USA > Iowa > Muscatine County > History of Muscatine County, Iowa, from the earliest settlements to the present time, Volume I > Part 47
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It is not to be believed, however, that the young apprentice's disappointment in the business failure of his employers was measured solely or even in the greatest part by any monetary loss, for he was very fond of his employers and preceptors and often in later years declared his gratitude to them, especially to Mr. Stout, of whose family he was for some time a member.
TWO PIONEER PRINTERS.
Of Israel and Parvin, the two printers in the office when Mr. Mahin joined the force, the latter writing for a special edition of this paper a few years ago said : "William P. Israel and Lafayette Parvin were the first practical printers with whom I came in contact. I was daily in the same office with them for nearly two years. I regret to say that their conversation was not the most edifying-in fact, most of the time it was the reverse. I was not presuming, and so I kept quiet ; and it is well I did, for one day Mr. Parvin took me to one side and said : 'I notice that you take no part in our foolish talking; you are right; we are wrong; do not follow our example.' While Mr. Parvin was somewhat reckless in his talk, he was not intemperate, as was Mr. Israel, who a few years later died as the result of the drink habit."
Parvin was a younger brother of the late Hon. Theodore S. Parvin. His father, Joseph Parvin, kept the hotel now known as the Kemple House, in pioneer times. Israel's death occurred in Muscatine. Stout later died in Kansas.
F. A. C. FOREMAN THE NEXT EDITOR.
When the firm of Stout & Israel became involved in financial liabilities and were compelled to suspend publication toward the end of the year 1848, the Bloomington Herald went into an eclipse for a short time, but during that winter,
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not long after the failure of Stout & Israel, F. A. C. Foreman came to Bloom- ington from New Boston, Illinois, and undertook the publication of the paper here. In New Boston, Foreman had conducted a paper with the peculiar name of The Broadhorn. He gave it that title because it was the name applied to a flatboat used on the Mississippi to carry everything. " 'Alphabet' Foreman we called him," wrote Mr. Mahin, "said he believed a newspaper should have a little of everything in it. He was an imaginative and florid writer. He had mingled considerably with the Mormons at Nauvoo and had written and pub- lished in his New Boston paper several blood curdling romances concerning af- fairs alleged to have transpired in Nauvoo when it was the Mormon metropolis and a city. Mr. Foreman was a practical printer, as well as a good writer, but a man of intemperate habits. His wife had learned to set type and was a true helpmeet. My sympathies on several occasions were excited for her and my indignation aroused against her husband by seeing him lying dead drunk while she was patiently setting type for the paper, at the same time her foot rocking the baby in a rude wooden cradle under the type stand. Foreman's intemperate habits were an insuperable barrier to his success in business, and after a few months of meteoric, brilliant displays in the literary world, his light went out in Bloomington. He moved west and died a few years later."
FIRST MUSCATINE JOURNAL PRINTED.
With the extinguishment of Foreman's light, the Herald as a newspaper was also extinguished. A suspension of six months followed Foreman's departure, and then Noah H. McCormick came from St. Louis, purchased the Herald plant and resumed the publication of the paper, but under a new name. At this period the Muscatine Journal was born. At the June term of the district court in 1849, the court in accordance with the prayer of a petition numerously signed by cit- izens, had changed the name of the town by the big bend from Bloomington to Muscatine. The new name was of Indian origin, though whether derived from a tribe of the name or the Indian word Muscuti-Menesik, signifying fire island, an illusion to Muscatine Island, which was a large body of prairie on which the grass was sometimes burned, has been disputed. McCormick, when he again began publishing the paper, changed the name of the publication to the Muscatine Journal, and such it has remained through an unbroken publication history dur- ing the sixty-one years that have followed.
McCormick was a poor and pointless writer, it is related, but a fair business man and was able to do better with the paper financially than any of his pred- ecessors. He, however, found it necessary in July, 1852, to sell out to Jacob and John Mahin.
EARLY EDITORIAL CONTROVERSIES.
McCormick engaged often in bitter controversies through the columns of his paper with H. D. LaCossitt, the editor of the democratic Enquirer, the Journal's contemporary in Muscatine at that time. Of these unpleasantnesses Mr. Mahin has written: "These two editors carried on for many months a bitter personal controversy, unlike anything that is today seen in the newspapers. McCormick
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called LaCossitt his 'Pet Lamb,' because, in French, his name had that meaning, while LaCossitt, who was the more skillful writer, severely lampooned McCor- mick in various ways, accusing him, among other things, of abandoning a young lady whom he was escorting home, because he was afraid to return to his lodging place in the dark. All the circumstances of the narrative pointed to Miss Bran- ham, a highly esteemed young lady, whom McCormick afterward married. Per- 'sonal quarrels between editors were far more common and bitter in those days than now."
