USA > Pennsylvania > Cambria County > History of Cambria County, Pennsylvania, Volume I > Part 34
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HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
On February 5, 1861, the partnership was dissolved by lim- itation, when Mr. Swank was appointed superintendent of the public schools for Cambria county. Colonel Bowman continued as editor. On July 5, 1863, Cyrus Elder became an associate editor, continuing for a few months only. On October 14, 1864, Mr. Swank again assumed editorial control and changed the name to that of the Johnstown Tribune. On January 8, 1869, he enlarged it by making it an eight-column folio, 26 by 38 inches, which made it the largest weekly paper in western Pennsylvania. In December, 1869, he sold the plant to his brother, George T. Swank, who moved it to the front part of the second floor of the present Tribune building, where he had his job office. On January 7, 1870, the first edition of nine hun- dred copies under his management was issued. These rooms were too small for the Tribune and the job office; therefore, on April 30 of that year, he moved the office and equipments to the second floor of the Mansion House, on the southeast corner of Franklin and Main streets, where it remained until March 7, 1874, when it was again moved to the second floor of the present Tribune building. In a few years thereafter Mr. Swank pur- chased the ground and building and made it the permanent home of his newspaper.
George Thompson Swank was a son of George W. and Nancy Moore Swank, born near Saltsburg, in Indiana county, November 6, 1836. He learned to be a printer on the Valley Wreath, the Mountain Echo, the Cambrian and the Cambria Tribune. In 1854 he went to Rock Island, Illinois, to work on the Rock Islander, and the following year was engaged on the Napiersville Journal, Illinois. In 1855 he returned to the Cam- bria Tribune. In the summer of 1856 he again went west and visited friends at Earlville, Illinois, but not finding employment at his trade, he started for Chicago, with a large deficit in his finances. When the train stopped at Aurora, Illinois, it was after dark. A strange and sudden impulse led him to alight with- out knowing a soul in that vicinity. Early the next morning he . called at the office of the Aurora Beacon, seeking work, and to his surprise was given immediate employment as foreman at $12 per week, with board and lodging at the best hotel in the town at $4. The blues had taken flight, and he remained there until late in the fall of 1856, when he accepted a position on the Transcript in Prescott, Wisconsin. During the next two years he attended the Eldersridge Academy, and taught the
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public schools at or near Fallen Timber, in White township, and the Benshoff school in West Taylor township. He then went to Pittsburg and became a printer on The Union, a daily then just started, and which was edited by John M. Bailey, sub- sequently elected a judge of the court of common pleas for that county. The paper failed and he had difficulty in securing his wages. In 1859 he went to St. Louis and became a printer on the New Era, an abolition paper started by Francis P. Blair and Henry T. Blow. The office was located in Carondelet, a suburban town. The paper was an aggressive advocate for the overthrow of slavery, and one night the office was dismantled and the press and types were thrown into the Mississippi river. Blair was the candidate for vice-president in 1868, and Blow was our minister to Venezuela under Grant.
In 1860 Mr. Swank went to New York city, and with the assistance of Salathiel Tudor Sellick, a Johnstown boy, he pro- cured a position as "sub" on Horace Greeley's Tribune. It was difficult to get a case on that paper, but being coached by Sellick and Ben Gillespie, one of the fastest typesetters in the country, he soon had a case of his own. He remained there until his enlistment in Company D, Seventy-first New York Infantry. Upon the expiration of that term he re-enlisted as a private in Company D, Twenty-seventh Connecticut Infantry, and was pro-
moted to corporal and then to first sergeant. He followed Han- cock the Superb in the several assaults on Marye's Heights at Fredericksburg, and was with him at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. On July 2, when Hancock went to the assistance of Sickles in the wheatfield, Mr. Swank was seriously wounded, and his colonel, Henry C. Merwin, was killed, with many of his company. Owing to his wound Mr. Swank was honorably dis- charged, and upon his recovery returned to Greeley's Tribune, and took his old case, but was in a short time made a proof- reader. In 1866 he and a companion, Alexander W. McDonald, established a job office in the Potter building, 37 Park Row, which was very successful. They printed the Galaxy, the Turf, Field and Farm, the Army and Navy Journal, and Richard Grant White's excellent book on the "Use of Words," and other high class periodicals and books. In 1868 he came to Johnstown and started a job office, as heretofore mentioned.
