Page:Portland, Oregon, its History and Builders volume 1.djvu/671

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THE CITY OF PORTLAND
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Ford's Polk County; thence to Oregon Institute, Champoeg County; thence to Catholic Mission and Champoeg to Oregon City, once in two weeks, on horseback. The contractor will enter into bond and security, to be approved by the postmaster general," signed by W. G. T'Vault. A Lawrence Lovejoy, attorney and counsellor at law and solicitor in chancery; Masonic notice to secure a charter for a lodge—the first on the Pacific coast; signed by Joseph Hull, P. G. Stewart, and Wm. P. Dougherty, Notice of George Abernethy and Alanson Beers that they had bought the business of the Oregon Milling Company. Administrator's notice of estate of Ewing Young, signed by Lovejoy. City Hotel, H. M. Knighton, proprietor, who says "his table shall not be surpassed in the territory," and that those "who favor him with a call from the west side of the river, will receive horse ferriage free." "The Red House and Portland," heads an advertisement three and a half inches long of F. W. Pettygrove's general merchandise store. This is the first time anything appears showing approximately the date when Portland was so named. John Traverse and William Glaser announced that they have begun manufacturing hats, and will take "wool, beaver, otter, raccoon, wild cat, muskrat and mink skins in exchange." Notice by Pettygrove to the effect that John B. Rutter, Astoria, is wanted to take charge of a box of medicine which was consigned to him from New York. Notice of Abernethy & Beers, stating their terms for grinding "merchantable wheat." Notice by C. E. Pickett that he has town lots for sale on the lower part of his claim, "just at the foot of the Clackamas rapids." Announcement of The Spectator terms—$5 in advance; if not paid until the expiration of three months, $6.

Fourth page; Post office law of the provisional government, approved December 23, 1845; Constitution of the Printing Association; three clippings, one entitled "The Fall of Empires," the other about "Morse's Electro-Magnetic Telegraph," and the last from the St. Louis Democrat speaking of an emigrating party of the father, mother, and twenty children. The editor says "Their destination we did not learn, but think it not improbable the old man is about settling a colony in Oregon."

Colonel T'Vault was a marked character in the early history of Oregon, and he made warm friends and bitter enemies. He was chosen a member of the legislature of the provisional government, June 4, 1846. In June, 1858, he was elected a representative to the first territorial legislature, and was chosen speaker at the special session from May 16, to June 4, 1859. In 1851 he established an express line between Winchester, on the Umpqua river, to 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 24. 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