Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 3.djvu/351

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History of the Press of Oregon.
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Yreka, California. In the years following he took an active part in the trying scenes of the Rogue River war, part of the time being a volunteer aid to Governor Joseph Lane. In 1855 he, in company with Messrs. Taylor and Blakely, established the Umpqua Gazette at Scottsburg, the first paper south of Salem, and moved it to Jacksonville soon after. The name was then changed to the Table Rock Sentinel, and it was first issued on November 24th. Soon after the paper was started it became noised abroad that T'Vault was tainted with abolitionism. This was too much for the stout-hearted old democrat, so he wrote a personal article over his own signature, denying in the most positive manner all sympathy for, or affiliation with, the abolition idea; and among other things he said that if "I thought there was one drop of abolition blood in my veins I would cut it out." That declaration was wholly satisfactory, and thereafter until the close of his life there was never any question as to his political faith. He was the principal editor of the paper, and his connection with it ceased in 1859, after the name had been changed to the Oregon Sentinel. His next editorial experience was in 1863, when he issued the Intelligencer in Jacksonville from the plant of the Civilian, then defunct. This enterprise failed in a few months, and was his last effort in journalism. He remained in Southern Oregon until the close of his life, having something of a law practice, and died from an attack of smallpox early in 1869.

At this point it is not out of place to give the personnel of the other members of the Printing Association as far as possible. James Willis Nesmith came to Oregon from Maine in 1843, at the age of twenty-three; in 1845 he was elected supreme judge of Oregon under the Provisional Government; in 1848, captain in the Cayuse Indian war; in 1853, captain in the Rogue-river Indian war; in 1855–1856 colonel in the Yakima Indian war; in 1857 he was