When he took charge of the Tribune Mr. Swank was well equipped for his new position. He had what Greeley called a "nose" for news, and made a special feature of publishing all
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the local events worthy of notice. On Monday, March 3, 1873, was published the first daily Johnstown Tribune. It contained President Grant's message to Congress, and was on the streets five hours after the message had been delivered to the House, with a full Associated Press report of the day. It was a folio, 14 by 20 inches, five columns, excepting on Fridays, which being a combination of the daily and weekly issues, consisted of eight pages. Since March 3, 1880, the editions have been separate. The daily was three cents a copy, or $7 per annum, and the weekly, $1.50. On March 4, 1878, the daily was reduced to $5. The advertising rates were $100 per cohmmm for the year in the weekly, and $250 in the daily, and fifty cents per inch for tran- sient patronage. On March 8, 1895, the weekly was enlarged to eight columns of eight pages.
Mr. Swank modeled his paper after the style of the New York Tribune, and the rules of the office as to make-up, punctua- tion, spelling, capitalization, etc., were those of Greeley and McElrath. He never used plate matter in either editions, nor inserted locals between reading matter. He would not permit his employes to solicit subscriptions, advertising or job work, but depended upon the merits of the office and paper as did his master.
The weekly began its existence with a circulation of 450, and in 1870 it had 900. When Mr. Swank retired it had in- creased to 3,000, which consisted of the best list outside of the large daily papers, and was equivalent to cash payments in ad- vance. The daily started with about 800 subscribers, and he closed it with 4,000. The Tribune is the only paper in the county having a complete file for fifty-three years, or of any other near it by thirty odd years. There were no papers issued between May 31 and June 13, 1889, both inclusive, inasmuch as the flood had almost destroyed the plant.
When the daily was established and for many years there- after, Mr. Swank was the editor, foreman, pressman, jobber, and business manager. Casper W. Easly was the first local, or city reporter, and an excellent one he was, as were all who fol- lowed. On the death of Mr. Easly, George J. Akers succeeded, and on the latter's death George C. Gibbs became the local. Mr. Gibbs was a versatile printer, and could do anything from a leading editoral to collecting bills, or setting up type. El- mer E. Conrath succeeded Mr. Gibbs. Mr. Swank assumed the
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responsibility of every word put in the paper, either in court or out of it; he read every line and gave out all the copy; he stood over the imposing stone and directed what should go in; and he met the irate who came in to tell him that "it wasn't so." On April 5, 1902, on account of ill health, he announced the sale of the Tribune plant to Anderson H. Walters and others, for a sum exceeding $82,000, and affectionately closed the editorial with "Good Bye." In due consideration of all the essential requirements for a newspaper man,-as, editor, publisher, printer, foreman, jobber, pressman and in business qualifications, Mr. Swank was pre-eminent in his profession and trade, and all in all was excelled by none.
He was twice appointed and once elected clerk of the dis- trict court, which existed in Johnstown from '69 to '75. He was postmaster of Johnstown for three terms beginning in 1874. He was chairman of the Republican county committee in '72 when 'Grant carried the county against his old friend and preceptor, Horace Greeley, and was chairman at other times, and delegate to state conventions and congressional confer- ences on many occasions. He was an alternate delegate to the Hayes convention of '76, and that of Grant in '80. He was a delegate to the Harrison convention of 1888, and a presidential elector for McKinley in 1896. Mr. Swank is a member of the famous No. 6 Typographical Union of New York city; the Grand Army of the Republic, and of Jolmstown Lodge of F. & A. Masons.
When Mr. Walters assumed control of the Tribune, the Johnstown Tribune Publishing Company was organized, May 2, 1902, with a capital of $75,500. The officers were Anderson HI. Walters, president, treasurer and editor, and Elmer E. Con- rath, secretary and associate editor. That year three Mergan- thaler typesetting machines were introduced, when type setting and distribution by hand ceased in that office. In April, 1905, a Goss straight line rapid press was put in use. In March, 1907, the daily contained from twelve to sixteen pages, and the weekly from ten to twelve, seven columns each, and twenty inches in length. On December 1, 1905, the price of the daily was re- duced to one cent, or $3 per annum. The weekly remains at $1.50. An early edition is printed for the afternoon trains, and at 4:15 the regular edition appears with a cirenlation of 10,000. The weekly has about 3,000.
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HISTORY OF CAMBRIA COUNTY.
