The first state campaign in political aspect followed the adoption of the state constitution by popular vote, November 9, 1857. The first state election, agreeable to the constitution, was appointed the first Monday of June, 1858. The accustomed preliminaries of party contest, by each of the contesting parties, began early in February, 1858. The territorial legislature convened in Salem, December 7, 1857, and sat until finally adjourned February 4, 1858, with Hugh D. O'Bryant president of the council; T. B. Micon, chief clerk; William S. White, assistant clerk; George A. Edes, enrolling clerk; Robert Shortess, sergeant-at-arms; Ira F. M. Butler, speaker of the assembly; Charles B. Hand, chief clerk; N. T. Caton, assistant clerk; George S. Russell, enrolling clerk; J. B. Sykes, sergeant-at-arms; Joseph H. Brown, doorkeeper. In the council Aaron E. Wait, of Clackamas, and Dr. Edward Sheil, of Marion, were conspicuous of the clique Democrats, who were in majority. Stalwart Colonel Nat Ford, of Polk, was foremost of the anti-clique Democrats. Sturdy Colonel Tom Cornelius, of Washington County, the most trusted of his party, was the leading Whig. In the assembly the clique were in large majority; of their number were Jacob Woodsides, of Marion, Anderson Cox, Hugh M. Brown and N. H. Barnes, of Linn; John Whiteaker, of Lane; Ben Hayden, of Polk and Tillamook; N. H. Gates, of Wasco; A. A. Matthews, of Douglas; H. H. Brown, of Jackson; and J. G. Spear, of Josephine; Dr. R  C. Hill and James H. Slater, of Benton; Andy Shuck, of Yamhill; W. H. King, of Multnomah; James Cole, of Umpqua, were anti-clique; and Tom J. Dryer, of the Oregonian, was the combatant Whig member. The clique ruled in federal and local affairs of the Territory, except in few instances. They were weakest in Portland, in Yamhill, in Washington, in Clackamas, in Benton and in Clatsop. In the more populous counties of Marion, Linn, Polk and Lane, the clique ruled with almost absolute power. The Salem Statesman was the powerful organ and champion of that wing of the party. The Democratic Times in Portland followed in its tow, but possessed limited influence. John Orvis Waterman had been displaced as editor, to make room for E. C. Hibben, who was sent out from Indiana for the purpose by General Lane, to control the paper in the state campaign. Alonzo Leland's Democratic Standard, established in Portland by Judge O. C. Pratt as a personal organ to combat the clique and advance the cause of Pratt, was indifferently supported after the departure of Pratt from Oregon to make his home in California. The Standard was bitterly antagonized by the clique leaders, and January 8, 1857, at the noted Jackson jubilee in Salem, at which the leaders of the clique were dominant, Leland's paper was denounced as inimical to the Democratic Party of the Territory and subsequently was formally read out of the party and its editor declared recreant to Democratic principles. The clique leaders had proclaimed the extraordinary doctrine that it was incumbent upon the representatives of the party to obey the ruling of caucus in opposition to the will and instruction of their constituents, and had formally declared as recreant to this doctrine and unworthy [of] the fellowship and confidence of  Democrats some of the most honored and trusted of the party, among whom were Colonel James K. Kelly, of Clackamas; Joseph C. Avery, of Benton; Colonel William M. King, of Portland; Nicholas Shrum, of Marion, and many of the earnest and sturdy Democrats throughout Oregon. The Jackson jubilee was a clique frolic, designed by the managers to their own partisan ends, and to that purpose it was carried out in flow of liquor and intemperance of speech. It was a notorious partisan debauch, in which glib tongues wagged in wild speech and venomous sentiments; where license of conscious mastery ran riot in grosser indulgence as the maddened fumes dethroned decency and temporarily obliterated sense of restraint in the malignance of denunciation. The jubilee was a desecration of the great occasion of "Jackson's day," an orgy of partisan chiefs to celebrate the immolation of their adversaries. It afterwards bore its hateful fruit, and to some most prominent and most clamorous in their maledictions, as they quaffed and stormed. The poisoned chalice was in after years mercilessly administered to their own utter condemnation and destruction. But the jubilee, nevertheless, had its designed effect at the time, and the prevalent sentiment of its managers shaped the preliminaries to the initiation of the state government, and formed the foundation on which the superstructure has been reared.
    Party lines were formed early in 1853, upon which to make the contest at the polls in June of that year. The clique Democrats were dominant in the Territory, formidable in every county, and the leaders ruled in the spirit which resembled party tyranny. The disaffected Democrats organized with the party of national Democracy. The Portland Democratic Standard was the accredited organ of the party. The Corvallis Occident and Jacksonville Sentinel joined in support of the nationals. The Whigs of Oregon had no organization. The Oregonian was the pronounced organ of the remnant party. Editor Tom Dryer was its public exponent. Dave Logan was its brightest expounder. Tom Cornelius, Uncle Billy Rector, Uncle Jesse Applegate, Captain Marye, Dan Waldo, Jim Barlow, Amory Holbrook, General Hamilton, John C. Bell, the Monteiths of Albany, were prominent among the devotees and advocates of that party. They fused and cohered it as a national party. The Whig Party of the Union has been defunct since 1852, after the overwhelming defeat of General Scott for President and the death of its mightiest leader, Henry Clay. The death of Daniel Webster in the fall of that year added to its demise. Clay died the last of June, Webster in the closing week of October of the same year. Their deaths bereft the party, and in the presidential campaign of November of that year the national Whig Party succumbed to the towering public sentiment of Democracy, symbolized in Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, and William M. King, of Alabama. Only four states of the thirty-one--Maryland, Massachusetts, Tennessee and Vermont--had given a majority to the Whig candidates. The triumph of Pierce was as the sweep of a tornado of politics. Yet the Whigs of Oregon remained [as] steadfast and firm as the Old Guard of Cambronne at Waterloo, and did not surrender. They cohered and adhered. But in the state campaign of 1858 they were not sufficiently formidable to encounter the Democracy, divided as that party was, and their leaders and counselors advised that no ticket should be put into the field--leaving it optional with the Whigs to vote as they individually chose, for the clique Democrats or the nationals. The Republican Party had barely organized in Oregon. It was hopelessly stigmatized as the "black Republican" party. Prominent in its meager following were Rice, of Jackson County, an avowed abolitionist; Father Beeson, abolitionist and friend of the Indians; David Newsom, of Marion; Dr. McBride, of Yamhill; A. Denny, Dr. Watkins, of Josephine, and G. W. Lawson, who had been opposite candidate against General Lane for delegate to Congress in 1855. Still insignificant in numbers as the party was, the Republicans of Oregon put a ticket in the field in 1853, with A. Denny for Governor and John R. McBride for Congress and candidates for every state office.
