|
Livingston Gregg was the third son of Riley Gregg and Angeline Durbin Gregg. Livingston
was as a young man involved with the "Napa Lyceum," which seems to have been a public speaking educational organization. He won
one of their speech contests, despite the contentious topic of State Rights that he chose. His choice of topic caused quite
a stir in 1864.
Livingston went into the newspaper business. He married Kathryn White, daughter
of Sacramento sheriff William S. White. Little is know of the White family, but they came West overland during the Gold Rush,
Kathryn being born on the way, in a wagon or "prairie schooner." Livingston and Kathryn had a child together, Minnie Gregg, born in 1869. When Minnie was only nine months old, Kathryn left Livingston and ran away with his older brother Wellington with whom she had always been in love (per Kathleen Moore's notes). Minnie Gregg was taken in by her grandparents, Angeline
and Riley and raised by them.
Frank Leach, early California newspaperman and partner of both Livingston and
Wilmington Gregg, wrote a book detailing his experiences. Both Gregg brothers are mentioned in the book. In Recollections
of a newspaperman; a record of life and events in California (CHAPTER VIII), Leach describes starting the new
paper with his partner Livingston Gregg:
"Working in the Reporter office on the newspaper was a friend, Livingston Gregg,
of about my own age. We had been companions from boyhood, and now that we were following the same vocation our relations were
closer, if anything. We discussed many projects in the endeavor to work out a field to give play to our ambitions. Some of
our talk included the plan of starting a paper somewhere. The publisher of the Reporter was cognizant of our discussions and
seemed anxious to forward our hopes, so we made a proposition to him to lease his material and start a paper which was to
be called the Daily Reporter. He was to have use of all the matter we put into the daily for his weekly. As this would greatly
increase the amount of reading matter in his publication and at the same time reduce his cost of labor and in other ways lessen
his work, he accepted the proposal. Gregg and I were to be the owners and publishers of the new paper, the first daily paper
to be published in Napa. We issued a neatly printed circular announcing the forth-coming of the Daily Reporter and that its
purpose was simply to furnish a daily summary of passing events in Napa and the surrounding country. In politics it was to
be independent. We did not desire to say neutral, for that sounded as if we were lacking in courage. The reason for our "independent"
attitude was that Gregg was a Democrat and I a Republican. This political complexity bothered us considerably in framing our
salutatory to the public. But we finally reached the conclusion that, as everybody in town knew our political predilections,
they would understand the necessity for our declaration of independence in political matters, and, as they would soon find
out that we both thought alike in what constituted decency and honesty in politics, this feature of the paper's policy would
not be very embarrassing or troublesome. The first number of the Daily Reporter appeared on the morning of September 24, 1866,
under the heading of "Leach & Gregg, publishers and proprietors." Neither one of us was yet twenty years of age, but in
our eyes it was a man's paper, however the public might look upon it. We both hustled around the street gathering the news,
set all the type, ran the forms off, or, in less technical phrase, printed the paper on a hand press, and for the first week,
fearing the work would not be done just as it should be, I delivered the papers to the subscribers myself. I do not recall
the number we printed, but I do remember that after working hard all day and along in the night getting the paper out, I was
pretty well exhausted when through delivering to the subscribers. In fact, in that first week of publication we hardly went
to bed at all. In our solicitation for subscribers and advertisements we met with generous response; therefore, when the paper
appeared, it was well filled with business cards and general advertisements, and had an excellent list of subscribers, considering
the size of the population of Napa. Like all daily newspapers of that period, our paper consisted of four pages and the whole
sheet was about as large as a man's pocket handkerchief. But business was good and we were soon able to enlarge the publication
to a fair size for a country daily paper."
Later, Frank Leach and Livingston's brother Wilmington Gregg, "a printer and quite
an able writer," went into business together, starting a newspaper in Vallejo.
|
