Henry Pittock

Infobox journalist
name = Henry Pittock


birthname =
birth_date = birth date|1836|3|1|mf=y
birth_place = England
age =
death_date = death date and age|1919|1|28|1836|3|1|mf=y
death_place = Portland, Oregon
occupation = Newspaper publisher
Business tycoon
alias =
gender = male
status =
title =
family =
spouse = Georgiana Burton Pittock
children =
relatives =
ethnic =
religion = Episcopalian
salary =
networth = $8 Million estate, 1919
credits = Longtime publisher, "The Oregonian"
URL =
agent =

Henry Lewis Pittock (March 1, 1836 - January 28, 1919) 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.

Early life and education

Born in England, 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. cite web
last = Johnson
first = Patrick
title = Walk through some of Portland's history
publisher = Oregon.com
date = 2006
url = http://www.oregon.com/trips/portland_pittock_mansion.cfm
accessdate = 2006-12-27 ]

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 board and room as his only remuneration. The accommodations were meager, consisting of a space below the front counter where Pittock could spread some blankets. cite web
last = Duin
first = Steve
title = 150 roiling years of delivering the news
work = The Oregonian
publisher = Portland, Oregon: Oregonian Publishing. Reprinted in "OregonLive." Advance Internet.
date = December 42000
url = http://www.oregonlive.com/special/150/index.ssf?/news/oregonian/00/12/or_21hist04.frame
accessdate = 2006-12-23 ] 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. cite web
title = Cascade Mountains
work = Mid-Columbia History
publisher = The Dalles, Oregon: Gorge.net
date = 2006
url = http://www.gorge.net/community/hscascad.htm
accessdate = 2006-12-24 citing cite book
last = McNeil
first = Fred H.
year = 1937
title = Wy'East The Mountain, A Chronicle of Mount Hood
publisher = Metropolitan Press
id = ASIN B000H5CB6E, ASIN B00085VH7W ]

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

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. cite web
title = Oregon Biographies: Thomas Jefferson Dryer
work = Oregon History Project
publisher = Oregon Historical Society
date = 2002
url = http://www.ohs.org/education/oregonhistory/Oregon-Biographies-Thomas-Jefferson-Dryer.cfm
accessdate = 2006-12-24] 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 4 February, 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". cite web
last = Scott
first = Harvey W.
authorlink=Harvey W. Scott
title = The Press
work = History of Portland, Oregon
publisher = Syracuse, New York: D. Mason & Co. Reprinted in "Access Genealogy." AccessGenealogy.com
date = 1890
url = http://www.accessgenealogy.com/oregon/multnomah/press.htm
accessdate = 2006-12-23 ] 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. cite web
last = Sherbert
first = A. C.
title = Interview: Ross M. Plummer
work = American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1940
publisher = Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress
date = 1939
url = http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/wpa:@field(DOCID+@lit(wpa229070312+))
accessdate = 2006-12-24]

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. cite web
title = Pittock, Henry Lewis "American National Biography"
date = 2004
publisher = Oxford University Press
work = Reprinted in "Biographies Plus Illustrated
author = H. W. Wilson
url = http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/hww/shared/shared_main.jhtml?_requestid=27006
accessdate = 2006-12-23 ]

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.cite web
title = Portland Saga
work = Time (Online)
publisher = New York City: Time Warner
date = October 31938
url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,760266,00.html
accessdate = 2009-12-23]

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. cite news
last = Terry
first = John
coauthors = citing Robert D. Johnston, "Oregon Historical Quarterly," Fall, 1998
title = Oregon's Trails: Important labor leader fails to garner credit he's due
work = The Oregonian
publisher = Portland, Oregon: Oregonian Publishing
date = July 242005
pages = A21
format = Newspaper ]

Financial empire

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 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. cite web
title = Camas and the blue lily (1883)
work = Clark County (Official website)
publisher = Vancouver, Washington: Clark County Public Information and Outreach
date = 2006
url = http://www.clark.wa.gov/aboutcc/proud_past/bluelily.html
accessdate = 2006-12-24 ] cite web
title = Appendix
work = 2005 Population and Economic Handbook
publisher = Vancouver, Washington: Clark County Department of Assessment & GIS
date = 2005
url = http://gis.clark.wa.gov/applications/gishome/publications/popecon_docs/43-append.pdf
format = PDF
accessdate = 2006-12-23 ] The Telegram Building in Portland is one of the city's two remaining historic newspaper buildings. cite web
title = Hot off the press—inside the Telegram building
work = Architectural Heritage Center Quarterly News and Notes
publisher = Portland, Oregon: Bosco-Milligan Foundation
date = Fall, 2002
url = http://www.visitahc.org/newsletter/vol10no4.pdf
format = PDF
accessdate = 2006-12-24]

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, cite web
title = Frederick W. Leadbetter
work = History
publisher = Vancouver, Washington: Columbian.com
date = 2006
url = http://www.columbian.com/history/profiles/leadbetter.cfm
accessdate = 2006-12-24] 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. cite web
last = Moore
first = Mark
title = Financial Institutions
work = PdxHistory.com
publisher = Portland, Oregon: Mark Moore
date = July 42006
url = http://www.pdxhistory.com/html/portland_banks.html
format = HTML
accessdate = 2006-12-23 ]

Later life and legacy

Having briefly lost control of the paper during the 1870s, and narrowly escaping bankruptcy during the depression of 1877, cite web
last = Flores
first = Trudy
coauthors = Sarah Griffith
title = Photograph notes: Portrait of Henry Pittock with Two Babies
work = Oregon History Project
publisher = Portland, Oregon: Oregon Historical Society
date = 2002
url = http://www.ohs.org/education/oregonhistory/historical_records/dspDocument.cfm?doc_ID=000ED114-3795-1E8B-891B80B0527200A7
accessdate = 2006-12-23 ] 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 281919, he died leaving the largest estate which had yet been probated in Oregon, valued at $7,894,778.33. cite web
title = Portland Saga
work = Time (Online)
publisher = New York City: Time Warner
date = October 31938
url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,760266,00.html
accessdate = 2009-12-23] Pittock was buried at River View Cemetery in Portland. [ [http://www.riverviewcemetery.org/index2.html River View Cemetery] ]

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. cite web
title = Portland Saga
work = Time (Online)
publisher = New York City: Time Warner
date = October 31938
url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,760266,00.html
accessdate = 2009-12-23 ] 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. cite web
title = Twins and Trusts
work = Time (Online)
publisher = New York City: Time Warner
date = February 131939
url = http://jcgi.pathfinder.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,771533,00.html
accessdate = 2006-12-12 ] 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. cite web
title = Newspaper Hall of Fame Finds Home
work = Homepage News Archive
publisher = Eugene, Oregon: University of Oregon
date = 2005
url = http://duckhenge.uoregon.edu/hparchive/display.php?q=7.14.05-Newspaper.html
accessdate = 2006-12-26 ] cite web
title = Newspaper Hall of Fame
work = Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association (Official Website)
publisher = Portland, Oregon: ONPA
date = 2006
url = http://www.orenews.com/About/halloffame/
accessdate = 2006-12-23 ]

See also

* Willamette Industries, Inc. - a forestry company co-founded by Pittock
* Harkins Transportation Company

References