History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 45

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 942

USA > Indiana > Marion County > Indianapolis > History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana > Part 45

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

months, and on several subsequent occasions, when the proprietors were at a loss for a temporary man- ager, he gave them such assistance as he could, and till 1880 was more or less constantly connected with the paper as editorial writer. In 1858-59 the Jour- nal paid Mr. Devens, of Massachusetts, for a weekly summary of the features of valuable patents and im- provements of machinery, and this was, probably, the first " outside" work that an Indianapolis paper had ever paid for at that time. Contributions and corre- spondence were gratuitous wholly for many a year after 1858, except where special value secured a special remunerative arrangement. Till 1860 the office was on Pennsylvania Street, where the " Fletcher & Sharpe Block" stands, having been removed there from No. 8 West Washington Street, the "Sanders Block," in 1849 or 1850. During Mr. Noel's time and a portion of that of Mr. Douglass it was on the south side of Washington Street, where the "Iron Block" is, in a two-story frame. It was first published in a frame on the north side of Wash- ington, opposite the " Washington Hall." In 1860 the four-story brick on the southeast corner of Circle and Meridian Streets was built for it by the company. In digging the cellar a son of Mr. William O. Rock- wood was killed by the accidental caving in of the sandy wall. The house was occupied directly after the Presidential election of 1860. In 1864 the company sold to William R. Holloway & Co., and Mr. Holloway became editor, with the late Judge Horatio C. Newcomb as political editor. He had held the same position for some weeks previously after the retirement of Mr. Sulgrove. In February, 1865, James G. Douglass, a son of the old proprietor, and Alexander H. Conner, associated themselves with Mr. Holloway under the name of " Holloway, Douglass & Co." In the winter of 1866 the late Samuel M. Douglass joined his brother James and Mr. Conner and bought out Mr. Holloway, retaining possession, as " Douglass & Conner," till 1870. In 1866 they purchased the old First Presbyterian Church,-Dr. P. D. Gurley's,-northeast corner of Market and Circle Streets, and built the eastern half of the present Journal building,-the western half was built by Col. Ruckle about ten years later,-and

242

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

moved into it early in 1867. Lewis W. Hasselman and William P. Fishback bought the establishment, and Mr. Fishback became editor in June, 1870. Mr. Holloway, then postmaster, purchased a sixth inter- est. Mr. Hasselman gave his son Otto a sixth inter- est, and Mr. Thomas D. Fitch purchased a sixth, and this combination held possession till January, 1872, when a second " Journal Company," consisting chiefly of Jonathan M. Ridenour and Gen. Nathan Kimball, late State treasurer, bought out Hasselman, Fishback & Co., and carried on the business for over two years. They procured a " Bullock Perfecting Press," the first ever brought to the State. In 1874-75, Nicho- las Ruckle, recently sheriff of the county, obtained a controlling interest in the company, and Mr. Ride- pour left it. Mr. Ruckle retained the business man- agement till 1876, when he sold the paper-retaining the job establishment-to E. B. Martindale and William R. Holloway. He subsequently sold the job department to Hasselman & Co., who still keep it in the same place. Elijah B. Martindale and Mr. Holloway removed the paper soon after their pur- chase to the corner room of the Journal building, then recently erected, but afterwards removed it to the " Martindale Block," on Market Street, where it is yet. In 1880 it was purchased by John C. New, assistant United States treasurer, and his son Harry, who still hold it.

The editor of the Journal now, and for the last two or three years, is Elijah W. Halford. His first connection with it was in the latter part of the war, as city editor. During a portion of Mr. A. H. Con- ner's tenure of the tripod Mr. Halford was the work- ing and thinking man, and demonstrated an unusual capability for hard work and close attention, with a liberal share of literary ability, and the instinet for news that makes the editor, who is as much " born" and as little "made" as the poet. When John Young Scammon started the Inter-Ocean, of Chicago, he made Mr. Halford the managing editor, a position he · retained in the midst of much embarrassment till after Mr. Ridenour became business manager of the Journal; then he returned here, and succeeded John D. Nicholas in his old position. After some years he left it, and took a position on the Evening News,