    The clique Democrats met in Salem and made their ticket. Dr. Joseph Drew was their state candidate for Governor, but Joseph Teal, of Eugene, was a delegate of much influence, and he insisted upon the nomination of John Whiteaker for the place. Joseph Teal accomplished the nomination of John Whiteaker, of Lane County, for Governor, in place of the clique candidate, Dr. Joseph Drew, but the clique secured the nomination of every other of their candidates upon the state ticket--of Lafayette Grover for Congress, Lucien Heath for secretary of state, John D. Boon for state treasurer, Asahel Bush for state printer. The nationals nominated E. M. Barnum for Governor, James K. Kelly, for Congress, J. M. Rice for secretary of state, Jo. Brumley for treasurer, James O'Meara for state printer. The Republicans put a partial state ticket in nomination with A. Denny for Governor and John R. McBride for Congress, Craig for state printer.
    The clique Democrats were the first to hold state convention to nominate their state ticket and make the order of the state campaign. There were at that time nineteen counties in Oregon, Benton, Clackamas, Clatsop, Columbia, Coos, Curry, Douglas, Jackson, Josephine, Lane, Linn, Marion, Multnomah, Polk, Tillamook, Umpqua, Wasco, Washington and Yamhill. Wasco was the only organized county of the Upper Columbia region, and embraced the enormous territory now classed as Eastern Oregon, with the several counties into which that expansive region has since been carved. The inhabitants of Wasco were averse to the institution of the state government. They preferred the territorial condition. The Dalles was the only settlement in the entire region, and it was a place of only a few hundred, with the military post of Fort Dalles, a mile back from the river, on the high bluff, to make business and give activity to the town on the low bank of the river. Captain McFarland then ran his littler steamer Wasco from the Upper Cascades to The Dalles tri-weekly or occasionally, as the business required or the weather permitted. The machinery had done first service in a small lumber mill, and had [a] cogwheel attachment with rattling, incessant noise and shaking motion to the little craft. The low half-cabin had room for four--it was crowded with the five of us, who were the only passengers. There were four narrow berths, and a spread was made upon the floor. The steering was by rude rudder gear at the stern. Forward was the sunken deck for freight, and accommodated besides three or four deck passengers. The Wasco was of about fifteen tons capacity, captain, engineer and one deck hand, and it took all day to make the trip from the Upper Cascades to The Dalles, as I first traveled the route in the summer of 1857. The following year the Indian war broke out afresh, and a better and more commodious boat was put upon the Upper Columbia.
    The nationals held the first state nominating convention in Eugene City, early in April. The trip from Portland was made in three days, by river steamers to Lancaster landing, Lane County, and thence twelve miles by wagon to Eugene. After a session of two days the state ticket was nominated, the platform adopted and the plan of the campaign agreed upon. The resolutions were mainly directed to affirmation of national Democratic principles, to the support of General Lane for United States Senator, and the condemnation, as opposed to Democratic doctrine, of the platform resolutions of the clique Democracy, which upheld the obligation that a representative was bound to obey caucus direction against the instruction of his constituents. It was upon this rock, in fact, that the clique and the nationalists split. The Republicans organized for the first time in Oregon later in the campaign and took part in the canvass.
    The campaign opened in Jacksonville, April 15, 1858. At that time the mails from the states east of the Missouri and from California were brought into Oregon by the overland route from Sacramento to Jacksonville, and thence to the counties north, all the way to Portland, by weekly service, in one-horse conveyance or on horseback, except between Salem and Portland, in which a semi-weekly stage line or small river steamers of the Upper Willamette were employed as carriers, as time and occasion offered in point of expedition. Pack trains and freight wagons occasionally traveled the long route to the Umpqua and to Southern Oregon. I recall that as late as August, 1857, Colonel John D. Fry and myself made the first journey from Salem to Rogue River that had ever been traveled in a top buggy, and in stopping at roadside hospitable farm houses of nights--there were no hotels or taverns--the trouble was to prevent the children of the household from climbing in the buggy and working open and shut the lifting and closing top.
    Immediately upon the adjournment of the national convention at Eugene, it was determined to be essential that Col. Kelly and myself should proceed to Jacksonville to meet the candidates of the clique party in opening the campaign. I had protested against the nomination of state printer, as I had come from California only eight months before, and could barely be counted a citizen of Oregon. Protestation was fruitless. The convention made the nomination. I had left the Standard, in Portland, simply to attend the convention and return to conduct the paper during the campaign. I had made no plans for the campaign conduct of the paper. The exigency into which I was forced by the convention compelled me to make temporary arrangements, which produced damaging and unsatisfactory consequences.
