Mr. Charles Prosch, the dean of newspaperdom on Puget Sound, whose erect form and snow-white hair are familiar on the streets of Seattle, published the Puget Sound Herald at Steilacoom, beginning March 12, 1858, for about six years, and later other papers at Olympia.
The Northern Light appeared at Whatcom in 1858, under the management of W. Bausman & Co., during a few weeks of the height of the Fraser River gold rush, but its light was soon snuffed out.
The Port Townsend Register was started January 4, 1860, by a young man named Travers Daniels, but the field was not an encouraging one, and at the end of ten weeks he sold out to William T. Whitacre, who kept it alive until August, when it suspended.
July 5 of the same year the Northwest was started in Port Townsend by E. S. Dyer, publisher, and John F. Damon, editor. Mr. Damon continued with the paper until it suspended, before the second volume was completed.
Rev. John F. Damon, the Congregational clergyman of Seattle, is too widely known to require extended mention here.
The Register was resuscitated late in 1860 and run a violent career for several months, and later was followed by the Message, which ran several years under different management.
In 1874 C. W. Philbrick purchased the press on which the last-named paper was printed, changed the name to Puget Sound Argus, and succeeded in placing it on a paying basis, a hitherto impossible achievement in Port Townsend. In 1877 Philbrick, after accumulating considerable property, sold the Argus to Mr. Allen Weir.
July 29, 1861, the Overland Press was started in Olympia. A short time before the pony express had been put on the route between the Missouri River and Sacramento, carrying the news and a few letters, thus placing San Francisco and New York in communication with each other in from ten to twelve days. This suggested the name of the paper. It was enabled to give a brief summary of Eastern news only three weeks old. Prior to this it had been from six weeks to three months old when it reached Olympia.
The great Civil War had broken out only a few weeks earlier and the manager of the Press of Victoria, British Columbia, with commendable business sagacity, determined to establish a paper in Olympia containing the latest war news, and have it ready to distribute at all Puget Sound ports and have a supply to distribute to its own readers in Victoria and other parts of British Columbia on the arrival of the weekly mail. The Eliza Anderson, then the crack steamer of Puget Sound waters, made weekly trips, leaving Olympia early on Monday morning, arriving at Seattle about 4 P. M., and at Victoria early Tuesday morning. The paper at once became very popular and gained an immense circulation for those days.
Early in the fourth volume its name was changed to the Pacific Tribune. Randall H. Hewitt, now living in Los Angeles, owned and published it for a time, when Charles Prosch acquired it and continued its publication at Olympia until 1873. By this time his son, Thomas W. Prosch, had manifested much newspaper ability and had become the owner of the paper. He moved it to Tacoma, the new railroad town, that year and continued there until the almost total death of the place forced another move and he came to Seattle with it. In 1878 Thaddeus Hanford bought it and merged it with the Post-Intelligencer. With but one change of name it had lived about seventeen years, or longer than any other of the early Washington papers, with one exception.