Mr. Newell won. Peel on this, looking at a man across the mill floor, offered another bottle on that particular man fighting for the British side in the contingency of war over Oregon. William Penland, an Englishman, put the question: "Sir, which flag would you support in the event of war over Oregon?" Rees replied, "I fight under the Stars and Stripes, sir." Mr. Rees, no matter what his garb, was always comparatively neat, and might well be taken for a middle class Welshman.

Newell and he already neighbors, from this time forward had a potent influence among the French-Canadian farmers. Both were admirers of Doctor McLoughlin, and Rees' influence was greatly enhanced by his taking the finishing of the Catholic Church at Saint Louis, and by writing brief tributes to their lives as they passed to the other side. From his genial social nature it was easy for Mr. Rees to give these retired engagees of the Hudson Bay Company information as to what these newly formed relations to the United States Government required of them, in which he was aided by neighbors and friends--Doctor Newell and F. X. Mathieu. It was his pleasure and pastime to learn of the later life, death and burial in the French settlement of two of the gallant band, Philip Degrett and Francis Rivet, [The authoritative lists of the Lewis and Clark Company does not contain these two names.--ED.] who followed the lead of Lewis and Clark from the sources of the Columbia to the ocean in 1805, and to give to the historian a transcript of the first Catholic parish registry, including the names and ages of Gervais, Lucier, Cannon, Labonte, and Dubruil, who came with Hunt in 1811.

In 1847 Mr. Rees was elected as a colleague of his friend Dr. Newell. Wm. H. Rector, A. Chamberlain and Anderson Cox being the other members representing Champoeg County in the lower house of the Oregon legislature. From the foregoing causes and his steady patriotism Mr. Rees became a potent influence in sending young men from the French settlement to the fighting field in the Cayuse country on the Whitman massacre, himself going as regimental commissary agent.

As the troops were retiring from the Cayuse country, gold was discovered in California and many of the soldiers were amongst the first to go to the mines, Willard H. Rees of the number. A larger proportion of the French half-breeds never returned than of the Americans, and from 1849 the Canadian settlement began to disintegrate. As the pioneer settlement died, Rees's ready pen gave them kindly notice. In the period between 1850 and 1860 he was watchful and active, but never for himself; being of Whig antecedents it was natural for him to help in the formation of the Union party, and that he did; also, being a leader in the formation of the Pioneer Association, the pages of its annual publications will furnish the future historical gleaner many valuable points there inserted by the pen of Willard H. Rees.

The death of his body at 83 years is not reasonable cause of mourning; his nearest friends have had cause for sadness in the slow and gradual mental decay which was perceptible to them for many years before the final end. A change, slight and unperceived by ordinary observers, was noted by his intimate friends as far back as 1879, when a few lines in the annual address to the pioneers prepared by him but which he was unable to attend and deliver, and were well read by F. M. Bewley, seemed unlike the Rees of 1859. Yet in that address he characteristically goes to the very beginning of social free and easy interchange of personal views on the life of the times of 1845-6. This early social life expressed itself through an organization called the Pioneer Lyceum and Literary Club, and he thus speaks of it: "The following are the names Charlie Pickett had on the membership roll. They were at times widely scattered and are designated upon the roll as regular and visiting members:

"John H. Couch, F. W. Pettygrove, J. M. Woir, A. L. Lovejoy, J. Applegate, S. W. Moss, Robert Newell, J. W. Nesmith, Ed Otie, H. A. G. Lee, F. Prigg, C. E. Pickett, Wm. C. Dement, Medorum Crawford, Hiram Strait, J. Wambaugh, Wm. Cushing, Philip Foster, Ransom Clark, H. H. Hide (Hyde?), John G. Campbell, Top McGruder, W. H. Rees, Mark Ford, Henry Saffren, Noyes Smith, Daniel Waldo, P. G. Stewart, Isaac W. Smith, Joseph Watt, Frank Ematinger, A. E. Wilson, Jacob Hoover, S. M. Holderness, John Minto, Barton Lee, General Husted, and John P. Brooks.

