Henry Pittock
Encyclopedia
Henry Lewis Pittock was an Oregon
(U.S.
) pioneer, newspaper editor, publisher, and wood and paper magnate. He was active in Republican politics and Portland, Oregon
civic affairs, a Freemason and an avid outdoorsman and adventurer. He is frequently referred to as the founder of The Oregonian
, although it was an existing weekly before he reestablished it as the state's preeminent daily newspaper.
, the son of Frederick and Susanna Bonner Pittock, Henry grew up from the age of four in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
, where his father had moved the family and established a printing business. The third of eight children, he attended public schools and apprenticed in his father's print shop from the age of twelve. He left home at seventeen with his brother, Robert, and inspired by frontier adventure stories, joined two other families to emigrate to the West. He is reported to have made most of the journey barefoot.
Pittock arrived destitute in the Oregon Territory in October, 1853, and was rebuffed in his attempts to become a printer for the Oregon Spectator
in Oregon City
, the first and largest newspaper published in the territory. Declining the only job he had been offered, that of a bartender, he found work as a typesetter for Thomas J. Dryer
, founding editor and publisher of the weekly Oregonian in Portland, who provided him room and board as his only remuneration. The accommodations were meager, consisting of a space below the front counter where Pittock could spread some blankets.
After six months on that basis, he was granted a salary of $900 a year. Over the next six years, Pittock was receiving a growing partnership interest in the paper in lieu of a salary. Dryer, paying more attention to politics than his business, was frequently unable to pay. Pittock assumed the duties of manager and editor of the newspaper.
An avid outdoorsman and adventurer, Pittock is credited to have been the first to ascend the summit of Mount Hood
, on July 11, 1857, although his employer, Dryer, made a disputed prior claim.
Pittock married Georgiana Martin Burton, the daughter of a flour mill owner, in 1860. The couple had five children and lived in a small house on a block of land now known as the "Pittock Block" that he purchased for $300 in 1856.
In 1861, the newly elected President Lincoln
rewarded Dryer for his work on the campaign in Oregon with a political appointment in the new administration.
Dryer turned over the debt-ridden Oregonian to Pittock as compensation for remaining unpaid salary and agreement to assume the paper's sizable financial obligations. Pittock began daily publication of the Morning Oregonian on February 4, 1861 on a new steam-powered press he had purchased for the expanded enterprise. Competition with the three other daily newspapers in Portland was fierce, and at least two of the rivals, the Times and the Advertiser appeared to have a better chance of success than the Oregonian.
To gain an edge, Pittock organized at considerable cost an elaborate system to obtain news about the Civil War ahead of his competitors. The nearest existing telegraph line ended in Yreka, California
, so Pittock arranged for pony express
and stagecoach
relay of wire dispatches which arrived in Portland days ahead of news in rival papers who relied on reports to arrive by steamer from San Francisco.
Both the telegraph and Pittock's competitiveness would play a part a few years later when President Lincoln was assassinated in a story related by the son of the Western Union telegraph operator in an oral history recorded by the Federal Writers Project. The telegrapher had been befriended by Pittock, and when news came across the wire of the assassination, the young man concealed it from the other papers until The Oregonian had published the news as a scoop
.
Pittock addressed the fiscal problems of the paper by requiring cash payment for subscriptions, and implemented a vigorous collection effort for accounts Dryer had allowed to become delinquent. Ultimately, Pittock not only was able to bring stability to The Oregonian, but dominance in the Portland newspaper market. He was quick to invest heavily in new equipment and production procedures to stay ahead of the competition, sometimes dangerously stretching available capital.
Longtime Oregonian editor Harvey W. Scott
claimed Pittock had promised him a half interest in The Oregonian in 1877, only to learn later that it went instead to wealthy U.S. Senator Henry Winslow Corbett for a much needed infusion of cash. Scott would ultimately purchase shares in the paper, and had a long intermittent tenure on its staff, leaving for a time to work for the rival Portland Bulletin. Although they were able to maintain a working relationship afterward, it was forever strained by what Scott viewed as a serious betrayal. The bitterness would extend for generations between the two men's heirs, occasionally exhibiting itself in management disputes at the paper.
It was one of several famous Pittock feuds. Another involved onetime Oregonian employee, and later City councilman, Will H. Daly
. Long a political nemesis, Daly enraged Pittock by implicating him in a scheme to provide a water service to his palatial home at considerable taxpayer expense. Although the resulting scandal soon died down, Pittock continued relentlessly to discredit Daly, and ultimately succeeded in ending his political career, branding him as a socialist, through publication of documents obtained by burglary.
