Talk:William Spencer Newbury

Apparent error in 1915 obituary regarding his election as mayor
When I recently converted this Wikipedia entry into an actual article (in place of a single sentence of text), I originally included info. from The Oregonian 1915 obituary saying that Newbury had been elected mayor while out of town "and almost without his consent", but I have now removed that claim, because it appears to have been incorrect. That text appeared in The Oregonian nearly 40 years after the (supposed) fact, but when I looked back at earlier issues of the paper (especially in June/July 1877, just before and after his election as mayor), not only could I find nothing at all to back up that statement, but instead I found an article from The O issue of May 22, 1876 (p. 2) using almost the exact same wording to describe Newbury's being nominated to the Legislature in 1876, saying that he was nominated "in his absence and without previous consultation with him" - and that he declined to accept the nomination. That's also much more plausible than the notion that he would actually be elected to an office (mayor) while out of town and 'almost without his consent'. It seems almost certain that the writer of The Oregonian long obituary of Newbury got the facts mixed up on this point. As I wrote above, I have already removed the apparently erred info., but I am noting it here to try to prevent the information's being re-added to the article. The 1915 obituary is available online for free, where others may see it and not realize that its (very unusual and notable) claim about his 1877 election was almost certainly incorrect. SJ Morg (talk) 18:10, 4 January 2015 (UTC)