JOHN MAHIN BECOMES EDITOR.
When Jacob and John Mahin purchased the Journal in July, 1852, the younger man was made editor and printer. It was the beginning of an editorial career which spanned half a century. Mr. Mahin's first paper was made up so as to give something to the farmer, something for the story reader and considerably more for the politician. There was also in this paper a report of a political speech made by Henry O'Connor, who had just previously appeared before the public.
MR. MAHIN'S POLICIES.
The paper also contained the editorial and some news matter. The salutatory of the youthful editor showed that he was not wholly satisfied with himself but rather was aware of imperfections and crudities in his first effort. It is worth noting, however, that he then laid down three planks of political economy to which he steadfastly adhered throughout his editorial career-first, a protective tariff ; second, internal improvements; third, a sound and stable currency.
The whig national, state and county tickets in the field at that time were printed in this paper. All the candidates were beaten at the ensuing election, except Elijah Sells, who received a majority of three votes for representative, his opponent being H. D. LaCossitt, of Muscatine. Mr. Sells was a resident of Fairport.
The third page of this issue was mainly filled with advertisements, while the fourth and last page contained poetry and miscellany and more advertisements. Among the advertisements were those of five of the many splendid steamboats then plying in these waters. There being no railroad reaching the Mississippi river at that time, passenger and freight traffic was almost exclusively by the river and there were many large and finely equipped boats in the trade. Of those whose names appeared in the advertising columns of this issue, so far as is known, none are now living; at least none who may survive are living in Muscatine.
ORION CLEMENS BECOMES PARTNER.
The Mahins conducted the paper jointly until September, 1853, when Orion Clemens, a brother of the late Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), purchased an interest in the plant and the publication of the paper was continued under the firm name of Mahin & Clemens. The Clemens family first came to Muscatine in the early '50s, the widowed mother and her two sons, Henry and Orion, coming first. Orion was in the Journal office, while Henry during his residence
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in Muscatine was a clerk in the Burnett book store. Later Henry received fatal injuries in the explosion of the steamboat Pennsylvania at Ship Island, in which one hundred and fifty persons lost their lives. He died at Memphis, Tennessee, six days after the explosion.
MARK TWAIN IN JOURNAL OFFICE.
Some time after the Clemens family removed to Muscatine the family circle was joined by Samuel Clemens. Samuel was a printer and secured employment in the office of this paper, working here for a short time during the year of 1853, while his brother was one of the part owners of the plant. One beautiful fall day, office tradition recalls, he took a notion to travel. Taking his rule, he set out and the next heard from him was the receipt by the Journal of a splendidly written account of the Fairmont waterworks, then newly completed in Philadel- phia, and at that time the finest waterworks system in the land. In this article which is said to have been the first he ever wrote for a newspaper, he showed his marvelous powers of description which were so often displayed in his later writings. The firm of Mahin & Clemens continued until January, 1855, when the Mahins sold out their interests to a young printer who had been employed in the Journal office,-Charles H. Wilson, now one of the most prominent residents of Washington, Iowa. The tri-weekly edition of the Journal was established by Mahin & Clemens in June, 1854. It was later discontinued.
DAILY JOURNAL IS ESTABLISHED.
The new firm was styled Clemens & Wilson. During their regime, in June, 1855, the daily Muscatine Journal made its appearance. Regularly every week day through all the years that have intervened from that time to this, it has been issued, printing always as best it could with the facilities at hand, the news of the day, reflecting the sentiment of the community and the community's progress, and standing throughout all the years for those principles and policies which its editors and proprietors believed to be just and right.
MANY CHANGES IN SANCTUM.
Beginning with 1855, the next few years saw many changes in the sanctum of the Journal. That year Orion Clemens disposed of his interests in the paper to James W. Logan. Logan & Wilson conducted the paper until January, 1856, when D. S. Early bought Mr. Wilson's interest and the latter left the news- paper fraternity never again to return to it.
About this time the Journal moved its location from the third story of the building at 108 West Second street to the third floor of the four-story Masonic building on East Second street, about half way between Cedar and Walnut streets, where it remained until 1861.
