first newspaper. Named after Thomas Jefferson, he was born in Canandaigua county, N. Y., January 10, 1808, the second of twelve children born to Aaron and Lucinda Dryer. His mother died August 9, 1820, after the family had moved to Ohio. After three years or so in a family ruled by a step-mother, young Dryer, now 17 years old, returned to his childhood home, where he remained for 16 years. In 1841, after having made some money on a mail-carrying contract, he went west again, spending some time in Michigan and Indiana. He had had some newspaper experience when, starting from St. Louis, he joined the gold rush to California in 1849. It was the next year when he was "discovered" by Chapman and Coffin as the man they wanted to start Portland's first newspaper.
The opinions of his distinguished successors regarding Dryer as publisher and as editor, respectively, may be here given. In passing, let it be said that doubtless the greatest thing T. J. Dryer ever did for the Oregonian was to hire Henry L. Pittock, using him first as printer and later as manager, and eventually to turn the paper over to him. Getting ahead of our story a bit, we may say, briefly, that Pittock unquestionably saved the Oregonian from going the way of so many papers managed by men of slipshod business methods. Dryer "didn't like the business end," wrote Mr. Pittock many years "Well, if that man says he paid, give him credit for later[1] it'," is Pittock's recollection of a typical statement of the careless and easy-going man who had employed him. "Mr. Dryer," he said[2] "was entirely indifferent to income and outgo. He simply could not bring himself to pay attention to details. . . This was, indeed, the weak spot in all the journalism of those days, and he was no exception to the rule." This weakness of Dryer's was Pittock's opportunity to begin the career of nearly 60 years as the directing business force behind the Oregonian, as Harvey W. Scott was the mainspring of its editorial strength.
Harvey W. Scott's opinion of Mr. Dryer: "He had worked on the country press in his state and was a vigorous rather than a polished writer." This opinion was amplified in the Oregonian's editorial columns (probably by Mr. Scott) in comment on the news paper's first editor at the time of death, March 30, 1879. The Oregonian then said:
Mr. Dryer's activity and energy, exerted through the Oregonian, upon the speaker's platform, and through deliberative bodies, made him a conspicuous figure in Oregon for many years. Always an active worker and a vigorous antagonist, he nevertheless so conducted himself that his con tests left no bitterness toward himself. . . During the years of his active participation in affairs, no man in Oregon commanded a larger share of public attention.