which he retained for a year or two, and returned to the Journal after its purchase by Mr. New. For some time he was associated with James Paxton Luse, the political editor or editor-in-chief, but when that gentleman retired, some two years ago, Mr. Halford took the whole control, under Mr. New's direction, and has the editorial writing done wherever he can get it done best. The plan works well, for the Jour- nal has never been so uniformly well written as now, and never better supported, better managed, or better esteemed, if so well, in all its sixty years of life. Mr. New, though not a professional or even an amateur writer, occasionally does some of the most vigorous and striking editorial writing. Mr. Halford has been con- nected with the Journal more or less for ten years,- the longest connection any one has had with it, except Mr. Maguire, who was editor or proprietor twelve years ; Mr. Douglass, who was a proprietor for about eighteen years ; Mr. Noel, who was a proprietor about eleven years ; Mr. Sulgrove, who, as cditor, proprietor, and editorial contributor, had a connection with it more or less constantly from 1851 to 1880, nearly thirty years; and Col. Holloway, whose connection was pretty nearly continuous for about twelve years. Mr. Defrees' connection lasted only about nine years, and that of Charles M. Walker, as political editor, about as long.

The Sentinel began publishing a daily on the 6th of December, 1841. The Journal published its first daily on the 12th of December, 1842, and con- tinued thereafter during the sessions of the Legisla- ture till the meeting of the Constitutional Convention in 1850. Then it published by contract daily ver- batim reports, from the official reporter, of the pro- ceedings of the convention, and since then (Oct. 7, 1850) it has been continued uninterruptedly as a daily. It was a folio till January, 1866, when it appeared as a quarto, and has continued so ever since. The Sentinel made the same change a little later. The first semi-weekly edition of the Journal was pub- lished Dec. 10, 1828; the first tri-weekly, Dec. 12, 1838. Two attempts have been made to publish an evening edition,-one by Hasselman & Fishback, with the late accomplished journalist, George C. Harding, as editor, in 1871, and again by Judge Martindale,-

243

CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS.

but neither prospered and was soon abandoned. The Sentinel has never tried that form of embarrassment. In 1840, Mr. Noel and Mr. Douglass, of the Journal, published a campaign paper called the Spirit of '76, edited by Joseph M. Moore, a young Whig of distin- guished literary ability. In 1844 he edited a second campaign paper called the Whig Rifle, named from a well-known anecdote of Mr. Clay. In 1854 a third cam- paign sheet was published by Mr. Defrees, and mainly written by Mr. Sulgrove, called We, the People. In that contest was the germ of the Republican party of the State. In 1850, September 4th, E. W. H. Ellis, who, with Mr. John S. Spann, had purchased the Sentinel job-office, started the Indiana Statesman, a weekly of the best character,-superior to any weekly we had then had,-and maintained it for two years, when they sold it to the Sentinel.

In 1847, April 3d, three apprentices in the Journal office, then in the hands of Mr. Defrees, and located in the "Sanders Block," one of the first three-story brick buildings in the city, on the north side of Washington Street, a little west of Meridian, began the publication of a little weekly, as a sort of school- boy diversion, called the Locomotive. They were Daniel B. Culley, John H. Ohr, and David R. Elder. It died " in the fullness of time" in three months. It was revived the next January by Douglass & Elder, enlarged a little, and filled chiefly with the sort of matter that goes to the composition of the " society" column of the Sunday papers of to-day. It was all local, and covered so well a field completely neglected by the grave political organs that it soon began to pay. It was the first paper that the women and girls wanted to read regularly, and the paper that makes itself a household favorite is settled for life, if it chooses to be. In 1850, early, John R. Elder and John Harkness bought it, took it to their establish- ment on the site of the Hubbard Block, and speedily ran its circulation in the county far above any other paper, and for several years it thus got the publica- tion of the " Letter List." Besides its sketches of the Constitutional Convention and its exposure of the drunken orgies of the expiring Legislature of 1851,- the first description that had ever appeared of an annual disgrace for a dozen years,-it published a

great deal of local correspondence on social and city and religious affairs, and probably commanded a stronger influence in its range than any other paper in the city. It was entirely neutral-not independent -in politics. In 1861 the proprietors bought the Sentinel and united the Locomotive with it. In the summer of 1845 the Locomotive appeared as a little sheet about as big as a sheet of note paper, and con- tinued three months. Its appearance in 1847, as above related, by the same 'prentice publishers, was a revival of the first one.