The Cambria Democrat was founded in Ebensburg in the year 1832 by Arnold Downing, then burgess of Ebensburg, Moses Canan being clerk, it was, as its name indicated, a Jackson paper. ' After a couple of years of precarious exist- ence it suspended, doubtless owing to the fact that Johnstown was then just beginning to forge to the front, and the estab- lishment of a paper of that party in the canal and railroad town did not leave the paper at the county seat sufficient patronage to justify its publication.
No. 16 of Vol. II. of the Johnstown Democrat and Cambria and Somerset Advertiser, bearing date of April 26, 1836, would seem to indicate that the journal was started about the begin- ning of 1835. It was a four page, six column paper, the col- umns seventeen inches in length, and was printed and pub- lished by William Latshaw, on Canal street, next door to the collector's office in Johnstown. Its publication was abandoned in the latter part of 1836.
A source of official patronage was the publication of the then proposed constitution of the state during the last year of Ritner's administration in 1838, the law requiring it to be pub- lished in two newspapers in the county, and as there was but one Whig paper in Cambria county-the Sky, in Johnstown- it was determined by James Fenlon and Alexander McConnell, then supervisor of the Allegheny Portage Railroad, to start a paper in Ebensburg for that purpose, and the Democrat Jour- nal, with John Scott as publisher, was the result. The late Hon. John Fenlon was the writer of the editorials which, in dealing with political opponents, were generally caustic in the extreme. No. 4 of Vol. I., bearing date September 20, 1838, published what purported to be a receipt given by David R. Porter, then Democratic or Masonic candidate for governor, to one George Davis, and charged that Porter in taking the oath required by the insolvent laws, the benefit of which he had taken, had perjured himself. The reply of the Porterites was that their candidate had acted in good faith, had been forced into bankruptcy by reason of indorsing the obligations of friends, and did not mean to defraud any creditor.
"Wood taken at this office for subscription," is promi- nently advertised at the bottom of page 3.
Shortly after this time Robert L. Johnston assumed the editorial control of the Journal.
The Democratic Sentinel was published in Johnstown dur-
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ing the presidential campaign of 1844 to advocate the election of James K. Polk. No. 2, of Vol. I. bears date of September 20, 1844. George Nelson Smith was the editor. It was printed on "medium-size" paper, four fifteen-inch columns to the page, four pages, and the price was $1.50 per year. Judging from the import of a set of resolutions passed by a meeting of mem- bers of the party in Summerhill township, published in the paper, there was an urgent necessity for the leaders to get to- gether. There was, it appears, a bitter fight between John Snodgrass, Thomas A. Maguire, Dr. William A. Smith, Joseph McDonald, and the Mountain Sentinel, on the side of the rail- road faction, and George Murray, Colonel John Kean, James Potts, and the Democratic Sentinel, on the other.
In 1835, the year after the opening of the double-track rail- road system across the Allegheny mountains, between Johns- town and Hollidaysburg, William Bernard Conway came to Johnstown and commenced the practice of law. His office and dwelling were on Canal street, now Washington, adjoining the Cambria Library. He was probably the first lawyer to locate in this town, and there were then but two others in the county -- Moses Canan and Michael Dan Magehan-both at Ebensburg.
Mr. Conway was about thirty-three years of age at that time, and came here from Pittsburg. He was slender, probably five feet nine in height, and weighed less than a hundred and fifty pounds; neat in dress, usually wearing a frock coat and silk hat, and used spectacles, with an entire absence of whiskers or mustache. But Mr. Conway was a genius, and gave more thought to literature than to the science of law. The Johns- town Democrat, the first newspaper published in this town, had suspended, which gave him an opportunity to develop his nat- ural bent toward journalism. He purchased the plant, and, in the early part of 1836, founded the Mountaineer and Cambria and Somerset Advertiser, which was commonly known as the Mountaineer. The office was on Canal street, next to the collector's office, about where Ludwig's store is now situated.
In the winter of 1836 Mr. Conway moved the Mountaineer plant on sleds to Ebensburg, where he continued to issue weekly installments of wit, sarcasm, and eloquence until the latter part of '37, when it seems the paper suspended. During odd mo- ments he was defendant in criminal libel suits, of which he had twenty on hand in a period of a few months, but only four were ever brought to trial.
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The Mountaineer was an individuality; it was Conwayism from the first to the last letter on the editorial page, and it had a state reputation of value, as he was a most brilliant and ver- satile writer.