In 1866 he was a partner in the first paper mill in the Northwest, at Oregon City, and later a second mill there and another at Camas, Washington
. The Columbia River Paper Co. was formed by Pittock and Joseph K. Gill
in 1884 to build the Camas facility. The mills supplied newsprint to The Oregonian and the Portland Evening Telegram Pittock established in 1877 and, the expanded and widely distributed Sunday Oregonian. Beginning in 1884 new presses were bought that raised printing capacity to 12,000 copies an hour and, later, to 24,000 copies an hour. The paper mills would grow into a thriving company, eventually becoming part of the giant Georgia Pacific company.
The Telegram Building
in Portland is one of the city's two remaining historic newspaper buildings.
Pittock's business interests would soon grow to include investments in Portland banks, real estate, transportation, and logging and lumbering. In 1909 he began construction of a 22-room Renaissance revival mansion on forty-six acres of woodland, now a public-owned landmark known as the Pittock Mansion
. The "Pittock block," still extant in downtown Portland, where he and his family had lived since 1856, had become valuable downtown property, and he leased it in 1912 for more than $8.3 million. The Northwestern Bank Building, at the corner of 6th and Morrison streets in Portland, was headquarters to the institution he founded with his son-in-law and paper mill partner, Frederick Leadbetter
,
and now houses a Wells Fargo Bank branch, and twelve stories of commercial offices. He served as its president until his death, and it survived him until it fell to a bank run in 1927.
Pittock continued to manage his newspaper, maintaining long hours in his office until days before his death in Portland. Stricken with grippe, he is reported to have had himself carried to an east bay window of his mansion, to look once more at the vista across the city where he had made and broken careers, and amassed a fortune. The next night, January 28, 1919, he died leaving the largest estate which had yet been probated in Oregon, valued at $7,894,778.33. Pittock was buried at River View Cemetery
in Portland.
Unwilling to yield control of his newspaper even in death, he had provided in his will for a majority of the shares of The Oregonian stock to be held by two trustees, with "full and complete authority" to run the paper for 20 years. On dissolution of the trust, its shares were divided amongst Pittock's heirs, and for a time was managed by a board of two representatives of the Pittock family, and one representing the Scotts.
The arrangement eventually gave way to the Oregonian, "crown jewel" of the Pittock empire, being sold to a succession of national newspaper chains.
Pittock was among the first inductees in the Oregon Newspaper Hall of Fame at the same time as his longtime editor, Harvey W. Scott, when it was established in 1979.
Oregon
Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern...
(U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
) pioneer, newspaper editor, publisher, and wood and paper magnate. He was active in Republican politics and Portland, Oregon
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
civic affairs, a Freemason and an avid outdoorsman and adventurer. He is frequently referred to as the founder of The Oregonian
The Oregonian
The Oregonian is the major daily newspaper in Portland, Oregon, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 1850...
, although it was an existing weekly before he reestablished it as the state's preeminent daily newspaper.
Early life and education
Born in EnglandEngland
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, the son of Frederick and Susanna Bonner Pittock, Henry grew up from the age of four in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...
, where his father had moved the family and established a printing business. The third of eight children, he attended public schools and apprenticed in his father's print shop from the age of twelve. He left home at seventeen with his brother, Robert, and inspired by frontier adventure stories, joined two other families to emigrate to the West. He is reported to have made most of the journey barefoot.
Pittock arrived destitute in the Oregon Territory in October, 1853, and was rebuffed in his attempts to become a printer for the Oregon Spectator
Oregon Spectator
The Oregon Spectator, was a newspaper published from 1846 to 1855 in Oregon City of what was first the Oregon Country and later the Oregon Territory of the United States. The Spectator was the first American newspaper to be published west of the Rocky Mountains and was the main paper of the region...
in Oregon City
Oregon City, Oregon
Oregon City was the first city in the United States west of the Rocky Mountains to be incorporated. It is the county seat of Clackamas County, Oregon...
, the first and largest newspaper published in the territory. Declining the only job he had been offered, that of a bartender, he found work as a typesetter for Thomas J. Dryer
Thomas J. Dryer
Thomas Jefferson Dryer was a newspaper publisher, Freemason, mountain climber, and politician in the Western United States.He was born on January 10, 1808, in Ulster County, New York. Dryer founded the Weekly Oregonian, which has survived as the daily Oregonian, and served as its publisher...
, founding editor and publisher of the weekly Oregonian in Portland, who provided him room and board as his only remuneration. The accommodations were meager, consisting of a space below the front counter where Pittock could spread some blankets.
After six months on that basis, he was granted a salary of $900 a year. Over the next six years, Pittock was receiving a growing partnership interest in the paper in lieu of a salary. Dryer, paying more attention to politics than his business, was frequently unable to pay. Pittock assumed the duties of manager and editor of the newspaper.