In 1845 or 1846 a Mr. Depuy began the publica- tion here of an anti-slavery paper called the Indiana Freeman. It was a good paper. Its editor was a fine scholar, a man of unusual literary attainments, and was assisted by a few accomplished residents of bis faith, but in those days "abolitionism" was but a little less odious or ruinous stigma than pauperism or brigandism. Mr. Depuy's office, on the south side of Washington, on the site of the Iron Block, was occasionally threatened with violence, and on several occasions he and his friends watched all night to protect it, but nothing worse was ever done than such puerile pranks as smearing his office with tar and mud and taking his sign away and putting it on some out-house. The publication was stopped in a year or two.

In September, 1848, Julius Boetticher began the publication of the Volksblatt, the first German paper in the city, possibly the first in the State, when the German immigration was not large, and very few Ger- mans had done much to create the national reputation for industry, integrity, and thrift which is now so well established. It was a bold enterprise, not to say an audacious one, and it barely escaped a disas- trous failure. Mr. Boetticher did his own work, with the help of his little daughter on the "case" and his little son for miscellaneous service ; but as little outlay as he made his income was not equal to it, and some years afterwards he told the editor of the Journal that he should have abandoned the enterprise in despair if it had not been for the late Professor Samuel K. Hoshour's class in German. The profes- sor desired his pupils to learn living and colloquial as well as classic German, and recommended them to sub-

244

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

scribe for a German paper. The Volksblatt was in its tenth or twelfth week, and growing more weakly all the time. The class-of some thirty pupils-sub- scribed for three months at half a dollar each, and this lift put the paper's head above water long enough to give it a good vitalizing breath. It was main- tained for nearly twenty years by Mr. Boetticher. At his death it was taken by the " Gutenberg Com- pany," who still hold it.

Besides these five early weeklies-Chanticleer, Lo- comotive, Statesman, Freeman, and Volksblatt-that have appeared and disappeared after a length and energy of life enough to make some mark on the community, there are several others to be noted in the history of the city press chiefly for an evanescence that has left hardly a name that anybody can recall. In 1848 a weekly called the Free Soil Banner was published by William Greer and Lew Wallace,-the general,-and another. The late Ovid Butler probably furnished the money. The Family Visitor, a temper- ance paper, was started by Rev. B. T. Kavanagh in 1851. About the year 1853 it was changed to the Temperance Chart, and conducted by Jonathan W. Gordon, the eminent advocate. The Hoosier City, a little local weekly started by the Journal office boys, lived three months. In 1852 the Free Soil Democrat, by Rawson Vaile, merged in the Journal in 1854. In 1853, September 3d, Theodore Hielscher established the Freie Presse as a German supporter of free-soil principles against the Volksblatt, which was decidedly Democratic. It was continued till after the outbreak of the civil war, but with less influence than it might have had if Mr. Hielscher had possessed more practi- cal sense and less unreasoning enthusiasm. He was a man of scholarship and ability, but he was ineapable of viewing any political question practically and impartially. He could see nothing but the logical tendeney or result of a principle, and there he would go if it went to the bottomless pit. In 1855, Mr. Charles Hand started the Railroad City, and made a very effective hit by a caricature showing a couple of prominent Democrats stealing a view of the secret . Know-Nothing State Convention in Masonic Hall from the top of the Masonic out-house in the rear. It died in a few months. About the same time Dr.

Jordan and Mr. Manford began the publication of the Western Universalist, the character of which is sufficiently indicated by its name. It was maintained for a couple of years or so. Dr. M. G. Clark about the same time started the Witness, a Baptist weekly, printed in the Journal office. It lived but two or three years. In January, 1857, Andrew and Solo- mon Bidwell began with a radical weekly, which they called the Western Presage, admirable in mechanical execution, but frothy in mental quality, and ran it out in less than a year. In 1857, Rev. T. A. Good- win removed to the capital the Indiana American, an anti-slavery, anti-liquor weekly, that had been established many years in Brookville, and ranked among the best in the State. He kept it fully up to its reputation here, but in a few years sold it to Downey & Co:, who made a daily evening paper of it, and sold it to Jordan & Burnett, who called it the Evening Gazette, made it a very creditable paper, but could not make it profitable, and sold it in 1868 to Smith & Co., who sold it to Shurtleff, Macauley & Co., who sold to Mr. C. P. Wilder, who sold it to the Journal, under the Donglass & Conner administra- tion, to be sold and known no more. The American as a weekly was resumed in 1869 by Mr. Goodwin, but was suspended in a few years finally.