    The route from Eugene through Southern Oregon was little traveled and not very well known. B. F. Dowell agreed to guide Colonel Kelly and myself to the end of the journey in Jacksonville. We gladly accepted his escort. The clique candidates had already started upon the journey, two days in advance. The canvassing party consisted of Delazon Smith, Lafayette Grover, Asahel Bush and Lucien Heath. Colonel Kelly and I were joined on the first day from Eugene by John Whiteaker, clique candidate for Governor, who continued in our company the remainder of the way into Jacksonville. Dowell was a trusty and invaluable guide. He thoroughly knew every cutoff and byway. Where the road was difficult from rains and deep mud he led us direct routes over adjacent hills and by circuitous meandering as though ours was a surveying party. He had traveled the route many times, was conversant with its every feature, had scraped or formed acquaintance with every dweller. All the old folks knew him the moment he spoke, the young folks hailed him, the youngsters rushed to or ran from him, agreeably as he had impressed them. His was not, as the churchly member of the Oregon assembly remarked to James D. Fay in the session of 1862, a "Christly voice," but no sane mortal lives who ever failed to recognize the organ of speech of the indomitable, almost ubiquitous and irrepressible B. F. Dowell, attorney at law and indefatigable pursuer of claims in Washington for Oregon and Washington Indian war services for damages or losses, and the never-let-go agent of kindred claims. Colonel Kelly and I will forever owe the obligation incurred on that memorable journey to Jacksonville, to B. F. Dowell, guide and entertainer as he was throughout. The first night from Eugene we put up at Cartwright's, at the foot of the Calapooia, and the next day nooned at Jesse Applegate's Yoncalla home of hospitable recollection. He was a warm friend of Colonel Kelly, and I had enjoyed pleasant acquaintance with him at Salem during the constitutional convention the preceding year. He related to us his refusal to accede to the "rude demand of General Lane's off-color cane-bearer," as he termed Hibben, of the Portland Times, for a night's lodging at his home, and led us to his well-stocked library, in which were rare and choice and valuable volumes, with proofs that they were prized and used. At Oakland we were made acquainted with Dr. Baker, owner of the mills, and met huge Hen Owens, since of the "Saints," swamp lands, cattle and schemes. Our next stopping place was Canyonville, at Roberts' hotel, from which Colonel Kelly came out worsted from his night's encounter with "big bugs," which disputed his possession of the bed. They seemed to appreciate a good feast when found. Whiteaker similarly suffered. Dowell taught me a plan of escape--in cleanly straw not ticked or blanketed by the landlord. Through the ugly canyon the next morning we all had a rough time of it from the swelling creek and turbulent water, but we refreshed at Hardy Elliff's and pushed on past John Redfield's, through the Cow Creek country and the scene of the Indian massacre of the Baily company, and at noon reached Jimmy Twogood's at Grave Creek, where the five Indian murderers taken during the Rogue River War were planted as "good Indians" forevermore. Jimmy was a noted character of the route, and kept a famous house--host, postmaster, humorist and brave withal, between his exploits and his queer stutter, requiring the rubbing of his right leg with his right palm to unloosen his tongue, and the coincident shuffling of his left foot to enable the utterance of his emphatic speech. Twogood was curious to observe and entertaining to the listener. He never stuttered as he swore; his oaths had free exit, and they came with droll volubility and vigor.
    About noon of the fourth day from Eugene we reached Jacksonville. The meeting, or speaking, as the term was common, was appointed for that afternoon at 2 o'clock, in a beautiful grove on the outskirts of the town, outdoors. Seats were not provided. Audience and candidates could either stand, squat or move around. A large number gathered. Jacksonville was unlike the towns of the Willamette. It depended mainly upon its adjacent gold diggings for business and support. Along Bear Creek, in Rogue River Valley, and in other portions of the county, lands were of uncommon fertility. Farms and vegetable patches produced enough to supply the miners, and the merchants of Jacksonville were the middlemen of this easy traffic. Gold was plenty, prices ruled high. Few practiced frugality. Extravagance was the rule, and Jacksonville was as a mining camp of California. The inhabitants did not include themselves in the Territory of Oregon. It was the common phrase of any departing on a trip to the Willamette region, "I am going down to Oregon." The singularity was that the Willamette was far north--so that to go north was to go down.
    Jackson County had been the principal scene of the Rogue River Indian War of 1855-56, in which Chiefs John and George had proved formidable warriors and skilled leaders in fighting alike the troops of the regular army and the companies of volunteers, until the killing of the one and the capture of the other brought truce and resulted in ending the war. There were all along the road into Rogue River Valley, from Canyonville to Jacksonville as late as 1858, melancholy testimonies of that cruel and savage war. B. F. Dowell had active part in it. On our route of travel he pointed out to Colonel Kelly and myself the scenes of tragic occurrences, the ruins of homes burned by the marauding Indians, the blackened sites of buildings destroyed. The desolated spots the savages had occasioned. The massacre of the Wagoner family was a lamentable tragedy. Wagoner had been prevailed upon by Miss Pellet, an enthusiast from the East in the cause of the Indians, to escort her to Port Orford, there to take the steamer to San Francisco. [Pellet was actually a prohibitionist; Wagoner escorted her only as far as Vannoy's ferry.] He left his home and family at daylight to escort Miss Pellet. Before noon that day a band of raiding Indians, murdering and burning as they sped, fired the Wagoner dwelling and butchered Mrs. Wagoner and daughter. Farther on they murdered Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Haines and her two children, Mr. Harris and his son, Reed, Gwin and Cartwright, farmers, and five other men. Mrs. Harris managed to fly from the burning house with her infant daughter in her arms and escape the shots of the Indians, but her little daughter was wounded by an arrow in her mother's embrace. [O'Meara has confused the events; see here and here.] She succeeded in reaching a clump of willows, and from that safe retreat kept off the savages with the rifle which she had taken from the side of her murdered husband as he had fallen mortally shot by the assailants. On that 9th of October, 1855, these unoffending and peaceful inhabitants of Rogue River country and the adjacent region north were sacrificed to the savagery of the hostile tribes of Southern Oregon. Other and similar tragedies were at the period added to the enormities of the raiding savages and swelled the roll of human blood. The inhabitants of Jackson and Josephine counties were harassed and in great peril. The conduct of General Wool and the action of leaders of the clique in the Willamette, in giving no heed to the Indian hostilities in Southern Oregon, and in ridiculing the actual situation, had deeply affected and greatly incensed the periled and suffering inhabitants. The comments of the press of the Willamette rankled in their hearts. There was much of this feeling of animosity toward the leaders of the clique at the time of the first state election of 1858.
    At the opening meeting of the campaign, in Jacksonville, Lafayette Grover made the starting speech. It was plausible, self-laudatory, with bare reference to his colleagues upon the ticket, an hour long and of feeble effect. Colonel Kelly followed in a speech adapted to the occasion, directed to the political issues of the contest. next followed Delazon Smith, the admitted orator of the party, skilled in declamation, of stentorian voice, conscious of his power of speech, and by no means careful of either his utterance or his logic, his harangue was mainly directed at the "Little California Adventurer" [O'Meara] who was a candidate for state printer upon the national [Democratic] ticket. The object of Smith's ungenerous speech followed Delazon, and was not long in appreciating that the sympathies and favor of the people of Jackson County were with the nationals, and that their antipathy to the clique party and its candidates was very apparent. H. Rush, not withstanding he had been active in politics for years in Oregon, made his maiden speech before a large audience on that occasion. He was a shrewd party manager; he did not aspire to campaign declamation. His forte was in council and not on the stump. Heath barely announced his own candidacy. Whiteaker patiently sat and comfortably smoked his solacing pipe. None could make issue or be offended with his remarks. The meeting ended with sharp exchanges between Smith and the national candidate for state printer in which neither of them were discreet. At the subsequent meetings the two found it more judicious to preserve their tempers and better regulate their speeches. Still, their occasional sharp hits at each other were as nuts to some of their hearers. It is in the nature of a multitude to cheer the remarks against another which, if made in relation to themselves, would violently enrage and provoke a fight.
