Just how seriously people took their politics in those days can be grasped from a realization of the difficulties faced by the Oregonian, a Whig paper, in getting its plant delivered from San Francisco for use in Portland. It took nearly two months to get the "materials and hands," the Oregonian's first issue complained in a full-column story explaining its unexpected delay in being born. Captain Hall of the navigation company was quoted as saying he didn't care when he delivered the freight for the "little damn Whig paper in Portland," and after weeks of delay the Oregonian's founders finally had to transfer their freight to another vessel.
The paper, typographically below par and poorly printed on the old Ramage press, which had been brought from New York, prom ised in its first issue to enlarge about the first of March with the ar rival of a new Washington hand-press, similar to that of the Times, the Statesman, and the Spectator. The paper was enlarged almost on schedule, and the Washington hand-press continued to function for close to nine years, even initiating the Oregonian's daily edition in February, 1861.
The Ramage press, now stored in the University of Washington museum, stands out more as a historical object than as a bit of useful printing machinery.
The paper was a four-page affair, with six 15-em (2½-inch) columns to the page. Subscription price was $7 a year. Carried across the front page under the title-line was the motto "Equal Rights, Equal Laws, Equal Justice to All Men."
The first page, without a single line of news of any sort, was filled with miscellaneous matter, including two long articles, "The Trapper, a Legend of the West," and "The Fashionable Church," neither of which had any discoverable direct Oregon significance.
Harrison R. Kincaid, lifelong Oregon publisher, acquainted with all the figures of prominence in pioneer Oregon journalism, and on close terms with most of them, gives a version of the christening of volume 1, number 1 which makes the occasion seem a little jollier than it appeared to Harvey Scott. Neither of them was present in person. Wrote Kincaid:[1]
They sat up all night getting out the first number, and our friend Dr. A. L. Nicklin, formerly of Eugene but now of Portland, has often told us how he sang Whig songs for them. Friend Scott, in his pamphlet, touches lightly on the inauguration ceremonies of the first issue, and only says there was a series of "solemnly amusing ceremonies." Not so solemn, dear brother, as you seem to think, if Col. Chapman, Dr. Nicklin, and the rest of the boys who took part in it, understood themselves.
C. Henry Hill, stepson of Mr. Coffin, wrote in detail of this his-
- ↑ Oregon State Journal, July 22, 1893.