The war was not an encouraging time for newspaper projectors. The demand for news was never half so eager or so profitable to publishers, but it seemed fully satisfied with the enterprise and efforts of the papers already established. Soon after the first battle of Bull Run, when every loyal soul was sore with dis- appointment, and expectation was hungry for com- pensating good news, the Journal began publishing its telegraphie dispatches, reporting battles and mili- tary movements first in slips, and later in a little sheet with other matter to make a sort of little evening edition, and sold them to newsboys who made the streets vocal with yells, " Journal, extra, 'nother battle," till far into the night often, when additional news would warrant a second or third edition of the telegraphic slips. The invariable cry was "'nother battle," whether there had been a fight or night. ' It sold the slips and sold them well. No man cared for change for a dime, as long as we had

245

CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS.

any silver money, for news of a successful Union fight, and the boys many a time got ten cents and a quarter for what cost them but a cent. It was a harvest time for them and for the papers that had enterprise to use it well. But no paper was begun in the city in that time.

On Dec. 22, 1867, the late George C. Harding, with Mr. M. G. Henry, began the publication of the Saturday Evening Mirror, on West Maryland Street, Dear Meridian. In a year or so John R. Morton took Mr. Henry's place in the publishing department, and the late William B. Vickers, a grandson of Nathan B. Palmer, joined Mr. Harding in the editoral work. Mr. Harding was already distinguished in his profes- sion as a master of the paragraphic art, and a skillful delineator of character, as well as a clear-headed and solid-reasoning debater of such public questions as he chose to discuss; while Mr. Vickers was fast earning he reputation with which he died before his prime, of a graceful fancy and refined taste, with no little of the pungency in paragraphic work of his more noted associate. In the winter of 1869, during the session of the Legislature, the Mirror was published as an evening daily, and continued till it was bought by Mr. Holliday, of the News, and consolidated with that rapidly-growing evening paper. The weekly was not attempted to be continued after the sale of the daily, and Mr. Vickers began a weekly in its place called Town Talk. In a few weeks, however, Mr. Harding revived the Mirror, made a second union with Mr. Vickers, and in the latter part of May, 1870, sold out to the latter, who carried on the paper with moderate success till he took a position as managing editor of the Journal about 1871, when he sold it to B. O. Mulliken, who killed it in a few weeks. At this time Mr. Harding was in charge of the first evening edition of the Journal, which his ability maintained for a time against the better management of the News, but it " cost more than it came to," in the old back woods phrase, and was abandoned. Mr. Harding then formed a connection with a Cincinnati paper, and later with a Louisville paper, and returned to Indianapolis in a year or two and began the publication of the Saturday Herald in 1873, in connection with Mr. A. C. Grooms, for many years cashier of the Journal counting-room.

The latter gave place to Mr. Samuel N. Bannister the same year, and he, with some money and a great deal of energy, soon made it a profitable enterprise. In 1876, Mrs. Gertrude Garrison became editorially con- nected with it and materially assisted it by her ability. A couple of years or so after her accession to the Herald Mr. Harding's difficulty with Mr. Light oc- curred, and his mental condition put him in an asylum near Cincinnati for some weeks. After his trial and acquittal in court he sold out his interest in the Herald to Mr. Bannister, and went to Iowa, where he bought a weekly and ran it for the better part of a year. In the fall of 1880 he returned here, and in connection with Charles Dennis, a versatile and accomplished writer, aided by Mrs. Garrison, established the Satur- day Review. An accidental injury to one of his legs in May, 1881, terminated in a fatal attack of erysip- elas, and then Mr. Dennis and A. C. Jameson took the Review for a few months, when Mr. Jameson gave way to Mr. Bert. Metcalf. In 1883, Mr. John O. Hardesty, a veteran and well-known editor, bought the paper and still holds it successfully. The Herald was kept up by Mr. Bannister alone for some months after Mr. Harding had retired. Then he sold an in- terest to Mr. A. H. Dooley, formerly of Terre Haute, who had successfully established the Argo in Quincy, Ill. It has been editorially controlled by Mr. Dooley since 1880, with the effect of making it one of the cleanest and best family papers ever published in any State. Mr. Hardesty does the same for the Review, following the course of Mr. Dennis.