"Perhaps a more congenial, easy-going, self-satisfying club has never since congregated in the old capital city and under changed condition of affairs, especially in fashions so strikingly different from the unique and richly colored costumes of that day, never will the good people of our spray-bedewed old city rest upon the like again." The names are given as history, the last quotation as a sample of Mr. Rees's quiet humor.

Now an end of life by natural law is not a proper subject of mourning. Willard H. Rees did not so regard it, when his generous kindness led him to collect the most praiseworthy incidents of very earliest and most unlettered of the pioneers from those coming with Lewis and Clark and Astor's enterprise to those better informed who came after he himself was here. The contributions of Willard H. Rees, J. W. Nesmith, and M. P. Deady to the Oregon Pioneer Association publication would alone constitute no mean volume of the history of Oregon, beginning with retired Canadian hunters and trappers who by cultivating the soil of Oregon and creating a magazine of supplies to the American homebuilders unawares were cultivating the seeds of civilization aided and foreseen by the Applegates, Burnetts, Waldos, Nesmiths, Rees, and others who managed a bloodless victory over the pro-British occupation of Oregon.

SHORT BIOGRAPHY OF JOSEPH HOLMAN.

Joseph Holman was born at Little Torrington, Devonshire, England, August 20, 1815. His parents were John and Elizabeth Holman. His father was a mechanic, and manufacturer of agricultural implements, and died when Joseph was quite young, leaving two older sons. The eldest son carried on his father's business, the younger brothers living with him to learn the trade.

When Joseph was sixteen years of age, the second brother emigrated to Canada and sent such good reports of large wages for mechanics that when Joseph was eighteen his elder brother allowed him to follow, though bound to him until twenty-one. In 1833 Joseph took passage on the ship "Eliza" for Canada and landed at Prince Edward's Island where the ship was seized for debt, which detained the passengers some weeks, the creditors furnishing codfish and potatoes only, for food. The ship finally sailed for Quebec and to London, in Canada, where Joseph found his brother, and worked in that place for several years, but disliked the rough ways of that early time. He went alone to New Lisbon, Ohio, where he worked at wagon making for a year. Hearing much of the so-called West at that time, he went to Peoria, Illinois, found work and lived two years there. During that time, Jason Lee, on his way from Oregon to the East, stopped at Peoria and lectured on Oregon. In the spring of 1839 eighteen persons agreed to go to Oregon and settle there. Joseph Holman had ideas of a large city at the mouth of the Columbia River, and he wanted to be one to help take the claim. The party started west with horses and wagons. At Independence, Missouri, they sold the wagons and bought mules to carry packs. Mr. Farnham was chosen captain. They traveled to Bent's Fort on the Arkansas River without mishap, and to Bent's Fort on the Platte River [generally called St. Vrain's] became demoralized. Some went back, Mr. Farnham went to Santa Fé, others went through the next year, but Joseph Holman, with Cook, Fletcher and Kilbourn, determined to go to Oregon. While away from the fort to get dry buffalo meat for food the Indians stole their horses. They worked at the fort until they earned more horses, and late in the fall the four started alone and reached Green River, in the Rocky Mountains, and camped in a sheltered place called "Brown's Hole," also Joe Meek, Doctor Newell, Cary and others. Joseph Holman's mechanical knowledge helped him here, for he stocked guns, made saddles for Indians, and received an extra horse and beaver skins (as good as money) in return. Doctor Newell decided to start early in the spring, with the beaver skins to Fort Hall, in Idaho, to avoid Indian war parties who would be out later on. They were caught in the snow and nearly perished. Where Doctor Newell expected to see buffalo they did not see one. They were four days without any food, until they met a Digger Indian woman who sold them her two dogs. After that they now and then killed an antelope until they reached Fort Hall where they remained three weeks to recuperate themselves and horses. Doctor Newell remained here. The four young men left with a Hudson Bay agent for Fort Boise, but went alone from there to Walla Walla, arriving there May 1, 1840; from there down the Columbia River to Fort Vancouver, was the hardest part of the trip, especially from The Dalles to Fort Vancouver, on the north side of the Columbia. The water was high at that season of the year, had covered the Indian trail on the bank of the river, and they were obliged to lead their ponies over the bluffs to Fort Vancouver, a fact Doctor McLaughlin could hardly believe when they arrived, at 11 o'clock June 1, 1840. In the afternoon of the same day a ship arrived at Fort Vancouver from New York, with forty Methodist missionaries to teach and convert the Indians. A Miss Almira Phelps, from Springfield, Massachusetts, was one, to whom Joseph was married in less than a year. He was twenty-six years of age, and even then showed a progressive spirit. The four, Mr. Cooke, Mr. Fletcher, Mr. Kilbourn, and Joseph Holman, rode around looking for places to settle. They took up land and built a cabin. The Methodist mission employed them for a time and paid them in stock.

