Page 325 - PGM Compendium

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Of
M⸫W⸫ Thornton F. McElroy

1858-1869

The last of 12 children in his family, Thornton
Fielding McElroy was born in West Middleton,
Pennsylvania, on July 24, 1825. His father was a
Methodist clergyman who came to the United
States from Ireland in 1790. He died the year after
Thornton was born. Thornton's mother then took
the family to Ohio to be with her parents. McElroy
left home at 18 and found a job as an apprentice
printer at the Free Press in Pittsfield, Illinois, where
he met Sarah Bates. The two were married in 1847.

Despite urgings to the contrary from his family, he
decided to come West, and arrived in Oregon City,
Oregon, in 1849. He left his wife, Sarah, behind,
planning to call for her when he was settled. Neither
anticipated that five long years would pass before they would be reunited. He found employment
with the Oregon Spectator, a pioneer newspaper in Oregon City, but he was lured to California by
the gold discovery. He soon returned to Oregon City, however, and became a member of
Multnomah Lodge.
When he was made a Mason is unknown, as the records of Multnomah Lodge were destroyed by
fire. He was, however, listed as a member of Multnomah Lodge in the records of the Grand Lodge
of Oregon in 1852.
Brother McElroy was ambitious and possessed of a strong will. He decided to cast his lot with the
Puget Sound country and in 1852 he came to Olympia to establish a weekly newspaper. About that
time he would become the first Worshipful Master of Olympia Lodge No. 5 under the jurisdiction
of the Grand Lodge of Oregon, serving seven consecutive terms. During his tenure as Worshipful
Master, he was elected Junior Grand Warden of Oregon in 1854, served as one of its inspectors in
1856 and was appointed to important Oregon Grand Lodge committees in 1854, 1855 and 1857.
He would be elected as the first Grand Master of the newly formed Grand Lodge of Washington
in 1858.

On September 11 of 1852 he and J. W. Wiley started publication of the Columbian, the first
newspaper north of the Columbia River. This newspaper advocated formation of a new territory
north of the Columbia, and to be named the Territory of Columbia. It was from this that the
newspaper took its name. Editor McElroy also promoted a road across the Cascades to bring
farmers and industrialists into the Puget Sound region.