A few days after the suspension of the Mirror by Mr. Harding, his partner, John R. Morton, started the Journal of Commerce, a weekly devoted to trade and finance. It was at first edited by Enos B. Read, the founder of the People, and then by Dr. W. S. Pierce, a distinguished business man and politician, and brother-in-law of Governor Thomas A. Hen- dricks. It was kept up with indifferent success for about two years. Soon after leaving the Journal of Commerce, Mr. E. B. Read, in connection with Harry Shellman and George J. Schley, began the publication of the People as a Sunday paper, with occasional illustrations and a special devotion to local Dews and interests. It was speedily successful, and

246

HISTORY OF INDIANAPOLIS AND MARION COUNTY.

continues with no apparent decline. It has been published for some years in the old Journal building, on the corner of Circle and Meridian Streets. Mr. Read has good assistance, but when his health allows him to attend to his own work he makes as interesting and valuable a weekly as one could wish for Sunday reading, though the People is now, and has been for a half-dozen years, published as a Saturday paper. Contemporaneously with these weeklies two children's or Sunday-school papers were published by Rev. W. W. Dowling, The Little Sower and The Little Watchman, both dead or removed now. During the financial discussions that arose in the general embarrassments following the panic of 1873, the Sun was established, as the organ of the " Green- back" or "Fiat" party, by James Buchanan, and maintained here by him and Edward S. Pope and others with ability and influence till a year or so ago, when it was removed to Richmond, in this State. Very recently it returned here. The Globe, an ephemeral publication, was merged in the Sun. The Tribune is a German daily of liberal opinions, edited by Mr. Philip Rappaport, a lawyer and a gentleman of fine attainments; office, 62 South Dela- ware Street. The Telegraph is a German Demo- cratie daily established about the year 1867, pub- lished by the "Gutenberg Company," at 27 South Delaware Street. The same company publishes the Weekly Telegraph and the Spottvogel, or Mocking Bird, a Sunday paper, and the Volksblatt. The Telegraph is one of the best newspapers in the city, and has a patronage equal to its merit. The other dailies in full life are the News and Times.

The News was established by Mr. John H. Holli- day, in December, 1869, the first number appearing on the 7th of that month. Mr. Holliday had the newspaper experience of some years of service on the Sentinel and other city papers to enable him to judge shrewdly of his means and opportunities, and he saw a good place to put a cheap evening paper with all the news of a costly morning one, condensed when practicable, in full when desirable, and vary it with editorial matter dictated solely by his own judgment, with no reference to party interests or purposes. He would do no " puffing," and have no reciprocity of | ington, Mr. Smith has done the editorial writing

favors that always leaves a paper a large ereditor in the end. He really " filled a long-felt want," and the News was a definite success almost from the start, but it had some serious difficulties to overcome. Patience, energy, and fair dealing have worked out their usual result, and the News has the largest daily circulation of any paper in the State. With Mr. Holliday has been associated, almost from the start, Daniel L. Paine, a poet who is subject to the unusual failing of writing too little, the author of several beautiful ope- rettas which he has never had set to music or put on the stage; the author also of " Elberon," the best poem on the death of President Garfield that was published in any newspaper in the country at the time. For some eight years or so Mr. Morris Ross has done the editorial writing and contributed largely to the establishment of the paper's reputation for wide and accurate information and literary ability. Gideon B. Thompson has been, at one time or another, still longer connected with the city department, and made a reputation in its conduct both for himself and the paper.

The Times was begun in July, 1881, by William R. Holloway, who had then recently left the post- office after a twelve years' term. He had been con- nected with the press from childhood almost. His father, at one time commissioner of patents, was for years editor and publisher of the Richmond (Wayne County) Palladium, and while still in his nonage William became a printer and compositor on a Cincinnati paper. He served Governor Morton, his brother-in-law, as private secretary till his pur- chase of the Journal, in 1864, but thenceforward he was almost always connected with a newspaper, even when attending to the multifarious duties of post- master of a large office like that of Indianapolis. He had the knowledge of the business, the enterprise, and energy for the projector of a large morning daily, and he used them with admirable judgment and complete success in establishing the Times. Charles M. Walker, then recently editor-in-chief of the Journal, became editor of the Times, and since his acceptance of the chief clerkship of the post- office department under Judge Gresham, at Wash-

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana, Part 45

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 942

Author: Sulgrove, Berry R. (Berry Robinson), 1828-1890
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 942