    In Jacksonville at that time were two weekly newspapers--the Sentinel, of William G. T'Vault, and the Herald, of William J. Boggs. T'Vault was an early pioneer of Oregon from Arkansas. He was editor of the Oregon Spectator in 1847, and founded the Sentinel, the first newspaper in Southern Oregon, at Jacksonville. He was aged, crafty and crooked in his walks and ways. Boggs was the son of a clergyman, young, bright, flippant and incurably vicious. The Sentinel favored the nationals. The Herald took sides vehemently with the clique party. Boggs' fierce antagonism to T'Vault for the assembly resulted in his election to the first state legislature. At the Jacksonville meeting I had opportunity to learn of Delazon Smith's extraordinary faculty of memorizing. At Quincey [sic] Twogood's I found two or three copies of a Boston paper, which was Edward Everett's polished eulogy of Daniel Webster. Delazon had stopped at Quincey's two days before and taken away a copy of the same paper. At Jacksonville he was invited to deliver an evening address. He announced as his subject "An Oration on Daniel Webster." I listened throughout his remarkable oration, delivered without notes or pause. It was the precise language of Everett, from beginning to end. The incident was to me in explanation of the nickname given to him of "Delusion," by which he was commonly known in Oregon. Delazon was nevertheless a really very able campaign speaker. In 1860 he encountered Colonel E. D. Baker in the state campaign, and that great orator bore willing testimony to Smith's ability and eloquence.
    The clique party was unpopular in Southern Oregon on account of the course of the Salem leaders in respect to the Rogue River Indian War of 1855-56. They had denounced the war as an "expedition to fight the emigrants," who were in those years entering Oregon by the southern route in preference to the northern route by way of Fort Hall and the Columbia River. The Salem leaders endorsed the sentiments of General Wool, who asserted in his official report to the War Department that "the war had been forced upon the Indians by a set of reckless vagabonds for pecuniary and political objects, and sanctioned by a numerous population, who regarded the Treasury of the United States as a legitimate object of plunder." General Wool found profit and peaceful life in San Francisco, in his large winnings at draw poker and comfortable quarters at the Oriental Hotel, and gave no heed to the implorations and complaints of the endangered and unfortunate people of Jackson and Josephine counties. No military commander ever more grossly neglected his duties than did General Wool toward the people at Southern Oregon in 1855-56; no American general more shamefully abused the high trust confided to him in the protection of the remote settlements. As a distinguished army officer remarked at the time, with clear knowledge of the facts and of the extraordinary conduct of General Wool, the error rested with the War Department. "Jefferson Davis knew General Wool in Mexico, and he ought to have known better than to send him to a command out of the reach of telegraphic dispatches." Wool maligned the people of Oregon generally, of Southern Oregon particularly, in connection with the Indian wars. He neglected to visit Oregon and the scenes of war. He infelicitously proclaimed that his headquarters were in the saddle--to impress the authorities at Washington and the people of the East, but all the time he was mostly found sitting at the poker table raking in the big pots and small stakes. His attempt to make himself the Democratic candidate for President in 1845, essayed during his command upon this coast, was the crowning failure which caused his recall from the command of the military forces of the Pacific--greatly to the gratification of the people of California and Oregon and Washington territories, who had too much learned the manner of man he was to admire him as a hero or respect him as a warrior.
    From Jacksonville the opposing canvassing speakers journeyed northward, to fill speaking appointments at Canyonville, Roseburg and Oakland, and thence into the Willamette Valley, to Eugene, Corvallis, Soap Creek, Albany, Salem, Dallas, Lafayette, Oregon City and Portland, and from there to The Dalles and down the river to Astoria. On the way from Oakland to Yoncalla, Col. Kelly and I had a strange token of Umpqua hospitality. Towns were few and far between south of the Calapooia Range, and sometimes we had to put up at the homes and rude cabins of farmers. We had promised Jesse Applegate that on the return journey northwards we would stop the night at his roomy and hospitable home. At Oakland, Judge [David C.] Underwood, county judge of Umpqua, and a candidate on the national ticket for reelection, pressed us to accept his invitation to go with him to his home for the night, from which, he assured us, it was a direct road to Yoncalla, and not in the least out of our way. The ride to his home in the hills was difficult, wearisome and very rough. It was a miserable cabin, and the shelter for our fatigued animals was scanty. There were no oats--only hay of poor quality. It was dark when we reached the place. Supper was served in about an hour. Sassafras tea, rusty bacon, heavy hot biscuits of the "Oregon sinker" quality, brown with saleratus and indigestible, and a kind of greasy stew served as soup constituted the meal. Hunger was barely sauce for the wretched layout. Shakedown sleeping places were prepared for us in the unpartitioned garret, and our own blankets were necessary to supply us covering to keep out the cold. Neither of us got much sleep, and we rose early, to see to our animals. No care had been shown them--very little hay and no water. The call for breakfast was bawled from the cabin. The meal was less satisfying than the supper of the previous evening--the similar slices of rusty bacon, the same order of Oregon sinkers for hot biscuit, discolored with saleratus, and a nauseating decoction for coffee did the business for us. Our host had the hardihood to ask a blessing over that breakfast. It was as grace before torture. In a short time we led our animals out, were mounted, and about to depart. Judge Underwood spoke out: "Well, gentlemen, which of you pays the bill?" The amount was called for. The surprise at the demand was overpowering, the circumstances considered. The judge responded: "Well, I guess about $2.50 apiece will be about right, don't you?" He was paid, and we left, content to get away at any cost from the miserable place. Judge Underwood had lured us, by his wanton, false statement, more than eight miles from our intended route to Jesse Applegate's Yoncalla home. It was our only instance of that kind of hospitality. The blotting of Umpqua from the counties of Oregon subsequently wiped from the county bench the infliction of Judge Underwood, and it was a process akin to Charles Lamb's story of the Chinese burning a house to roast a pig--worth the abolishment of a county to accomplish the removal of that pattern of county magistrate.