Joseph Holman cut the first stick of timber on the present town site of Salem, and just back of the asylum for the insane he took up his claim of land, which was a mile square. He rode a horse to the east, to the north, to the west, to the south, and staked it. Years afterward surveyors said he surveyed it correctly on his horse, a mile square. Mrs. John H. Albert, now living, was born on this land, Joseph Holman's eldest daughter. His only son, George Phelps Holman, was the first white child born in Salem, or the county.

Joseph Holman's heart and soul were for Oregon, for its building up, its prosperity. His loyalty was unbounded. He was honest, affectionate, and true.

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This short statement was dictated by Mr Joseph Holman to his wife during his last illness in 1880. He was on a lounge, and told these facts, and she penciled them down and copied them June 27, 1902, in the present form.

DOCUMENTS.

Letter of fur traders Jedediah S. Smith, David E. Jackson, and Wm. L. Sublette--1830.

Gives an account of the taking of the first wagons to the Rocky Mountains and of the Hudson's Bay Company post, Fort Vancouver, and its operations in the Oregon Country. An argument for the termination of the convention of 1818.

The letter of Smith, Jackson, and Sublette forms part of
Senate Executive Documents 39, 21st Congress, 2d session,
pp. 21-23. The whole document is taken up with a
consideration of "the state of the British establishments in
the valley of the Columbia, and the state of the fur trade,
as carried on by the citizens of the United States and the
Hudson's Bay Company," as shown in the communications of
Gen. W. H. Ashley, Joshua Pilcher, J. D. Smith, David E.
Jackson, and W. L. Sublette, and William Clark and Lewis
Cass.

ST. LOUIS, October 29, 1830.

