Who WAS Stephen J. McCormick? A timeline.
In April 1859, the men who voted for a new Mayor of Portland ignored the “virulent nativism” that had taken hold in some eastern cities during the turbulent 1850s. Their response to those who treated the Irish Catholic immigrant as second class citizen was to elect one as Mayor. Stephen J. McCormick was 29 when he won that election. We’ll do a deep dive on his life and times in Portland at our meeting on Thursday, February 22 - Six P.M. at Kells Restaurant. Presentation at Seven. Free. All are welcome.
The Life of Stephen J. McCormick - Tenth Mayor of Portland
1829 - Born the day after Christmas to a Dublin family of means.
1842 - Attends Castlenock College, a Vincentian-run school that taught boys 12 - 19. It was one of the first Catholic schools established in Ireland after Catholic Emancipation.
1849 - Graduates, marries Essie Clark and emigrates with his wife and sister-in- law to New York.
1850 - Works at a newspaper in New York.
1851 - Travels to Portland , Oregon via Cape Horn. HIs brother Patrick is a missionary in the Oregon Territory. HIs sister -in-law meets and marries a member of Portland’s first City Council.
1852 - Establishes a business on Front Street. Franklin Books publishes the first magazine on the West Coast and the second daily newspaper in Portland, The Portland Advertiser.
Within a year of arriving in Portland, SJ McCormick had published the first monthly magazine in Oregon.
1853 - McCormick publishes Chinook Jargon, an indispensable dictionary used by missionaries, traders and travelers to communicate with the original residents of the Lower Columbia.
1854 - McCormick publishes first novel in the Pacific Northwest, Captain Gray’s Company, by future suffragist Abigail Scott Duniway.
Abigail Scott Duniway
1857 - McCormick elected Chief of the Portland Volunteer Fire Department. That same year he’s elected as a delegate to the Oregon Constitutional Convention of August 1857.
Volunteer firefighters in Portland around 1858. SJ McCormick was elected Chief of the fire department in 1857.
1859 - Oregon becomes a State in February. McCormick elected Mayor of Portland in April. He’s the tenth man to hold that office and the first not to have been born in the United States. He was also the first Catholic in charge of the city. He hosted the first dinner in Portland for the Sisters of the Holy Names, who arrived in October. He was instrumental in getting their first convent built.
SJ McCormick served as one of 60 delegates to the Oregon Constitutional convention in 1857.
1860 - As an Irish community activist, McCormick starts the Hibernian Benevolent Society. He’s also the first president of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society.
1863 - McCormick publishes the Portland City Directory and Oregon Almanac. The Portland Advertiser backs the Confederacy, loses circulation and advertising and ceases publication. He serves a term on the Portland Public School Board.
1867 - McCormick publishes first detailed map of the City of Portland.
1872 - Elected to the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners.
1874 - Appointed Editor of the Catholic Sentinel. “Under God’s protecting shield we enter the journalistic arena again nerved to battle manfully against all enemies of the Catholic Church.”
1875 - McCormick one of the founders of the first Saint Vincent’s Hospital in Northwest Portland.
1881 - McCormick transfers the Franklin Book Store business to his son and moves to San Francisco to take over as Publisher of the Catholic Monitor.
1891 - McCormick dies after suffering from a debilitating case of dropsy. He was 62.