    In the real and simple hospitality of Yoncalla, Colonel Kelly and I enjoyed nearly two days of entertainment and repose. Uncle Jesse Applegate was a famous host when in the humor with his guests. His library was a storehouse of chosen works, his post office and store a snug retreat for general conversation, and his keeping of pioneers at table and sleeping was of plenty and uninterrupted quality. Philosopher, sage, patriot and sturdy citizen, Jesse Applegate lived [his] allotted years, and upon the tablets of the enduring history of Oregon his name and record are never to be effaced.
Oregonian, Portland, November 9, 1890, page 16

    The conventions of the two parties in Oregon had placed their respective candidates in nomination, at Salem, late in April. The day of election was June 27th. Lansing Stout, Democrat, and David Logan, Republican, were the contestants for representatives in Congress. The two were residents of Portland, lawyers of a high order of ability, in the early prime of life, socially friends, but as different in natures and political sentiments as two men could be. Stout was a bedrock Democrat; Logan abhorred Democracy and in 1856 had joined the Know-Nothing Party, not because he approved its prescriptive features, but, as he said himself, he "thought it a club with which to help kill the Democratic Party." The state was unquestionably Democratic, on a fair vote of the two parties; but with the strong opposition of the Salem clique to scratch Stout and to cast their votes for Logan, the result seemed uncertain. As the campaign progressed and this antagonism appeared to grow in spread and strength the common belief was that Logan would be elected. This bullet was strengthened in view of the bitter feud of the clique leaders and Delazon Smith, and the apparent determination of the clique to defeat the reelection of Smith to the Senate. Hibben had ceased to be editor of the Portland Times, and had gone to Washington in the interest of General Lane. No man could be better spared. He had dismally failed as an editor; was miserably qualified as a party manager, and although he harangued after the style of the typical frontier hard-shell Baptist exhorter of strong nasal twang, his consuming vanity prompted him to blow his blathering horn on every possible occasion. He had the eyes, nose, lips and color to sustain the common belief that the taint of African blood was a portion of his heritage. Hibben returned to Indiana and wrote letters back to the Portland Times denunciatory of the clique and ridiculously eulogistic of General Lane.
    The Portland Standard was still under my management. It gave vigorous support to Stout for Congress, but was uncompromising in its hostility to Delazon Smith for United States Senator. I was an earnest friend of General Lane, and his ardent efforts in aid of Smith's cause did not weaken my devotion to his own, although for the time we became estranged. I was as strongly opposed to the election of Grover for Senator as I was to Smith. Senator Williams, of Multnomah, and Assemblyman Nichols, of Benton, had pledged to me their votes in the choice of Senator, and these pledges were faithfully adhered to until the final adjournment of the legislature. It will suffice to state here that these two votes became at length the key to the situation.
    The legislature convened early in June and sat while the campaign for Congressman was going on. Grover had sulked after his defeat for renomination, and manifested indisposition to support Stout. He declined to speak in Stout's behalf in the campaign, until at last the assent to do so was coupled with the condition that he should be chosen Senator. Judge Williams declined his signature to a similar agreement. Neither of the two engaged in the campaign in aid of Stout, but Grover made speeches at Salem and at Dallas that were covertly inimical to Stout's election.
    Soon after the return of Smith and Grover from Washington, Grover related to a dozen or more of prominent members of the clique in Nesmith's "Superintendent of Indian Affairs" office a long account of the irregularities of Smith in Washington and on the Isthmus. The relation was made in a spirit of confidence. Among the listeners was W. M. Barnhart, clerk in the Indian office. He did not consider himself bound to secrecy. He wrote, as he remembered, the revelations by Grover, and published the offensive mass in the Statesman. W. W. Bristow, senator from Lane County, read the Barnhart publication in the senate. This brought a note from Grover to the senate, in which he stated that Barnhart's publication was "a gross exaggeration of a few words" spoken by himself in confidence. To this came the response of several of the persons who had been present at the recital, to the effect that Grover had said all that was stated by Barnhart, with the remark that several facts which Grover had related were omitted from the published statement.
    This disgraceful episode more embittered the friends of Smith, and the rancor increased on both sides. The intense animosity of some toward Grover helped Stout's cause. The Salem clique had already done their utmost against him. Grover had announced himself as candidate for the United States Senate. Colonel Nesmith was first suggested as the clique candidate, but through the active partisanship of Fred Waymire, in Polk--Nesmith's own county--the clique Democrats there declared their preference for Grover. It was agreed that he should be the Senator. Also in the field were Governor Curry and W. H. Farrar. The contest, however, was between Smith and Grover. Farrar's efforts were directed mainly to the prevention of an election. Aware that his own election was impossible, he wrought with the Republican legislators and schemed with the disaffected Democrats to defeat the election of any. Judge Williams was not announced as a candidate, still he had friends in the legislature who preferred him to either Smith or Grover. The caucus of the Democratic members of the two houses was held on the Wednesday of the closing week of the session, in the assembly hall in the old building on the riverbank, occupied as the statehouse. After repeated ineffectual balloting, at a late hour of the afternoon, the caucus vote was declared in favor of Delazon Smith. It was expected that the next day the two houses would meet in joint convention and that Delazon Smith would be rechosen United States Senator for the term of six years. It was not to be. The antagonism to him was active, fierce and uncompromising. A meeting of the managing parties of this implacable opposition held a caucus of their own that night and agreed upon the plan which finally defeated Smith's election. Thursday morning neither Senator Williams, of Multnomah, nor Assemblyman Nichols could be found. Both had attended the caucus of the day before, and had voted on every ballot to defeat Smith's nomination. Without their votes in the joint convention his election was impossible, unless two Republicans should vote for him. An effort had been attempted and failed to bring about a concentration of the kind to elect Grover. It could not be made in the interest of Smith. The meeting of the joint convention to elect a Senator would be futile without the presence of Williams and Nichols. No word was obtainable as to their whereabouts. Friday passed the same as Thursday. The two houses regularly met and adjourned, as usual, after due course of proceedings, but without the attendance of Williams in the senate and Nichols in the assembly it was useless to go into joint convention. On Saturday the forty days' limit of the legislature would expire, and the final adjournment would be declared.
