Time does not permit reference to many other details of interest; suffice it to say that the journal had a fitful existence until the date of suspension in March, 1855, having been edited by seven different persons, and its mechanical department operated by nine different printers. It is likely there were others, but no trace of them can be found. The salary of the first editor, an attorney named W. G. T'Vault, was at the rate of $300.00 per year. He was a native of Kentucky and was reported to have had some experience as an editor in Tennessee before coming to Oregon. His services were dispensed with at the end of two months.
Out of the twenty-two persons whose names appear upon the tablet I have had a personal acquaintance with thirteen, the first of them being T. F. McElroy, who was associated with James W. Wiley in publishing the Columbian, the first newspaper north of the Columbia river, the first issue of which was on September 11, 1852, at Olympia at the head of Puget Sound. He was master of the first Masonic lodge in Washington Olympia No. 1, in 1853, and officiated at the funeral of James McAllister, a member of his lodge, who was killed by Indians on October 28, 1855, at the beginning of the Yakima Indian war which lasted a year, and was a neighbor of my father's family. Acquaintance with George B. Goudy began soon afterwards, as he was a captain of volunteers during that Indian war. Both men became prominent in public affairs in the early days of Washington Territory.
Other members of The Spectator family achieved considerable distinction, notably James W. Nesmith, as supreme judge of the Provisional Government, volunteer soldier, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, United States Senator, and member of the House of Representatives; George Law Curry, as secretary of Oregon Territory and the last territorial governor; Wilson Blain, as a minister and educator; Aaron E. Wait, as a lawyer and circuit judge; D. J. Schneby, as a newspaper man at Ellensburg, eastern Washington.
My association with the men mentioned, together with a