SIR: The business commenced by General Ashley some years
ago, of taking furs from the United States territory beyond
the Rocky Mountains has since been continued by Jedediah S.
Smith, David E. Jackson, and William L. Sublette, under the
firm of Smith, Jackson, and Sublette. They commenced
business in 1826, and have since continued it, and have made
observations and gained information which they think it
important to communicate to the government. The number of
men they have employed has usually been from eighty to one
hundred and eighty; and with these, divided into parties,
they have traversed every part of the country west of the
Rocky Mountains, from the peninsula of California to the
mouth of the Columbia River. Pack horses, or rather mules,
were at first used, but in the beginning of the present
year, it was determined to try wagons, and in the month of
April last, on the 10th day of the month, a caravan of ten
wagons, drawn by five mules each, and two dearborns, drawn
by one mule each, set out from St. Louis. We have eighty-one
men in company, all mounted on mules, and these were
exclusive of a party left in the mountains. Our route from
St. Louis was nearly due west to the western limits of the
state and thence along the Santa Fé trail about forty miles,
from which the course was some degrees north of west, across
the waters of the Kanzas, and up the Great Platte River, to
the Rocky Mountains, and to the head of Wind River, where it
issues from the mountains. This took us until the 16th of
July, and was as far as we wished the wagons to go, as the
furs to be brought in were to be collected at this place,
which is, or was this year, the great rendezvous of the
persons engaged in that business. Here the wagons could
easily have crossed the Rocky Mountains, it being what is
called the Southern [South] Pass, had it been desirable for
them to do so, which it was not for the reason stated. For
our support, at leaving the Missouri settlements, until we
should get into the buffalo country, we drove twelve head of
cattle, beside a milk cow. Eight of these only being
required for use before we got to the buffaloes, the others
went on to the head of Wind River. We began to fall in with
the buffaloes on the Platte, about three hundred and fifty
miles from the white settlements, and from that time lived
on buffaloes, the quantity being infinitely beyond what we
needed. On the fourth of August, the wagons being in the
meantime loaded with furs which had been previously taken,
we set out on the return to St. Louis. All the high points
of the mountains then in view were white with snow, but the
passes and valleys, and all the level country, were green
with grass. Our route back was over the same ground nearly
as in going out, and we arrived at St. Louis on the 10th of
October, bringing back the ten wagons, the dearborns being
left behind; four of the oxen and the milk cow were also
brought back to the settlements in Missouri, as we did not
need them for provision. Our men were all healthy during the
whole time, we suffered nothing by the Indians, and had no
accident but the death of one man, being buried under a bank
of earth that fell in upon him, and another being crippled
at the same time. Of the mules, we lost but one by fatigue,
and two horses stolen by the Kanzas Indians; the grass
being, along the whole route going and coming, sufficient
for the support of the horses and mules. The usual weight in
the wagons was about one thousand eight hundred pounds. The
usual progress of the wagons was from fifteen to twenty-five
miles per day. The country being almost all open, level, and
prairie, the chief obstructions were ravines and creeks, the
banks of which required cutting down, and for this purpose a
few pioneers were generally kept ahead of the caravan. This
is the first time that wagons ever went to the Rocky
Mountains, and the ease and safety with which it was done
prove the facility of communicating overland with the
Pacific Ocean. The route from the Southern Pass, where the
wagons stopped, to the Great Falls of the Columbia, being
easier and better than on this side of the mountains, with
grass enough for horses and mules, but a scarcity of game
for the support of men. One of the undersigned, to wit,
Jedediah S. Smith, in his excursion west of the mountains,
arrived at the post of the Hudson's Bay Company, called Fort
Vancouver, near the mouth of Multnomah River. He arrived
there in August, 1828, and left the 12th of March, 1829, and
made observations which he deems it material to communicate
to the government. Fort Vancouver is situated on the north
side of the Columbia, five miles above the mouth of the
Multnomah, in a handsome prairie, and on a second bank about
three quarters of a mile from the river. This is the fort as
it stood when he arrived there; but a large one, three
hundred feet square about three quarters of a mile lower
down, and within two hundred yards of the river, was
commenced the spring he came away. Twelve pounders were the
heaviest cannon which he saw. The crop of 1828 was seven
hundred bushels of wheat, the grain full and plump, and
making good flour, fourteen acres of corn, the same number
of acres in peas, eight acres of oats, four or five acres of
barley, a fine garden, some small apple trees, and grape
vines. The ensuing spring eighty bushels of seed wheat were
sown. About two hundred head of cattle, fifty horses and
breeding mares, three hundred head of hogs, fourteen goats,
the usual domestic fowls. They have mechanics of various
kinds, to wit, blacksmiths, gunsmiths, carpenters, coopers,
tinner, and baker. A good saw mill on the bank of the river
five miles above, a grist mill worked by hand, but intended
to work by water. They had built two coasting vessels, one
of which was then on a voyage to the Sandwich Islands. No
English or white woman was at the fort, but a great number
of mixed blood Indian extraction, such as belong to the
British fur trading establishments, who were treated as
wives, and the families of children taken care of
accordingly. So that everything seemed to combine to prove
that this fort was to be a permanent establishment. At Fort
Vancouver the goods for the Indian trade are imported from
London, and enter the territories of the United States
paying no duties, and from the same point the furs taken on
the other side of the mountains are shipped. The annual
quantity of these furs could not be exactly ascertained, but
Mr. Smith was informed indirectly that they amounted to
about thirty thousand beaver skins, besides otter skins and
small furs. The beaver skins alone, at New York prices,
would be worth above two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
To obtain these furs, both trapping and trading are resorted
to. Various parties, provided with traps, spread over the
country south of the Columbia to the neighborhood of the
Mexican territory, and in 1824 and 1825 they crossed the
Rocky Mountains and trapped on the waters of the Missouri
River. They do not trap north of latitude 49 degrees, but
confine that business to the territory of the United States.
Thus this territory, being trapped by both parties, is
nearly exhausted of beavers, and unless the British can be
stopped, will soon be entirely exhausted, and no place left
within the United States where beaver fur in any quantity
can be obtained.