    John Wilson's circus showed in Salem that Friday night. I always go to see a circus show. Toward the end of the performance Joe Teal came to me in a high state of excitement and requested that I should come outside and accompany him. I asked as to the place and purpose. It was revealed that an arrangement had been made that night by which Judge Williams was agreed upon for Senator, and his election could be made sure the next morning, in joint convention, providing Senator Williams and Assemblyman Nichols were in their seats. The proposition was impracticable. Neither Williams nor Nichols would vote for Judge Williams, for Delazon Smith or for Lafayette Grover. The arrangement failed. I had missed the close of John Wilson's circus performance. The ending of that session of the Oregon Legislature and of the senatorial circus the next morning would be the more inviting show.
    Saturday morning at the usual hour the two houses met for the last time. Williams and Nichols did not put in an appearance. No motion was made for a joint convention in either house. The ordinary closing scenes were enacted. Committees were appointed in each house to wait upon Governor Whiteaker and inform him that the Legislature was ready to adjourn and awaited from him any message he had to communicate. His earnest but unofficial message, impromptu and energetically spoken, was: "I am d----d glad of it." His official response was: "Well, gentlemen, I have nothing to communicate." As with General Taylor at Buena Vista, when Santa Ana demanded his surrender, the unofficial response of Governor Whiteaker on that occasion was the better fitting, although more forcible and less refined. The committees reported to their respective houses the Governor's official response, and the two houses thereupon adjourned sine die. To the general public immediately after the adjournment, the members of the committees made known the more appropriate unofficial response, and everybody approved the Governor's sentiments and admired his sense of the situation. An old Lane County bedrock Democrat, a warm friend of the Governor's, once portrayed to him the gabrulous infirmity of a neighbor who always needed a cork in his mouth, by the rude but pertinent remark that "he don't know when to don't." Possibly Governor Whiteaker recalled the remark as he felt the relief that the Legislature did "know when to don't" and ceased its own existence as a salutary instance of felo de se without benefit of clergy or prayers for the dead, in a public body which had few mourners and gave general satisfaction by its dissolution.
    At high noon on Saturday the Legislature adjourned. The election of a United States Senator had failed. Oregon was represented in the Senate of the United States by only one senator--General Joseph Lane, whose term expired March 4, 1861. Delazon Smith was defeated for the exalted station and forever politically showed as a bright-colored back number. The unruly tongue beyond his own ability to bridle, which had gained him party promotion and highest honors the state can bestow, was likewise the cause of his sudden downfall from this lofty place, through his intemperance of speech when in proud position and his malignance of destruction when not confronted by the object of his vituperation.
    A word of merit is due to Nichols of Benton. He was elected to the assembly on the national ticket. Early in the session he imparted to me that at the time of his election he was a Democrat. He had since become a Republican on account of the slavery question. He had determined all through that session to faithfully fulfill his pledges to his national constituents. He had given pledge as to the one he should support for United States Senator, and had resolved to conscientiously observe that pledge. He simply requested that I should not divulge his change of political belief and plan of action during the session. He never deviated from his promises. On Saturday afternoon, an hour after the Legislature adjourned, honest Nichols came to me, openly proclaimed his Republicanism to some Benton County Democratic friends, and returned to his home to take active part in the service of that party.
    Senator Williams was a native of Kentucky, bred in that state and was an ardent Democrat. He had lived several years in Oregon. Elected upon the national ticket, he was unfailingly true to that wing of the Democratic Party throughout his term of senator. He confided to me before the Legislature convened, his course of conduct, to which he scrupulously adhered. The same as Nichols he had determined not to vote for Delazon Smith, Grover or Judge Williams. The two could have much profited in pocket, had they bent to the pressure of the occasion, but they resisted every proposition to such effect and maintained their integrity unsullied.
    The contest between Stout and Logan continued to the close of the campaign. In the counties of Marion and Polk, in which Grover had strong following, partisan spirit ran wild. I had been canvassing in aid of Stout through Clackamas, Lafayette and the northern portion of Marion--French Prairie and Champoeg--and on the day of election stopped in Salem to vote. Herman Leonard, of Portland, was visiting the capital. In the morning we went together to the courthouse polls to vote. Over the main doorway, just in front of the polls, was stretched a long and broad canvas strip, with the words printed upon it in large letters, "Don't Vote for the California Bummer." This was intended for Judge Stout, whom the clique party in Multnomah had the year before elected county judge. The outrageous thing was denounced by us, but we were derided by a crowd of bystanders, who were encouraged in their disgraceful conduct by Sam. E. May, who had been a Know-Nothing leader and was at that time in the service of this clique. After voting I drove from Salem to Portland that day, and all along the road I met parties engaged in electioneering, nearly all of them Democrats, and the greater part of them active in Logan's interest.
    It was before the period of railroads and telegraphs in Oregon. There was not even a stage line in the state. Weekly mail service between Jacksonville and Salem was performed with a common wagon, and between Portland and Salem the mails were carried tri-weekly by the river steamers. Mails from and to California and the East were carried by the ocean steamers semi-monthly. Between Salem and the coast counties--Tillamook, Coos and Curry--and the ocean settlements of Umpqua and Douglas were semi-occasionally and uncertain. As the returns came to Portland from the counties of the Willamette, from the west-side counties, from Clatsop and Columbia, from Wasco, and from the counties of the Umpqua and Rogue River, the impression became stronger that Logan had carried the state by a considerable majority. In the first state election, 1858, the vote of Marion for Congressman was for Grover 827; for Kelly 408. Now it stood for Logan 1026; for Stout 296; in Polk 1858 for Grover 362; for Kelly 273. Linn County did better for the Democratic candidate. It had given, in 1858, 784 for Grover; for Kelly 257; it gave Stout 723; Logan 602. Multnomah had voted Grover 396; Kelly 543; it gave Stout 434; Logan 563. Jackson County had voted Grover 628; Kelly 243; it voted Stout 603; Logan 218. For the two weeks after the election the Democrats generally conceded the election to Logan. Then came returns which changed the complexion of the count. The chances appeared in favor of Stout. The reported figures made his majority sixteen. The official count, in due time, proved it to be only nine. Still, it was a majority, and it was for Stout. Logan's friends urged him to contest the election. Some of the clique leaders were still more eager that he should do so. The Congress of 1857 was composed of 237 members, of whom only ninety-three were administration Democrats, and Stout was of this order. A contest by Logan, with the meager majority conceded to Stout, would undoubtedly have secured the seat to Logan, but he positively refused to make the contest. He protested that Stout had been fairly elected and justly entitled to the seat. From this determination David Logan could not be moved. Judge Stout went to Washington, took his seat and served his full term.
