A Party Press? Not Just Yet! Political Publishing on the Frontier

NOTES

• Four situations — (1) governmental need for the publication of laws, (2) a literate population desirous of reading matter, (3) printers with excess production capacity, and (4) politics — are offered as reasons for the start of frontier newspapers by William H. Lyon, The Pioneer Editor in Missouri, 1808–1860 (Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 1965). Oliver Knight adds a fifth, boosterism, in his review of Lyon's book, Journalism Quarterly 42 (Summer 1965): 478–79.
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• The better frontier press histories, such as Lyon, The Pioneer Editor in Missouri, George S. Hage, Newspapers on the Minnesota Frontier (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1967), and Porter S. Stratton, The Territorial Press of New Mexico, 1834–1912 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1969) frequently describe political circumstances under which individual newspapers were started but are not concerned with seeking patterns of origins.
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• Lyon, passim.
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• Conditions relating to the establishment of the first newspapers in Washington Territory towns are examined in the author's Ph.D. dissertation, “Start the Presses: The Birth of Journalism in Washington Territory,” University of Washington, 1979.
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• Puget Sound Herald (Steilacoom), March 12, 1858. Prosch was not the first editor in Steilacoom, but his Herald was the only newspaper in town when it was started.
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• Charles Prosch, “The Press of Washington Territory,” in Annual Proceedings of the Washington Press Association, 1889 (Hoquiam, Wash.: Washington Steam Book, News and Job Print, 1891), p. 36; Meany Pioneer File, Northwest Collection, University of Washington Library, Seattle.
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• Agreement between Thomas J. Dryer and Olympia area residents, July 8, 1852. Thornton F. McElroy papers, Manuscripts Division, University of Washington Library.
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• Wiley and his friends first changed the newspaper's name to Washington Pioneer, but two months later called it the Pioneer and Democrat, the name by which it is best known in Washington history. Thomas J. Dryer to Thornton F. McElroy, Sept. 26, 1853; Washington Pioneer (Olympia), Dec. 3, 1853.
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• Charles Prosch, Reminiscences of Washington Territory (Seattle, 1904), p. 7; Puget Sound Courier (Steilacoom), May 19, 1855; Puget Sound Herald (Steilacoom), March 12, 1858.
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• Washington Republican (Steilacoom), April 3, July 24, 1857.
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• Washington Standard (Olympia), Nov. 17, 1860.
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• Willis A. Katz covers the public printing controversies in detail in “Public Printers of Washington Territory, 1853–1863 “and “1863-1889,” Pacific Northwest Quarterly 51 (July, 1960): 103-14; (October, 1960): 171–81.
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• Hubert Howe Bancroft, The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, 26: 378; North-West (Port Townsend) and Port Townsend Register, issues for 1860 and 1861.
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• Edmond S. Meany, Newspapers of Washington Territory (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1923); Bancroft, History of Washington, Idaho and Montana (San Francisco: The History Publishers, 1890), p. 309fn; Democratic Press (Port Townsend), issues of 1877–1878.
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• Frank T. Gilbert, Historic Sketches of Walla Walla, Whitman, Columbia and Garfield Counties, Washington Territory (Portland: A. G. Walling, 1882), pp. 352–53.
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• Walla Walla Union, May 22, 1869; Gilbert, p. 356.
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• Gilbert, pp. 392–93.
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• Dayton News, Dec. 16, 1876; Columbia Chronicle (Dayton), April 20, May 18, Sept. 7, 1878.
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• Meany, p. 8; Gilbert, p. 367; Cheney Sentinel, April 13, 1882.
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• Walla Walla Democrat, Dec. 9, 1882.
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• Washington Independent (Pomeroy), Aug. 12, 1880; Gilbert, pp. 363–64; Pomeroy Republican, Aug. 5, 1882.
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• Seattle Gazette, issues for 1863; Puget Sound Daily (Seattle), April 23, 1866; Puget Sound Weekly Gazette (Seattle), March-June, 1867; Weekly Intelligencer (Seattle), Aug. 5, 1867.
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• Law and Order (Seattle), July 13, 1881; Seattle Herald, July 7, 1882.
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• Porter A. Stratton, The Territorial Press of New Mexico, 1834–1912 p. 199.
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• Vernon R. Frost, “The Political Adolescence of Washington State,” (M.A. thesis, University of Washington, 1949), p. 16. See also John Cameron Sim, The Grass Roots Press (Ames, Iowa: The Iowa State University Press, 1969), p. 39.
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• Katz, p. 105, suggests that political expediency was more common among Washington editors than strong convictions, but this appears too harsh a judgment.
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• Washington Democrat (Olympia), July 15, 1865.
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• Prosch, “The Press of Washington Territory,” p.25; Transcript (Olympia), Nov. 11, 1867. Details of the intra-party warfare are recounted by Ronald R. Marsh, “The Republican Party of Washington Territory: 1867–1872,” (M.A. thesis, University of Washington, 1967).
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• Territorial Republican (Olympia), Aug. 10, 1868.
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• Clarence Bagley to Suzannah Bagley, April 13, 1867. Clarence Bagley papers, Manuscripts Division, University of Washington Library.
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• Clarence Bagley to Daniel Bagley, Aug. 8, 1869, Bagley papers.
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• Legal documents, Dec. 13, 1869. Bagley papers.
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• Daniel Bagley to Clarence Bagley, quoted in Marsh, p. 64.
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• Selucius Garfielde to Clarence Bagley, Jan. 10, 1870. Bagley papers.
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• Marsh, p.42.
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• Selucius Garfielde to Clarence Bagley, March 28, 1873. Bagley papers.
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• Garfielde to Clarence Bagley, June 9, 1873. Bagley papers.
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• Puget Sound Courier (Steilacoom), May 19, 1855.
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• Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1953), I: 187–88.
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