An avid outdoorsman and adventurer, Pittock is credited to have been the first to ascend the summit of Mount Hood
Mount Hood
Mount Hood, called Wy'east by the Multnomah tribe, is a stratovolcano in the Cascade Volcanic Arc of northern Oregon. It was formed by a subduction zone and rests in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States...
, on July 11, 1857, although his employer, Dryer, made a disputed prior claim.
Pittock married Georgiana Martin Burton, the daughter of a flour mill owner, in 1860. The couple had five children and lived in a small house on a block of land now known as the "Pittock Block" that he purchased for $300 in 1856.
Oregonian publisher and editor
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States, serving from March 1861 until his assassination in April 1865. He successfully led his country through a great constitutional, military and moral crisis – the American Civil War – preserving the Union, while ending slavery, and...
rewarded Dryer for his work on the campaign in Oregon with a political appointment in the new administration.
Dryer turned over the debt-ridden Oregonian to Pittock as compensation for remaining unpaid salary and agreement to assume the paper's sizable financial obligations. Pittock began daily publication of the Morning Oregonian on February 4, 1861 on a new steam-powered press he had purchased for the expanded enterprise. Competition with the three other daily newspapers in Portland was fierce, and at least two of the rivals, the Times and the Advertiser appeared to have a better chance of success than the Oregonian.
To gain an edge, Pittock organized at considerable cost an elaborate system to obtain news about the Civil War ahead of his competitors. The nearest existing telegraph line ended in Yreka, California
Yreka, California
Yreka is the county seat of Siskiyou County, California, United States. The population was 7,765 at the 2010 census, up from 7,290 at the 2000 census.- History:...
, so Pittock arranged for pony express
Pony Express
The Pony Express was a fast mail service crossing the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and the High Sierra from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, from April 3, 1860 to October 1861...
and stagecoach
Stagecoach
A stagecoach is a type of covered wagon for passengers and goods, strongly sprung and drawn by four horses, usually four-in-hand. Widely used before the introduction of railway transport, it made regular trips between stages or stations, which were places of rest provided for stagecoach travelers...
relay of wire dispatches which arrived in Portland days ahead of news in rival papers who relied on reports to arrive by steamer from San Francisco.
Both the telegraph and Pittock's competitiveness would play a part a few years later when President Lincoln was assassinated in a story related by the son of the Western Union telegraph operator in an oral history recorded by the Federal Writers Project. The telegrapher had been befriended by Pittock, and when news came across the wire of the assassination, the young man concealed it from the other papers until The Oregonian had published the news as a scoop
Scoop (term)
Scoop is an informal term used in journalism. The word connotes originality, importance, surprise or excitement, secrecy and exclusivity.Stories likely considered to be scoops are important news, likely to interest or concern many people. A scoop is typically a new story, or a new aspect to an...
.
Pittock addressed the fiscal problems of the paper by requiring cash payment for subscriptions, and implemented a vigorous collection effort for accounts Dryer had allowed to become delinquent. Ultimately, Pittock not only was able to bring stability to The Oregonian, but dominance in the Portland newspaper market. He was quick to invest heavily in new equipment and production procedures to stay ahead of the competition, sometimes dangerously stretching available capital.
Longtime Oregonian editor Harvey W. Scott
Harvey W. Scott
Harvey Whitefield Scott was an American pioneer, newspaper editor, and historian.Scott was born in on a farm in Illinois and migrated to Oregon with his family in 1852, settling in Yamhill County. He and his family moved near Olympia, Washington in 1853. At age 18, he fought in the American Indian...
claimed Pittock had promised him a half interest in The Oregonian in 1877, only to learn later that it went instead to wealthy U.S. Senator Henry Winslow Corbett for a much needed infusion of cash. Scott would ultimately purchase shares in the paper, and had a long intermittent tenure on its staff, leaving for a time to work for the rival Portland Bulletin. Although they were able to maintain a working relationship afterward, it was forever strained by what Scott viewed as a serious betrayal. The bitterness would extend for generations between the two men's heirs, occasionally exhibiting itself in management disputes at the paper.
It was one of several famous Pittock feuds. Another involved onetime Oregonian employee, and later City councilman, Will H. Daly
Will H. Daly
Will H. Daly was a Portland, Oregon labor leader, progressive politician and businessman. He was the first person to head both the Oregon State Federation of Labor and the Central Labor Council of Portland...
. Long a political nemesis, Daly enraged Pittock by implicating him in a scheme to provide a water service to his palatial home at considerable taxpayer expense. Although the resulting scandal soon died down, Pittock continued relentlessly to discredit Daly, and ultimately succeeded in ending his political career, branding him as a socialist, through publication of documents obtained by burglary.
