writing.... I rather cultivated the tendency during my farm life. Indeed, I found it the only diversion from really hard work, and without some mental rest or occupation to vary the daily grind of farm labor, the life one leads there is not so different from that of the horses one drives every day and for whose physical necessities he provides. The man whose occupation requires all his daylight hours and whose duties call for the constant bending of the back, the crooking of the elbows and straining of the arms, really leads a life which differs so little outwardly from that of the work-mule that the distinction is hardly worth considering....
So, as I have intimated, I found some relaxation after the daily routine ... in spending my evenings writing for the newspapers. Often, while plowing, I have thought of the substance of an article for publication and, having constructed and reconstructed a sentence until I was satisfied with its arrangement, have stopped the team and, sitting on the plow beam, jotted it down on a paper which I carried with me for that purpose. This process would be repeated many times, then late some evening, while the family slept, would devote two or three hours to the actual writing of the letter.
He served as governor of Oregon from 1899 to 1903, being elected by a large majority. His first wife had been an invalid for ten years, and in 1898, the year of his nomination, she died. In 1900, while he was governor, he was married to Isabelle Trullinger of Astoria.
After his term of governor, his ability to write, which had been so important a factor in his political elevation, provided him with a profession. In 1903 he became editor of the Salem Statesman and in 1905 he purchased the Pendleton Tribune. Three years later he moved to Portland, spending much of his later life developing his real estate properties. At the time of his death, on February 21,1924, at the age of 73, he was bailiff of the Multnomah County jury.
From March 12 to August 8, 1911, a period of five months, he wrote Fifty Years in Oregon, a book of approximately 200,000 words, including the quoted matter. In a sub-title he called it "Experiences, Observations, and Commentaries upon Men, Measures, and Customs in Pioneer Days and Later Times." It was published in 1912 by The Neale Publishing Company, New York. It has humor and wisdom and a fresh and original style that have given it a
