Multnomah County OR Archives Biographies.....St. Clair, H. L. October 24, 1866 - 
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Source: History of the Columbia River Valley From The Dalles to the Sea, Vol. III, Published 1928, Pages 424 - 426
Author: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company

     H. L. ST. CLAIR has for many years been prominent in the community life 
of Gresham, Oregon, and vicinity, and as editor and publisher of the Gresham 
Outlook has exerted a definite influence on the progress and welfare of his 
locality. He was born in Harmony, McHenry county, Illinois, on the 24th of 
October, 1866, and is a son of Thomas S. and Mary (Eddy) St. Clair. The latter 
died when her son was but a child and after the death of his mother H. L. St. 
Clair went to live with relatives in St. Paul, Minnesota, where he acquired 
his public school education. He learned the printing trade in the office of 
the St. Paul Pioneer Press, where he worked for five years. He then became 
interested in religious work and attended Wilbraham Academy, in Massachusetts. 
Returning to Minnesota, he entered Hamline University, at St. Paul, from which 
he was graduated in 1894. In the meantime he had been ordained to deacon's 
orders in the Methodist Episcopal church and did some preaching. He now 
entered Garrett Biblical Institute, on the campus of Northwestern University, 
at Evanston, Illinois, where he pursued his theological studies, graduating in 
1897, and soon afterward, in Minnesota, was ordained elder in the Methodist 
Episcopal church. He went to southern Minnesota and entered upon active 
pastoral work near Rochester, but less than two years later his health failed 
and, a change of climate being found necessary, in the summer of 1899 he came 
to Portland. In the fall of that year he took a regular pastorate at Oswego, 
where he remained two years, followed by one year as pastor of the church at 
Beaverton, Washington county. In October, 1902, he came to Gresham, where he 
served as pastor until 1903, when on account of continued ill health he was 
compelled to give up his work. His experiences from that time on are well told 
by Fred Lockley in the Oregon Daily Journal of December 7, 1922, after an 
interview with Mr. St. Clair, as follows:

     "'After graduating from the theological college,' said Mr. St. Clair, 'I 
put in five years in the ministry. In 1903 my health failed, and the doctor 
told me I should have to take up some other line of work. I had learned the 
printer's trade on the Pioneer Press in St. Paul when I was a boy. In 1905 the 
business men of Gresham, knowing I had worked in a newspaper office, came to 
me and asked me if I would take charge of the East Multnomah Record for a few 
weeks until they could get a regular newspaper man to take charge of it. The 
paper had been started by the business men of the city to boost Gresham, and 
they had had to take it over.

     "'The few weeks that I was to run it lengthened to three months before 
they, finally found a buyer. The man who bought it was not a practical printer 
and he would not agree to take it unless I promised to stay with him six 
months and take care of the mechanical details of the paper. After running the 
paper awhile he found that he preferred some other line of work, so he sold 
the paper. The new man was not very progressive. I was very ambitious to get 
out a live, up-to-date, newsy sheet. I suggested that he put in a 
linotype. 'He said the town wouldn't warrant this expense.  He was so 
pessimistic about the future of a paper in Gresham that I felt it was up to me 
to prove to him he was wrong; so in 1911 I resigned, rented an up-stairs room 
on Powell street, bought a second-hand pony press and contracted for a junior 
linotype, agreeing to pay fifteen hundred dollars for it, and named my paper 
the Gresham Outlook.

     "'I found that what I had all along believed was true; that is, that 
there was plenty of business to be had if one would go after it. It isn't the 
size of one's field that limits the possibilities of growth; it's your 
courage, initiative and aggressiveness that determines your success. In a 
little more than two years I sold my junior and bought a standard linotype. I 
also turned in my nineteen-inch paper cutter and bought a thirty-inch cutter. 
I found it would be necessary to move to larger quarters. In the fall of 1911 
I moved downstairs, doubling my floor space. Soon I found the thirty-inch hand 
cutter was too slow, so I put in a power cutter. Within the next few years I 
added two Miehle presses, one with an automatic feed. I found one linotype 
would not take care of the business, so I put in a second one. From a one-man 
shop our establishment has grown until we now employ ten people regularly.

     "'Before long I had the field to myself. I am the editor and mechanical 
superintendent of the paper. My wife is the secretary of the company and the 
office manager. My son, Chase E. St. Clair, is vice president of the company 
and operates one of the linotypes and also sets ads and jobs. Miss Emma B. 
Johnson operates the other linotype. My son Leslie is advertising manager and 
also a compositor.

