Page:Pen Pictures of Representative Men of Oregon.djvu/238

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delegates to the Democratic National Convention, which placed General W. S. Hancock in nomination for the Presidency. Shortly after the defeat of Hancock the " Democrat" was suspended. He was a member of Gover- nor W. W. Thayer's staff with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel of the mil- itia. He is now city editor of the " Standard."


EDWARD CASEY,

The editor of the "Northwestern Farmer and Dairyman," of Portland, was born in Queenstown, Ireland, on the 29th of February, 1852, was brought to America when an infant, his parents locating at the Flower City, Roches- ter, New York, where his early life was spent in school and on the farm. At the early age of twelve years he was imbued with the patriotic spirit of the times, and ran away from home to join the United States Navy. He was soon taken out by his parents, but left home again, after one night, and joined the Sixth Tennessee Regiment, in transit from the Potomac to the Cumberland Army, and commanded by Jim Brownlow, son of the famous Parson Brownlow. Young Casey became known as " the child of the regi- ment," and was a pet with the officers and the men on account of his en- durance, fearlessness and general usefulness. He. was mustered out of ser- vice in 1865 and for the next few years worked at farming at Knoxville, Tennessee, in Greene county, Indiana, and in Illinois, in the meantime tak- ing every opportunity to improve his mind at school during winther months. In Illinois, he learned the rudiments of the harness and saddlery trade, follow- ing that business for the next few years in Greenfield, Ohio, and then at home in Rochester, New York. In 1870 he bid farewell to his friends and started for Helena, Montana, where for two years he followed the various avoca- tions of mining, harness-making, stage-driving and gardening. He next joined the Eastwick surveying party of the N. P. R. R. Company, which made the first survey from the mouth of Snake river to Pend d'Oreille lake. Leaving the party in Walla Walla, W. T., he entered a printing office and in the next two years acquired an excellent knowledge of that bxisiness in every branch — as devil, compositor, pressman, city editor and chief scribe. He was also employed, for a short time, as publisher of the " Pendletonian," the first paper issued in Umatilla county, Oregon. Branching out again, we next catch him punching tickets on Dr. Baker's wooden railroad. In a few months more we find him employed on the " Statesman," in Salem, un- til the spirit of restlessness again seized and prompted him to start the " Itemizer" at Dallas, Polk county, a journal that he conducted ably for the next four years, until 1878, when he disposed of it and settled on a farm near Dallas, where he is considered a model farmer by his neighbors, and where for the next three years his labors as a practical agriculturist were crowned with success. Whilst a resident of Dallas he was elected a member of the City Council and by that body was unanimously chosen President — quite an honor for so young a man. Conceiving that there was an opening for the establishment of a business that embraceid the principal study of his life with the acquiring and disseminating of knowledge con- genial with that study, he rented his farm and came to Portland in June,