Early did not long remain with the Journal, for the same year in which he became a partner of Mr. Logan, his interests were purchased by John Mahin and F. B. McGill. Mr. Mahin retained an interest in the paper from that time
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until the stock of the Journal Printing Company was purchased by A. W. Lee and others in 1903.
MR. MAHIN TAKES SOLE CHARGE.
Logan, Mahin & McGill conducted the paper until August, 1857, when for the first time Mr. Mahin became sole owner and proprietor. He continued to manage it alone through the succeeding nine years, during the stirring war times, and until in 1866, when he sold a half interest to L. D. Ingersoll, who took the editorial chair. Of the men who were associated with the paper during this period of rapid changes Mr. Wilson, as has been stated, lives at Washington. Logan died at Waterloo. Early returned to his home in Pennsylvania after his brief association with the Journal and McGill went to Kansas.
The times during the Civil war were exciting ones for the editor of the Journal and his staff, as well as for the readers of the paper and the citizens of the community. The war made a vast difference in the community from the standpoint of the newspaper. The great struggle taught the public to read news- papers as it had never done before. Under these changed conditions and due to the exciting news which almost every day came from the seat of war, the Journal greatly expanded its field. Extra editions were common in those days. On many a night Mr. Mahin recalls he was routed out of bed and brought to the office to supervise the issuance of an extra edition which told the anxious reader of severe fighting, of victory or of defeat, and which perhaps carried in the lists of the dead or the wounded, sorrow or increased anxiety and agitation to the hearts of those who waited at home.
THE FIRST "POWER" PRESS.
About the time that Mr. Mahin became sole manager of the paper, the first so-called "power" press was purchased. This press was a Guernsey. It was bought second hand at Rock Island from a man named Connelly. The price of the new press was $700 and was paid for with three notes to come due three months apart, the notes being for $250 each.
Mr. Mahin is not certain that Connelly got his money on the first note. Those were the days of wildcat currency. There was no United States currency then but state banks everywhere issued their own paper money. Some of it was good, worth par. Some of it was not good. Banks and merchants had their list in which they listed the names of the banks, the currency of which they would ac- cept. Greene & Stone, the Muscatine bankers, through whom the notes in pay- ment for the press were to be paid, had a very short list. Mr. Mahin had to "shin" around, as it was termed, for several days before he secured the required kind of bills.
Sometime afterward, he received a letter from Connelly asking him in what kind of currency he had paid the note. He went to the bank about it but was told, "It's nothing to you, that's between us and Connelly."
This press was called a power press but it was operated neither by steam or electricity. In fact the name of the power which operated this particular press was Billy Conway. Billy was some power, according to the traditions that have
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come down, and he held this position for twenty years. The same press did not last as long as Billy, being replaced by a new one, but one requiring the same brand of power. In 1878 steam power was introduced and Billy's days of use- fulness in this office, much to his sorrow, were ended. The issue of April 21st was printed by steam and was the first paper so printed in the city of Muscatine.
MAHIN BROTHERS CONDUCT PAPER.
L. D. Ingersoll, who in 1866 became editor and part owner of the Journal, was a trenchant and brilliant writer, and afterward as an editorial writer in Chicago became widely known. He died a number of years ago. His connec- tion with the paper lasted just two years, when James Mahin took a proprietary interest with his brother John and the name of the firm was changed to Mahin Brothers. This management continued until the death of James Mahin, Decem- ber 9, 1877. He was born in Cedar county, Iowa, near Rochester, February 25, 1846. At quite an early age he began to work in the office of the Journal, first as a carrier boy, then as a typesetter, becoming a reporter before he was twenty years of age. Later, as has been outlined, he was associate editor of the paper until the time of his death.
JOURNAL PRINTING COMPANY ORGANIZED.
In 1878 the Journal Printing Company was organized, which corporation, though its stock has been held by different individuals at different times, has continued until the present day as the owner of the Journal, paper and plant. Those listed as the first officers of the concern were John Mahin, John B. Lee and A. W. Lee.
In 1861 Mr. Mahin was appointed postmaster of Muscatine and at that time another change in location of the office was made, this change bringing it within an alley's width of its present location. At this time the office was established in the second story of the building now occupied on the first floor by the Joseph Bilkey harness shop.