Mr. Conway was a follower of Andrew Jackson, and at that time a vigorous opponent of Joseph Ritner, the anti-Mason and Whig governor, and a close friend of David R. Porter, who succeeded Ritner in 1838. During the year of 1837 he pub- lished many articles favoring Porter's nomination by the Dem- ocratic party, but he left before the election occurred.
In the early part of 1838 friends in Philadelphia offered to fit out a newspaper plant in that city and give it to him to manage, but in June President Van Buren appointed him sec- retary of the Territory of lowa, and he chose the latter posi- tion, which he held up to the time of his death. At this time Joseph Williams, Esq., a lawyer at Somerset, was also ap- pointed one of the Federal judges of that territory. On one occasion, when Judge Black was in Buchanan's cabinet, Judge Williams called on him, with whom he had an intimate acquaint- ance, and sent in his card, which did not receive prompt atten- tion. He thereupon sent in another with the following addi- tional information, "When you were Jerry and I was Joe," which gave him an audience at once.
William Bernard Conway was a son of John Conway, a native of County Fermanagh, Ulster, Ireland. His parents were married before emigrating to the new world, which was a short time after the Revolution of '98. When they came here they located on the Brandywine in Newcastle county, Delaware, probably at Wilmington, where William B. Conway was born about 1802. He was a weaver's apprentice until his father moved to Westmoreland county in 1818, when he purchased a farm one mile from Livermore, near Spruce run, which has remained in the Conway family until this date. It is now owned by the estate of John Conway, a nephew of William B. and the father of William B. Conway, a grandnephew, and ex-recorder of Westmoreland county, who now resides in Latrobe.
It is not known when William B. Conway left the farm, but between 1825 and 1833 he read law and was admitted to practice in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties, and also formed a partnership with Thomas Phillips, of Pittsburg, and
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published in that city the American Manufacturer, a Demo- cratic newspaper.
It was also during this period that he married Miss Char- ity Anne Kinney, of Mckeesport. Their first child was Mary, who married Robert Daley, of Mckeesport, and their children are Edward, Robert, and Annie Daley, now residing in that city, who are the only lineal descendants of this talented man. Their second child was a son, born in Ebensburg in the early part of 1837, and who died there November 7, 1837.
William B. Conway died in Davenport, Iowa, in Decem- ber, 1839, while he was secretary of the territory, and was buried on the westerly bank of the Mississippi river. His wife came to MeKeesport and died there. Mary Conway Daley, his daughter, also died there in 1886. Mrs. Margaret Conway, a sister-in-law of William B. Conway, died at the Summit, this county, 1879.
After Mr. Conway's retirement the Mountaineer was pub- lished for a time by Seely & Glessner, the first number being new series, Vol. II., No. 1, bearing the date June 20, 1838. It was a four-page, six-column paper. From this it would appear that Conway began a new series of the paper in Ebensburg. The terms of the Mountaineer were $2 per year if paid within the first three months, or $3 after that time. A notice at the bottom of the fourth page reads: "All kinds of country pro- duce taken in exchange for the Mountaineer." On September 17, 1838, Seely & Glessner dissolved partnership, Glessner re- tiring and Seely assuming full control.
In the issue of Wednesday, April 10, 1839, S. S. Seely gives notice that his connection with the Mountaineer has ceased, but that it will be continued by Thomas Lloyd, whose salutatory appears in the same column. At the top of the column is this :
"For President, MARTIN VAN BUREN, and THE CONSTITUTIONAL TREASURY."
Shortly after his accession to the editorial chair Mr. Lloyd published "proposals for continuing the publication and in- creasing the circulation of the Mountaineer," but, despite these declarations of principles and claims to patronage, the Moun- taineer appears to have had a hard road to travel. Party ani- mosities were running riot, often even to deeds of malicious mischief and violence, and one night, probably in the fall of
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1839, its office was entered and the type carried off it is said by a journeyman printer and dumped into a vault not far dis- tant. This malevolent act caused the suspension of the paper for some time. It was resuscitated, however, and in 1842 John B. Brown had editorial charge, reducing the paper to four col- umns to the page. The following year Thomas C. McDowell, Esq., was the avowed editor, and after him James McDermitt assumed control of its destinies, to be succeeded in 1844 by John G. Given, late of Mexico, Indiana, who changed its name to the Mountain Sentinel, which in time gave way to the Dem- ocrat and Sentinel, and that, in 1867, to the Cambria Freeman.
