The Columbian: Washington Territory's First Newspaper
W. A. KATZ
Stretching the truth, Eugene Barrier took french leave of a volunteer company of Washington Territorial Indian fighters in I855 to show up in New York two years later as French consul from Puget Sound. Horace Greeley welcomed the "distinguished" guest in the columns of his New York Tribune while back in Olympia James Wiley of the Pioneer and Democrat dryly observed "Greeley should have known Puget Sound was never deemed of sufficient importance to have any kind of consul."[1] Wiley characteristically did not censure Barrier, for possibly he remembered some years previously he and the irascible Thomas J. Dryer of the Portland Oregonian had pulled off a "Barrier" of sorts themselves.
On the masthead of Washington Territory's first newspaper, The Columbian, appeared the names James W. Wiley and Thornton F. McElroy, and in the second issue of September 18, I852 the editors emphatically stated:
For the purpose of counteracting various rumors abroad, with regard to 'controlling influence' exercised over The Columbian we would by leave to remark once, and for all that The Columbian editorially and otherwise is, and will be solely under the charge of the publishers ... We intend to control the columns ourselves.[2]
Possibly in the drawer of the desk on which this editorial was penned rested a conflicting statement, legally signed and dated August 2, 1852:
Know all men ... that I, Thomas J. Dryer. . . do hereby constitute and appoint Thornton McElroy . . . in my name to take possession of and take under his charge at Olympia . . . sundry boxes, packages, etc. containing a printing press and material for a printing establishment belonging to me.[3]
- ↑ Pioneer and Democrat (Olympia), August 14, 1857.
- ↑ The Columbian (Olympia), September 18, 1852.
- ↑ Power of attorney from Thomas J. Dryer to Thornton F. McElroy August 2, 1852, in McElroy papers, University of Washington Library, Seattle (hereafter cited as M.P.) Dryer (1808-78) and his times are ably discussed in "Thomas J. Dryer, Opposition Editor" (M.S. thesis, University of Oregon, 1952) by Richard Cramer.
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