     "'We do not turn down any work because of its size, either because it is 
too small or trivial or because it is too large. For example, we recently tore 
the covers off fifty hymnals of the Methodist church here and rebound them 
with good board and cloth covers, at fifty cents each. There wasn't very much 
money in the job, but it kept our bindery force busy and made friends for the 
Gresham Outlook. We print the high school annuals for various small 
communities. We also print the premium lists for the Multnomah county fair, 
which is held here, and we have developed a considerable business in the 
printing of letterheads and envelopes for progressive farmers, as well as the 
printing of butter wrappers. Some years ago I joined Multnomah Camp, No. 77, 
W. O. W., in Portland, and they at once asked me to print the Multnomah 
Booster, an organ of the Woodmen camp. This is a Portland monthly. We started 
with two thousand copies, and we are now running six thousand copies. As you 
see, it is a very neat eight-page paper. Webfoot Camp liked the Multnomah 
Booster so well that they gave me a contract for printing the Webfoot Log. The 
farmers had a field day here in Gresham last fall. Here is a sixteen-page 
program I got out for them, which made them money as well as myself. I have 
recently printed farmers directories for Lane county, Wasco county and 
Multnomah county, in Oregon, and for various counties in Washington. I am 
getting one out now for Clark county. We get out two hundred and fifty of 
these directories with board and cloth covers and seven hundred and fifty with 
stiff paper covers. I also print catalogs for florists and seedmen, as well as 
catalogs for automobile firms.'"

     Supplementing the foregoing, it should be stated that the first issue of 
the Gresham Outlook appeared March 3, 1911, and that the paper has always been 
issued twice a week. At first it was a four-page, six-column paper, but now 
runs from four to eight seven-column pages, besides a holiday number of from 
twenty to twenty-four pages about the middle of December each year. The 
circulation of the Outlook has grown steadily through the years and is now 
about fourteen hundred. In 1917 the business was incorporated as the Outlook 
Publishing Company, of which Mr. St. Clair is president and manager; Chase St. 
Clair, vice president, and Mrs. Lena St. Clair, secretary and treasurer.

     In September, 1894, Mr. St. Clair was united in marriage with Miss Lena 
Chase, who was born in Minnesota, June 15, 1867, and is a daughter of E. F. 
and Cynthia (Pixley) Chase. Mrs. St. Clair received a good education, 
graduating from Hamline University in 1894, and has been of great assistance 
to her husband, both while he was in the active ministry and in the publishing 
business. Mr. and Mrs. St. Clair have five children, namely: Chase Eddy, who 
was born in Illinois, and is associated with his parents in business, was 
married to Miss Lois Schmale, of Portland, but who was born in Clackamas 
county, this state; Leslie Thomas, born in Illinois, and who also is with the 
Outlook company, married Miss Ruth Shaw, who was born in Fairview, Oregon, and 
they have two children, Leslie Thomas, Jr., and Betty Ruth; Mildred Mary, born 
in Portland, is the wife of Benjamin H. Davies, who is employed on the 
Outlook, and they have a daughter, Virginia; Winifred E., born at Oswego, 
Oregon, is a graduate of Willamette University, and is the wife of Raymond B. 
Rogers, an artist with the Oregon Engraving Company, of Portland; and Margaret 
Louise, who was born in Gresham, was graduated from Gresham Union high school 
in 1928. Mr. St. Clair is a man of strong character and marked individuality, 
and has accomplishments since coming to Gresham have gained for him the 
unequivocal respect and esteem of the people of the community. Through the 
columns of the Outlook and personally, he has stood consistently for those 
things which are calculated to promote the material, civic and moral standing 
of the city and county and has been worthy of the splendid measure of success 
which has crowned his efforts.

     Mr. St. Clair is the author of a new system of shorthand called St. 
Clair's Expert Shorthand and of a book of poems entitled "Memory's Ship." A 
keen observer and a ready writer, his poems are timely and apt and have a 
strong appeal. Of especial interest are his "Christmas in Oregon," "The 
Departure of a Girl to College," "The Greatest Mother's Appeal," "At Christmas 
Tide," "At the Turn in the Road," "Familiar Names in Our Town," "Hero, The 
Police Dog" and "Memory's Ship." Most of these have been inspired by local 
happenings that have to do with the community in which he lives and his genius 
has endeared him to the public. From "Memory's Ship" we quote:

                        I'm master of a wondrous ship
                        That sails a silent sea;
                        I've steered her course on many a trip—
                        A phantom ship is she.
                        Where'er I choose in thought to rest,
                        And view the scenes of yore,
                        I'm borne in safety on my quest
                        To the desired shore.

                        In memory's ship I sail away
                        To lands I've known before,
                        Where friendship's joys made glad the day 
                        And love light kissed the shore;
                        Where starlit skies and summer's breeze 
                        Were like an angel's court,
                        And kindred souls oft met at ease—
                        I linger at this port.

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