In an article under head of "The Press in Ebensburg," the Alleghenian of May 24, 1866, says that in 1842 McDermitt succeeded Lloyd, who went west, where he died some years aft- erward, and that, after having run the paper a year, James Brown took hold of it and conducted it until his death, which resulted from his being thrown from a buggy, in 1844. John G. Given succeeded him and changed the name of the paper to the Mountain Sentinel; but in the files of the Cambria Gazette, under date of May 25, 1842, may be read an account of an ac- cident which befell John B. Brown, editor of the Mountaineer, by being thrown from a buggy and so severely injured that at first his life was despaired of, after which we see no notice of him in the paper. The conclusion is that the above state- ment is correct. Brown may, however, have lingered for years, and may have succeeded McDermitt, and may have afterward died from the result of the injury referred to.
The Mountain Sentinel was the name given to the Mountain- eer by its new proprietor-John G. Given. It supported Polk and Dallas, the Democratic candidates for president and vice- president of that year, and favored the annexation of Texas. Mr. Given continued to edit the paper until the breaking out of the war with Mexico, when he enlisted in the Cambria Guards, and served with distinction in that memorable war.
During the absence of Mr. Given, Daniel Zahm graced the sanctum of the paper as editor, and the Sentinel had ample opportunity to supply its readers with accounts of the stirring events of the conflict.
On April 12, 1849, Mr. Given resumed the editing of the Mountain Sentinel, and continued in that capacity until Feb- ruary 27, 1851, when A. J. Rhey succeeded to the editorial chair. Mr. Rhey edited the paper through the campaign of
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1852 and until August 26, 1853, when the paper was merged with the Mountain Democrat, founded the previous year by Richard White, into the Democrat and Sentinel.
Of this continuation of the Mountain Sentinel William B. Sipes became editor and proprietor and Robert Litzinger printer. This arrangement was not of long duration, for on December 9, 1853. Richard White and H. C. Devine assumed the roles of editors and proprietors, and Charles Wimmer that of printer. White and Devine continued in partnership in the editorship and proprietorship of the paper until May 13, 1857, when Mr. White retired and Mr. Devine assumed sole control, calling to his aid as assistant editor C. D. Murray, a talented young man of Ebensburg.
The Mountain Democrat was a venture of Richard White in the arena of journalism. The paper was published in Ebens- burg in 1852; but after an existence of one year was merged with the Mountain Sentinel into the Democrat and Sentinel.
In 1859 we find Mr. Murray editor and D. C. Zahm, pub- lisher and proprietor, who retired March 13, 1861, to be succeed- ed by James S. Todd as publisher on April 10th of that year. Mr. Murray continued to grace the editorial sanctum until June 18, 1862, when Mr. Todd succeeded him, retiring on April 13, 1864, to be succeeded on May 4th of the same year by Michael Hasson, Esq.
On June 7, 1865, Clark Wilson bought the plant and the "good will" of the paper, and J. Ellison Downes became assist- ant editor. August 16, 1866, W. H. McEnrue became editor and proprietor, and conducted the paper until the time of its demise, about two months afterward.
Robert L. Johnston, Esq., and Philip Collins, about the be- ginning of the year 1867, purchased at sheriff's sale the press, types, etc., of the defunct Democrat and Sentinel of Ebensburg. Mr. Johnston, as editor and proprietor, and Mr. Henry A. Mc- Pike, as publisher who had previously acted in a similar cap- acity on the Crusader, a Catholic paper published at Summit, this county, and on the Mountain Echo in Johnstown, on Jan- uary 31, 1867, launched the Cambria Freeman on the precarious sea of journalism as the organ of the Democratic party at the county seat. John S. Rhey, Esq., a writer of much force, perspicuity and ability, wrote the greater part of the editorials for the Freeman while it was under the control of Messrs. John- ston and McPike, the latter becoming sole proprietor about the
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year 1875, and continuing in that relation to the paper until, in the early part of 1884, he sold the "good will" of the paper and the appurtenances of the office to J. G. Hasson.
After leaving Ebensburg, Mr. MePike became one of the projectors and proprietors of the Altoona Times, but along in the early '90s disposed of his interest in that venture, and now lives in Washington City.
On July 1, 1903, Thomas A. Osborne and H. G. Andrews purchased the Freeman. On January 1, 1905, Mr. Andrews sold his interest to Mr. Osborne. It is a folio, eight columns to the page, and 22 inches in length, with a circulation of 1,672.
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