Flumgudgeon Gazette & Bumble Bee Budget (OR, 1845)

Publication History:

Place of Publication:  Oregon City, Oregon Territory

Frequency:  Bi-weekly

Volume and Issue Data:  Summer, 1845; total of eight issues

Size and Format:  Ink on foolscap; single column; twelve copies of each issue; number eight contains 13 pages

Editor/Publisher:  “Curltail Coon,” aka Charles Pickett (1845)

Title Changes and Continuation:  None

General Description & Notes:

The Flumgudgeon Gazette and Bumble Bee Budget was the first publication in the Oregon Territory and appeared during the meeting of the Legislative Committee in 1845.  The paper was subtitled, “A Newspaper of the Salmagundi Order, Devoted to Scratching and Stinging the Follies of the Times.”  According to Brier, Picket published eight issues of the paper and made about 12 copies of each number.  The paper was mainly a diatribe against the Legislative Committee of the Provisional Government of Oregon.  The paper consisted primarily of satire designed to sting the legislators.  Powell claims the paper “performed a useful service in pioneer Oregon by informing the settlers of the early activities of their government and by giving voice to opinions other than those of the legislators.”

Information Sources:

Bibliography:  Warren J. Brier, “A History of Newspapers in the Pacific Northwest, 1846-1896,” unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Iowa, Feb. 1957, pp. 5-10, 105-107; Warren J. Brier, “The ‘Flumgudgeon Gazette and Bumble Bee Budget,'” Journalism Quarterly, 36 (Summer 1959), 317-320; Robert F. Karolevitz, Newspapering in the Old West:  A Pictorial History of Journalism and Printing on the Frontier (New York:  Bonanza Books, 1969), p. 131; Bob Karolevitz, “Pen and Ink Newspapers of the Old West,” Frontier Times, 44:2 (Feb.-March 1970), 31; Sidney Warren, Farthest Frontier:  The Pacific Northwest (New York:  Macmillan Co, 1949), 190-191; Lawrence Clark Powell, “Flumgudgeon Gazette in 1845 Antedated the Spectator,” Oregon Historical Quarterly, XLI:2 (June, 1940), 203-207; Lawrence Clark Powell, Philosopher Pickett (Berkeley:  University of California Press, 1942), 12; Frederic Hudson, Journalism in the United States, From 1690 to 1872 (New York:  Harper and Bros., 1873), 590

Locations:  Vol.1, No. 8, Aug. 20, 1845 only:  OreHiSoc-Portland; reproduction of Vol.1, No. 8, Aug. 20, 1845 in Karolevitz (1970), p. 31; Karolevitz (1969), p. 131.