Not one, but all mankind's epitome!
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong.
Everything by starts, and nothing long."
He had an ambition to be an editor, and did conduct several newspaper enterprises, which were more entertaining to his fellow craftsmen even than to his patrons. Punctuation of his editorials was one of his strong points. And in a brilliant description of a gorgeous sunset in Rogue River valley, he attempted to tell his readers that he was seated on the hill back of the old town of Jacksonville, and made the opening sentence read: "Seated on the eminence of an evening, etc." All his exchanges copied the line with ribald remarks about "Eminence of that evening," but fortunate for the comfort of Oregon's first and last postmaster-general, he did not see what the boys were laughing about.
At the next annual session of the legislature, commenced and held at Oregon City, December 1, 1846, we get hold of the first governor's message to any legislature west of the Rocky mountains. George Abernethy whose portrait appears on another page, had been elected governor at the previous election. We give below the proceedings introducing the message and the document itself:
"The speaker announced a communication from the governor. The reading of the communication was called for, when Mr. Newell moved that the secretary of the territory read the communication. The speaker decided the motion out oi order; whereupon Mr. Newell appealed from the decision of the chair. The house sustained the decision of the speaker. Mr. Newell moved that the rules be suspended. Mr. T'Vault demanded the yeas and nays, which were as follows: Ayes—Messrs. Chamberlain, Looney, McDonald, Newell, Peers, Straight, and Tolmie, 7. Nays—Messrs. Hall, Hembree, Lownsdale, Meek, Summers, T'Vault and Mr. Speaker, 7. So the rules were not suspended.
The communication from the governor was then read as follows:
"To the Honorable the Legislative Assembly of Oregon,
Fellow Citizens: The duty of addressing you at the opening of your session, again presents itself.
The duty of legislating, for the welfare and happiness of the community, again devolves on you.
May we be guided and directed by that wisdom which never errs.
The boundary question—a question of great importance to us as a people — there is every reason to believe, is finally settled. The following is an extract from the Polynesian, a paper published at the Sandwich Islands, of the 29th August last: —
'The senate ratified the treaty upon the Oregon question, by a vote of 41 to 14.'
This the Polynesian credits to the New York Gazette, and Times, of the loth of June; showing that a treaty had been entered into, and probably concluded, between the two governments. The provisions of the treaty are not yet known to us in Oregon, farther than what v,-e can gather from the letter of Mr. Geo, Seymour, the British commander-in-chief in the Pacific, to the agent of the Hudson Bay Company at the Sandwich Islands, being an extract of a private letter from A. Forbes, Esq., consul at Tepic, to Geo. Seymour:
'I send you an American newspaper, which Mr. Bankhead has requested may be forwarded to you, and which shows that the Oregon question is entirely settled; the 49th degree is to run on to the Straits of Fuca; the whole Island of Vancouver being left in possession of England; and the said Straits of Fuca, Puget's Sound, &c., remaining free to both parties. The Columbia river is also to remain free to both parties, until the expiration of the charter of the Hudson's Bay Company,