In 1867, Mr. Mahin secured from Isaac R. Mauck the two twenty-foot lots and the building standing on them, at 114 and 116 Iowa avenue, this property being across the alley from the building where the Journal was then located. These lots extended back sixty-one feet. They were the first real-estate holdings of the Muscatine Journal and comprise the site on which the Journal now stands. To these buildings the office of the Journal was removed, the paper changing its location for the last time up to the present day. It has occupied the same site for forty-three years. In 1904 after the purchase of the paper by Mr. Lee and his associates, the old building was torn down and the present modern news- paper home erected in its place.
A. W. LEE ENTERS JOURNAL OFFICE.
In 1874, when the late A. W. Lee was but sixteen years of age, he had left college at Iowa City and had come to Muscatine to take a position in the post-
.
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office, Mr. Mahin being at that time postmaster. About two years later he left the postoffice and became a reporter for the Journal. Previous to this, John B. Lee, his father and the father-in-law of Mr. Mahin, had come from Iowa City to Muscatine and was acting in the capacity of business manager of the paper. About the time of the organization of the Journal Printing Company, or a little later, the younger Lee began to show evidence of the splendid ability along the line of commercial management of newspapers, which became so conspicuous in his later life, and he became at first in fact, and later in both name and fact, business manager of the Journal.
This management continued until January, 1889, when John Mahin and Jolin Lee Mahin, his eldest son, purchased the entire concern, the capital stock at that time being $20,000. John Lee Mahin entered the employ of the Journal in 1885 and was city editor of the paper from September, 1887, to March, 1889, when, upon A. W. Lee's leaving the Journal to go to Chicago, he was made business manager, a position he held until 1891, when he, too, left for Chicago to enter a larger field.
During the next few years the brunt of the management of the paper fell upon Mr. Mahin, who was ably assisted by a number of subordinates, including W. M. Narvis and F. W. Eichoff of this city, and W. C. Hoefflin, now of Chicago. About 1900, Mr. Mahin's second son, Harold J. Mahin, assumed the responsibili- ties of business manager, which position he retained until he went to Washing- ton, D. C., in August, 1902.
In 1900 J. M. Beck, publisher of the Centerville Iowagian, came to the Journal, first as reporter and later became managing editor. He remained in the latter position until 1903, when he was succeeded by H. M. Sheppard, of the Ottumwa Courier.
PAPER JOINED TO LEE SYNDICATE.
In January, 1903, A. W. Lee, W. L. Lane and H. M. Sheppard purchased the stock of the Journal Printing Company. Mr. Lane, who afterward became publisher, had before this time acted as business manager of the Journal and soon after the purchase Mr. Sheppard came from Ottumwa to join him in the conduct of the paper, which was at this time added to the Lee syndicate of newspapers.
In May, 1905, F. D. Throop the present publisher of the paper came to Mus- catine from Sterling, Illinois, to take the position of managing editor. He had been employed from 1901 until 1903 as city editor of the Journal. Under the direction of Mr. Lane as publisher and Mr. Throop as managing editor the paper prospered and made great strides. In January, 1907, Mr. Lane's death occurred, after a period in which he had battled valiantly for the recovery of his health. Following his death Mr. Throop was advanced to the position of publisher, while L. P. Loomis became managing editor.
EDITOR OF THE JOURNAL FIFTY YEARS.
John Mahin, veteran editor, for years one of the best known and most promi- nent citizens of the state, a man who was universally respected even by those
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who opposed him consistently and often bitterly in the activities apparently near- est his heart, resides today in Evanston, Illinois. There Mr. Mahin and his wife, than whom few women in Muscatine have been more prominent, have their home but a few blocks from that of their eldest son, John Lee Mahin, whose ex- ceptional success in the advertising world is well known.
John Mahin is a sturdy man and though the years have left their traces- active, busy, even strenuous years that they have been-his appearance and his activities give the lie to the biographer, who must, because the figures are so written, declare him seventy-seven years of age, December 8, 1910.
BORN IN NOBLESVILLE, INDIANA.
Mr. Mahin was born at Noblesville, Indiana, December 8, 1833. His father's ancestry came from the north of Ireland to Rhode Island before the Revolu- tionary war, drifting from there to Kentucky, sometime in the eighteenth cen- tury, and early in the nineteenth century crossed the Ohio river to Ross county, Ohio, and a little later emigrated to Hamilton county, Indiana. His mother's ancestry was Pennsylvania German. On account of business reverses his father left Noblesville when Mr. Mahin was four years of age, to try his fortunes in the west. For about two years the family had the experiences of pioneer life in Effingham county, Illinois, most of the time on a farm. Then in a mover's wagon they turned their faces toward Iowa, crossing the Mississippi river in Captain Phillip's steam ferry at Bloomington in the fall of 1843. The winter was spent in Bloomington and the following summer on the farm of Dr. Fitch, fifteen miles above Muscatine on the Mississippi river.
