Oregon Republican League: Elder Photos

Oregon Republican League:Republican League Register of Oregon, The Register Publishing Company, 1896, page 34.

DRYER. HON. THOMAS J., founder and for ten years editor of the Oregonian, was one of the early and controlling forced of the Republican party in Oregon. He was born in New York, January 10, 1808, and went to California in 1849, and worked at his trade as a printer. He brought material to Portland in December, 1850, and founded the Oregonian. He conducted the paper with vigor as a Whig organ. He was several times elected as a Whig, or Independent, to the legislature, and to the constitutional convention. In 1859 eh became a Republican, and in 1861 sold the Oregonian to H. L. Pittock and accepted appointment to the United States Minister to the Hawaiian Islands. He later returned to Portland and filled the office of the Justice of Peace for a time. He died March 30, 1879.