The inequality of the convention with Great Britain in 1818
is most glaring and apparent, and its continuance is a great
and manifest injury to the United States. The privileges
granted by it have enabled the British to take possession of
the Columbia River, and spread over the country south of
it; while no Americans have ever gone, or can venture to go
on the British side. The interest of the United States and
her citizens engaged in the fur trade requires that the
convention of 1818 should be terminated, and each nation
confined to its own territories. By this commercial interest
there are other considerations requiring the same result.
These are, the influence which the British have already
acquired over the Indians in that quarter, and the prospect
of a British colony, and a military and naval station on the
Columbia. Their influence over the Indians is now decisive.
Of this the Americans have constant and striking proofs, in
the preference which they give to the British in every
particular.

In saying this, it is an act of justice to say, also, that
the treatment received by Mr. Smith at Fort Vancouver was
kind and hospitable; that, personally, he owes thanks to
Governor Simpson and the gentlemen of the Hudson's Bay
Company, for the hospitable entertainment which he received
from them, and for the efficient and successful aid which
they gave him in recovering from the Umquah Indians a
quantity of fur and many horses, of which these Indians had
robbed him in 1828.

As to the injury which must happen to the United States from
the British getting the control of all the Indians beyond
the mountains, building and repairing ships in the tide
water region of the Columbia, and having a station there for
their privateers and vessels of war, is too obvious to need
a recapitulation. The object of this communication being to
state _facts_ to the Government, and to show the facility of
crossing the continent to the Great Falls of the Columbia
with wagons, the ease of supporting any number of men by
driving cattle to supply them where there was no buffalo,
and also to show the true nature of the British
establishments on the Columbia, and the unequal operation of
the convention of 1818.

These _facts_ being communicated to the Government, they
consider that they have complied with their duty, and
rendered an acceptable service to the administration; and
respectfully request you, sir, to lay it before President
Jackson.

We have the honor to be sir, yours, respectfully,

JEDEDIAH S. SMITH,
DAVID E. JACKSON,
W. L. SUBLETTE.

To the Hon. John H. Eaton, _Secretary of War_.

Excerpts from St. Louis papers, 1832-1848, on the migration to and settlement of Oregon.

The _Missouri Republican_, July 5, 1831.

The American Society for encouraging the settlement of
Oregon Territory, propose to enlist 1000 men for the
purpose, to rendezvous in this city January next. Each man
will receive gratuitously a lot of land. There is said to be
"an immense water power up the Wallamott or Mulnomah."

* * * * *

_Republican_, November 8, 1831.

An unlucky little paragraph of ours in relation to the
prosperous colony at the mouth of the Columbia River has
been the source of much trouble to us. We have been
frequently addressed both by letter and in person for
information upon the subject, without having the means of
replying satisfactorily to querists. * * * We cannot now
state whether the plan has been abandoned, but time has
passed by when the adventurers were to have assembled here.
The project originated in Boston, where, we believe, the
principal officers of the society reside.

* * * * *

_Republican_, April 24, 1832.

OREGON COLONY.

Thirty-six persons attached to this colony arrived in this
city Friday last. They have since proceeded on their way.

* * * * *

_St. Louis New Era_, February 14, 1843.

OREGON, THE NEW ELDORADO.

We derive from a long letter in the _National Intelligencer_
the following sketch of the Territory beyond the Rocky Mts.,
which is now the theme of debate in the U. S. Senate.

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_Newark Advertiser._