The time spent in Bloomington was a very interesting experience for young Mahin. Here he saw the many steamboats which plied the Mississippi in those days. Some of these boats were elaborately fitted up. One boat Mr. Mahin recalls, the Osprey, a big side wheeler, was decorated with great paintings cover- ing the wheel house on both sides. It was the Osprey which carried a large excursion to Rock Island, July 4, 1844, to the big celebration which was made memorable because while it was in progress Colonel George Davenport was murdered at his home on Rock Island, where he had remained alone, while his family was attending the Independence day observances. Colonel George Dav- enport was the most important figure in this section at that time and his mur- der was a great sensation. Three men were hung for the crime at Rock Island, a year later. It is interesting to note at this juncture that Mr. Mahin's first news story, which he wrote for the Muscatine Journal when the paper was conducted by Noah M. McCormick, was an account of the sensational murder of Benja- min Nye by Mr. McCoy, ex-sheriff of Cedar county.
In the fall of 1844 Mr. Mahin's father moved to Cedar county, locating near Rochester, where he resided until 1847, when he returned to Muscatine. It was during his residence in Cedar county that John Mahin saw the first copy of the paper with which he was in after years to become so closely identified.
LEARNS PRINTING TRADE.
Under the tuition of Stout and Israel Mr. Mahin learned the trade and the profession which he made his life work. His first duties consisted of making
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fires, inking the press, carrying the weekly issue to the town subscribers and mak- ing himself generally useful after the custom of printing shop apprentices since time immemorial. Soon he learned to set type and was well on his way to learning his trade. It is likely that the influences of his earliest association with a printing office had much to do with his after life. From Stout he learned to fight for the principles he considered right, no matter what the cost. Stout was an abolitionist and despite threats, despite the unpopularity of such a course in those early times in Mississippi river towns, openly and boldly denounced slavery. From Israel, it may be, he first learned the evils of intemperance, see- ing them exemplified in the life of a man whom he admired and respected. Israel he recalls died as the result of an intemperate life and beyond a doubt this fact made a great impression upon him.
Stout and Israel could not survive the financial difficulties which most editors in those early days were compelled to face and about a year after Mr. Mahin entered the office they gave up the fight.
Under the regimes of F. A. C. Foreman, who came to Bloomington from New Boston, to take over the Herald plant, and of Noah M. McCormick, who bought the plant six months after Foreman had been compelled to suspend pub- lication and changed the name of the paper to the Muscatine Journal, young Mahin remained as an employe of the office. Under McCormick he was allowed, in addition to his services as a printer, to write both editorial comment and ac- counts of local news happenings.
TILT WITH A PIONEER EDITOR.
"In the elections of 1849," said Mr. Mahin, "the democrats had been victori- ous in their local contests. The editor of their organ, H. D. LaCossitt, had as- sisted in the jollification over that event by ladeling out whiskey from a bucket to a number of young men and boys. I saw the incident and wrote a communi- cation for the Journal, in which I roundly denounced the proceedings, signing my communication 'Adolescens' (I was spending my spare time in the office study- ing Latin and had learned that adolescens meant 'young man'). LaCossit in the next issue of his paper vehemently denied the accusation and rather gran- diloquently declared that the person who said that he had seen himself and Sheriff Henry Reece giving out whiskey was a liar. I followed this up with an- other communication, in which I reaffirmed the statement as to LaCossitt but pointed out that in the first article no reference had been made to Reece, that so far as I knew he was neither concerned in the matter nor had his name been connected with it by any one, and stated that LaCossitt's dragging the sheriff into the case seemed to indicate that he was too cowardly to face the music himself. This second communication brought about a visit from LaCossitt, ac- companied by Reece, to the Journal office. The editor of the democratic paper demanded of my employer, Mr. McCormick, the name of the author of the two articles. Much to my surprise, Mr. McCormick winced before the two men and pointed tremblingly at me as I stood by the press. LaCossitt looked at me, turned toward McCormick and with much dignity said, 'Sir, I would have you know that I have no quarrel with boys,' and then stalked from the room. In
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