John W. Redington papers, 1894-1935

John "Watermelon" Redington (1851-1935) was an Indian War scout, newspaper editor and writer, and humorist. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Redington worked as a printer's devil with the Cambridge University Press before enlisting in the United States Army in 1874 as a way to get to the West. After his discharge that same year, he settled briefly in Salem, Oregon, where he established a printing firm. Over the next few years, Redington traveled around the West, lending his printing expertise to communities in Oregon, Idaho, and Utah, before serving as a scout in the Nez Perce Indian War of 1877 and the Bannock Indian War of 1878. His small stature led General Oliver O. Howard to refer to him as the "original boy scout." After the war, Redington settled in Eastern Oregon where he married Nellie Meacham, daughter of Alfred B. Meacham, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and became publisher of the Heppner Gazette in 1883. He later published newspapers in Puyallup and Tacoma, Washington, where he settled with his wife and their four daughters. In his later years, he moved to California, where he lived in a home for veterans until his death in 1935. Printed on his stationery was the slogan: "California -- home of the December dandelion and the winter watermelon."