Financial empire
Camas, Washington
Camas is a city in Clark County, Washington, with a population of 19,355 at the 2010 census. Officially incorporated on June 18, 1906, the city is named after the camas lily, a plant with an onion-like bulb prized by Native Americans. At the west end of downtown Camas is a large Georgia-Pacific...
. The Columbia River Paper Co. was formed by Pittock and Joseph K. Gill
Joseph K. Gill
Joseph Kaye Gill was an American retailer and publisher in the state of Oregon. A native of England, he came to the United States with his parents and settled in Oregon where he managed a bookstore in Salem. Later he entered the business and became the owner of the now defunct J. K...
in 1884 to build the Camas facility. The mills supplied newsprint to The Oregonian and the Portland Evening Telegram Pittock established in 1877 and, the expanded and widely distributed Sunday Oregonian. Beginning in 1884 new presses were bought that raised printing capacity to 12,000 copies an hour and, later, to 24,000 copies an hour. The paper mills would grow into a thriving company, eventually becoming part of the giant Georgia Pacific company.
The Telegram Building
Telegram Building
The Portland Telegram Building is a historic building in Portland, Oregon. It formerly served as the headquarters of The Portland Telegram, a now-defunct local newspaper founded by Henry L. Pittock...
in Portland is one of the city's two remaining historic newspaper buildings.
Pittock's business interests would soon grow to include investments in Portland banks, real estate, transportation, and logging and lumbering. In 1909 he began construction of a 22-room Renaissance revival mansion on forty-six acres of woodland, now a public-owned landmark known as the Pittock Mansion
Pittock Mansion
The Pittock Mansion is a French Renaissance-style "château" in the West Hills of Portland, Oregon, USA, originally built as a private home for The Oregonian publisher Henry Pittock and his wife, Georgiana. It is a 22 room estate built of Tenino Sandstone situated on that is now owned by the...
. The "Pittock block," still extant in downtown Portland, where he and his family had lived since 1856, had become valuable downtown property, and he leased it in 1912 for more than $8.3 million. The Northwestern Bank Building, at the corner of 6th and Morrison streets in Portland, was headquarters to the institution he founded with his son-in-law and paper mill partner, Frederick Leadbetter
Frederick Leadbetter
Frederick W. Leadbetter was an Iowa-born financier who made his fortune primarily in lumber and paper milling in the Pacific Northwest and California...
,
and now houses a Wells Fargo Bank branch, and twelve stories of commercial offices. He served as its president until his death, and it survived him until it fell to a bank run in 1927.
Later life and legacy
Having briefly lost control of the paper during the 1870s, and narrowly escaping bankruptcy during the depression of 1877,Pittock continued to manage his newspaper, maintaining long hours in his office until days before his death in Portland. Stricken with grippe, he is reported to have had himself carried to an east bay window of his mansion, to look once more at the vista across the city where he had made and broken careers, and amassed a fortune. The next night, January 28, 1919, he died leaving the largest estate which had yet been probated in Oregon, valued at $7,894,778.33. Pittock was buried at River View Cemetery
River View Cemetery (Portland, Oregon)
River View Cemetery in the southwest section of Portland, Oregon, United States, is a non-profit cemetery founded in 1882. It is the final resting place of many prominent and notable citizens of Oregon, including many governors and United States Senators...
in Portland.
Unwilling to yield control of his newspaper even in death, he had provided in his will for a majority of the shares of The Oregonian stock to be held by two trustees, with "full and complete authority" to run the paper for 20 years. On dissolution of the trust, its shares were divided amongst Pittock's heirs, and for a time was managed by a board of two representatives of the Pittock family, and one representing the Scotts.
The arrangement eventually gave way to the Oregonian, "crown jewel" of the Pittock empire, being sold to a succession of national newspaper chains.
Pittock was among the first inductees in the Oregon Newspaper Hall of Fame at the same time as his longtime editor, Harvey W. Scott, when it was established in 1979.
See also
- Willamette Industries, Inc.Willamette Industries, Inc.Willamette Industries, Inc. was a Fortune 500 forest products company based in Portland, Oregon, United States. In 2002 the lumber and paper company was purchased by competitor Weyerhaeuser of Federal Way, Washington in a hostile buyout and merged into Weyerhaeuser's existing...
- a forestry company co-founded by Pittock - Harkins Transportation CompanyHarkins Transportation CompanyHarkins Transportation Company was founded in 1914 by L.P. Hosford, Henry L. Pittock, and A.J. Lewthwaite. The line was named after the tugboat Jessie Harkins, which had been built by Jacob Kamm and named after Hosford's niece. The line ran steamboats on the lower Columbia from 1914 to 1937, when...