    Judge Stout made a faithful and excellent representative for the people of Oregon. He vigorously pressed to accomplishment the measure to establish a daily mail, by stages, between Sacramento and Portland. The contract was awarded to the California Stage company, at the low rate of $90,000 a year. The entire distance of about 700 miles was stocked the same year, and the stages regularly preformed the daily service, with four-horse and six-horse teams.
    The campaign of 1859 caused bitter animosities, and these were perpetuated in the virulent attacks and acrimonious exchanges between leaders and organs on each side of the divided Democracy. The Portland Standard had ceased publication in the summer of 1859. In the early fall of that year I became half owner of the Jacksonville Sentinel and took editorial charge. It was the only paper south of Corvallis. The Herald had succumbed and Beggs had taken a place as writer for the Salem Statesman. Vile attack and fondness for scurrility were inseparable from his depraved nature. As one who lingers in a soap factory to feast upon the smell, he dabbled in all manner of nastiness to win the most reeking rank of the "Oregon style." In Harvey Gordon he found a fellow of infinite jest like himself. The two would have preferred the sewers of Paris to the boulevards. Delazon Smith had started his personal organ at Albany. It was not a newspaper. It was Delazon's own, and he had his gentle Shepherd, who had been a violent Know-Nothing in California. It was a weekly, and every week it fumed and spurted its volcanic discharges. The readers of that period, in whose callow adolescence was molded the bent of nature by basest models, can ever plead the infant act if reproached for their fancy for yellow-covered literature and the vicious publications of the day. It was between the two chief Democratic organs, at Salem and at Albany, a duel of the stench of the Chinese pots of war. Tom Dryer changed the tone of his Oregonian. It was conducted as a newspaper and a vigorous Republican organ. He could well be content with non-interference in the fight of the Democratic organs, to the profit of his own party. The Portland Times, with A. C. Russell as editor, made little stir in the scathing cauldron of angry Democratic crimination and recrimination--without much care as to discrimination. Any head that bobbed up received a sharp rap. The Jacksonville Sentinel held aloof from the disagreeable encounter.
    In November 1859 the Democratic state convention was called to meet at Eugene to appoint these delegates and three alternates to the national Democratic convention at Charleston, April 10, 1860. In the order for the call for the primaries to elect county delegates, the state central committee made the apportionment with the vote cast for Stout in the June election. This was protested against by the clique Democrats, who insisted upon the basis of the vote for Whiteaker for Governor in 1858. Accordingly, the Democrats of Marion, Polk and a few other counties of the clique wing held county conventions and elected delegates to the state convention on that basis. This basis would give control of the convention to the wing which had endeavored to defeat Stout, and entirely ignore the nationals of 1858, who had helped greatly in the election of Stout. The faithful Democrats held the control of the state committee and of the state convention. They refused to accede to the demand of the clique Democrats. Upon this the latter, headed by Grover, seceded from the convention and organized a separate convention. Grover offered a resolution to the effect that the seceders would not appoint delegates to the national convention, but pledged themselves to support the nominees of that body to meet at Charleston. Among the seceders, besides Grover, were John Smith, of Linn; Ralph C. Geer, of Marion; Cyrus Olney, of Clatsop; A. D. Babcock, of Polk; H. S. Hadley, of Lane; J. W. Drew, Umpqua; Vic Travitt, of Wasco; W. McMillan, of Multnomah; J. C. Powell, of Benton; Peter Ruffner, of Curry; D. S. Holton, of Josephine; D. M. Jassee, of Yamhill.
    The regular convention, Colonel W. W. Chapman, chairman, appointed General Lane, Lansing Stout and Judge Deady as delegates to the Charleston National Convention; General J. K. Lamerick, General John Adair and John F. Miller as alternates. The action of the convention and the conduct of Grover and his fellow seceders were as the wider splitting of the Democratic trunk, the deeper driving of the shifting wedge. The strife between the contestants increased in vehemence and deepened into irreconcilability.
    General Lane and Judge Stout were in Washington and sent to Oregon word that they would attend the convention. Judge Deady declined to go--his judicial duties prevented his going. General Lamerick was his alternate. He had resolved to go. On Saturday afternoon, February 3, in Jacksonville, while seated on a sofa in the room of a dwelling room occupied by a man named Berry and his wife, Lamerick was shot by the infuriated husband, who had suddenly entered the room, pistol in hand, with deadly intent. It was a navy-size Colt's revolver. The ball entered near the inside of Lamerick's left eye, close to the nose, penetrated the head and made exit just behind the lower part of the right ear. It was thought he was killed, but he was living and able to talk. He was taken to a convenient room over John Hillman's saloon and surgeons Brooks and Thompson quickly attended him. His face was terribly powder-burned, but it was found that his sight was not destroyed in either eye. Almost his first words, after the surgeons had dresses the fearful wound, were: "See here; I am going to Charleston to that convention." Dr. Thompson humored him with "Yes, yes," in response. Actually the surgeons expected a fatal result. They feared hemorrhage and that meant death. During the night Lamerick asked for a drink of water. Dr. Brooks said to him water was likely to cause hemorrhage, and intimated to him the probable consequence; it would cause him to cough and coughing would provoke hemorrhage. He was refused the water. Soon he began to slightly cough. The surgeons besought him to cease it if possible. His response was, "You won't give me a drink of water, and I'll cough until I get a drink." The water was given him--a teaspoonful. It had good effect, he coughed no more and no hemorrhage followed. The night was passed better than the surgeons had expected. But the next morning I was called from home by a messenger dispatched in haste by Dr. Brooks. On going to the room he whispered to me that death was imminent, and it would be advisable to speak to Lamerick in relation to the disposition of his property. A cloth saturated with soothing liquid covered his eyes as he rested in bed. I asked: "Do you know me, Lamerick?" Quick and characteristic came the response: "Know you? Hell, yes; you're O'Meara." I spoke cheeringly and encouraging as I could, but went on to remark as to his condition and the probable consequence. He replied: "O, hell, I'm going to the Charleston convention, to be there in time. Now, one thing; I don't want to have Berry put in trouble for shooting me; bear that in mind." He told me of his different pieces of property, in land and lots, in various