from drawing his family stores from the quarter-master's department at Vancouver, to re-auditing and changing the values of the certificates of the commissioners appointed to audit the Cayuse war claims, and retaining the same to use for political purposes;[1] the truth being that these claims were used by both parties. Holbrook, the United States attorney, was charged with dishonesty and with influencing both the governor and judges, and denounced as being responsible for many of their acts;[2] a judgment to which subsequent events seemed to give color.
At the regular term, court was held in Marion county. Nelson repaired to Salem, and was met by a committee with offensive resolutions passed at a public meeting, and with other tokens of the spirit in which an attempt to defy the law of the territory, as passed at the last session, would be received.[3] Meantime the opposing parties had each had a hearing at
- ↑ Or. Statesman, Nov. 6, 1852; Id., Feb. 26, 1853. Whether or not this was true, Lane procured an amendment to the former acts of congress in order to make up the deficiency said to have been occasioned by the alteration of the certificates. Cong. Globe, 1852–3, app. 341; 33d Cong., 1st Sess., H. Com. Rept. 122, 4–5.
- ↑ Memorial, in 32d Cong., 1st Sess., H. Misc. Doc. 9, 2; Or. Statesman, May 18, 1852.
- ↑ The ridicule, however, was not all on one side. There appeared, in the Oregonian, and afterward in pamphlet form, with a dedication to the editors of Vox Populi, a satire written in dramatic verse, and styled a Melodrama, illustrated with rude wood-cuts, and showing considerable ability both for composition and burlesque. This publication, both on account of its political effect and because it was the first book written and published in Oregon of an original nature, deserves to be remembered. It contained 32 double-columned pages, divided into five acts. The persons satirized were Pratt, Deady, Lovejoy, King, Anderson, Avery, Waymire, Parker, Thornton, Willson, Bush, Backenstos, and Waterman of the Portland Times. The author was William L. Adams, an immigrant of 1848, a native of Painesville, Ohio, where he was born Feb. 1821. His parents removed to Michigan in 1834. In 1835 Adams entered college at Canton, Ill.; going afterward to Galesburg, supporting himself by teaching in the vacations. He finished his studies at Bethany College, Va, and became a convert to the renowned Alexander Campbell. In 1845 he married Olivia Goodell, a native of Maine, and settled in Henderson County, Ill., from which state he came to Oregon. He taught school in Yamhill county, and was. elected probate judge. He was offered a press at Oregon City if he would establish a whig newspaper at that place, which he declined; but in 1858 he purchased the Spectator press and helped materially to found the present republican party of Oregon. He was rewarded with the collectorship at Astoria under Lincoln. Portland West Shore, May, 1876.
