George Law Curry was a United States political figure and newspaper publisher predominantly in what became the state of Oregon.
Background
George Law Curry was born on July 2, 1820 in Philadelphia, to which city his grandfather, Christopher Curry, had come from England. His early years were spent in Caracas, 1824-29, then two years on a farm near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. At the age of eleven, after the death of his father, George Curry, he went with an uncle to Boston.
Education
He was apprenticed to the printer’s trade in Boston. He attended school only three months. His messages as governor and his other writings, however, attest that he became a well-educated man through reading and study.
Career
When eighteen George was elected and served two terms as president of the Mechanic Apprentices’ Library Association of Boston. After three years of newspaper work in St. Louis, he set out in 1846 for Oregon and on his arrival in Oregon City was almost at once made editor of the Oregon Spectator, the first newspaper established on the Pacific Coast, the first number of which had been issued in February 1846.
Two editors had already preceded him and his own tenure was ended in January 1848, after he had published a resolution protesting against the appointment of J. Quinn Thornton to any territorial office.
Thornton had been sent to Washington by Abernethy, provisional governor and president of the association that owned the Spectator. In March of that year he founded a newspaper of his own, the Oregon Free Press, the first weekly published in the territory, with type purchased from the Catholic clergy and with a homemade press.
His newspaper was obliged to suspend when his subscribers rushed away to the goldfields of California. He then took up farming, an occupation that he continued to combine wfith his later activities.
After serving as a member of the legislature of the provisional government (1848 - 49), as chief clerk of the Territorial Council (1850 - 51), and as member of the lower house of the legislature (1851 - 52), he was appointed secretary of the territory in 1853. He acted as governor from May to December 1853, until the arrival of Gov. John W. Davis, and was appointed governor when the latter retired in August 1854. Curry’s appointment gave great satisfaction because he was a resident of the territory. Besides, he was persona grata with the “Salem Clique” a group of Democratic leaders, who headed by Asahel Bush, editor of the Oregon Statesman, dominated affairs and directed governmental policies.
("Oregon and Washington Volunteers" from George Law Curry....)
Connections
He married Chloe Donnelly Boone, a Curry great-grand-daughter of the famous Daniel, who had come to Oregon over the southern route in 1846. Curry and Chloe had five children.