places, and wished them to go to his brother in Philadelphia in the event of his death, giving the brother's address. Last I asked him with reference to the services of a clergyman, of which denomination, should the worst befall. His response to this was: "Well, come to think that over, the fact is that since I was a boy I've never had much to do with the clergy, and to call them in now would be sort of cowardly and hypocritical; don't you think so?" I made brief reply, and the subject was discontinued. The occasion for a clergyman happily did not occur; Lamerick recovered. The last Saturday of March I rode with him on the outside front seat of the stage, alongside of the driver, from Jacksonville to Yreka; we remained there Sunday, and early Monday morning I saw him off by stage for Sacramento. In a few days I got a letter from him at San Francisco. He had called on Dr. Cooper, a noted surgeon of his time, who expressed his astonishment at Lamerick's recovery from such a wound. Again he wrote to me, from Charleston, April 14. He had reached there in time for the convention sure enough. A few weeks afterward he sent to me, from Nashville, sprigs from the hickory trees of the Hermitage, and a few of the hickory nuts from the favorite trees of the venerated warrior-sage, whose memory Lamerick worshiped. He had made the visit as the devoted Mohammedan makes the pilgrimage to Mecca. General Lamerick joined the Confederate army early in the war, and was killed in one of the desperate engagements. [Lamerick survived the war.] Judge Stout went from Washington to the convention. General Lane remained in Washington. On his return to Oregon, years afterwards, in Portland, Judge Stout told me an interesting incident of the Charleston convention. On the grave trouble, just before the final disastrous division and adjournment, when it became apparent that neither Breckinridge nor Douglas would be nominated, a movement was broached to harmonize the two factions by nominating General Lane. It appeared to meet favor on both sides. The nomination was likely to be made the following day. That evening Stout received the memorable telegram from General Lane at Washington: "Go out, and stand!" Stout did not reveal the dispatch to anyone. But a leak in the telegraph office had made it known to some of the friends of Douglas. Stout was interrogated. He could no longer conceal the fact. That settled the matter. General Lane had prevented his own nomination for President by the indiscretion of that dispatch. His nomination at Charleston at the time would have prevented the fatal split in the Democratic Party. Lane would undoubtedly have been elected. The fortune of the whole country would have been changed. There would have been no secession of states; no colossal internecine civil war. The destiny of the Union was involved in that brief dispatch. It is a momentous matter to contemplate; a tremendous theme to dwell upon. I have no disposition at this day, in view of the mighty events which have occurred, and the present splendid condition of the country, in this advanced Union of added states, with greater power to the Pacific side and greater glory to the Republic, to indulge in the fruitless contemplation. I simply repeat the statement of Lansing Stout, whose word was never successfully questioned. The Oregon of today and the magnificent Northwest of the period, with the sublime promise of both, are ample to command the deepest study and engage the greatest efforts of the profoundest statesman of the age.

    California, and indeed, the whole Fourth Estate, sustains a loss in the death of James O'Meara, one of the ablest of the western journalists, who died not long since at Santa Rosa. He was an honest man, with the courage of his convictions. On the old Examiner, under Phil Roach, he wrote editorials on almost every public question, which were quoted by the independent press of the whole country and were recognized as "authority." Aside from editorial work, he was a contributor to many leading periodicals. He was a kindly, lovable man, who made many friends and kept them.
Duluth News-Tribune, Minnesota, February 16, 1903, page 4


    A pioneer newspaper of Oregon was the Jacksonville Sentinel. It was started in the early '50s [the first issue was on November 14, 1855], and had a career of about 25 years. W. G. T'Vault, an original character in the early history of Oregon, was its first editor. B. F. Dowell was [for a] long time its editor and publisher. For a number of years D. M. C. Gault, now editor of the Hillsboro Independent and member of the Legislature for Washington County, directed it. It ceased publication a good many years ago, but there is a new Jacksonville Sentinel, started recently by Charles Meserve. It is a local weekly, carried proofs of industry, and revives memories of the old Jacksonville Sentinel.
    The above from the Oregonian tells a part of the story but not all, and as some think not the most important. In 1860 the Sentinel was a semiweekly published by Henry Denlinger and edited by Jas. O'Meara. At this time the paper was strong, considered the equal of any in the state, or if it was surpassed then [it was by] the Statesman at Salem published and edited by A. Bush and a little later by Gordon. O'Meara quarreled with Denlinger and assaulted him with a pistol. The latter wrested the gun from his assailant who then ran. Denlinger snapped the pistol at short range. Before he could get ready to shoot again, O'Meara was some feet away, but the shot striking the fleeing man in the buttock, the incident was the cause of much comment and merriment at the time throughout the state. This closed O'Meara's career in Oregon for many years. He was succeeded by Orange Jacobs, then a young attorney in Jacksonville, who was a finished writer. Afterward in 1864 Jacobs was a Lincoln presidential elector. He received the appointment of [the] Chief Justice of the Washington Territorial Supreme Court. He is now a resident of Seattle. Jacobs is an uncle of Homer Davenport, the cartoonist. About the time of Jacobs' connection with the Sentinel the methods of the newspaper making in Oregon changed. The telegraph wire was strung from Sacramento to Portland in 1862. Associated Press dispatches were used, but the expense was so great that the little county paper at Jacksonville could not bear it. The active reporters who used the mail and Beekman's Express were too slow. The Sentinel was no longer a guard at the front but had to take its place at the foot of the class. Dowell, its proprietor, was a lawyer and not a newspaper man. But it would have made no difference. Bennett himself could not have maintained the Sentinel under such adverse conditions
Hillsboro Independent, June 19, 1903, page 3


    It is largely owing to the disregard of shorthand reporting that the American newspaper press has developed so many facile writers, who have a style of their own and who have made their mark in literature. . . . The work of this school compares more than favorably with that of James O'Meara, an editor of pioneer days, who continued his career down to the close of the nineteenth century, who did not aim at brilliancy but enjoyed the reputation of carefulness and accuracy.
San Francisco Chronicle, January 16, 1915, page 47