USA > Wisconsin > Milwaukee County > Memoirs of Milwaukee County : from the earliest historical times down to the present, including a genealogical and biographical record of representative families in Milwaukee County, Volume I > Part 47
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mails were so unreliable as to admit of no dependence being placed upon them. Imagine Mr. Brown's surprise to meet Mr. Fillmore (of the Sentinel) in Chicago, whither he had quietly gone, bent on the same errand that took him there. Of course no personal feeling was allowed to crop out, but each determined to outwit the other, if possible. Wednesday afternoon at 4 o'clock, Messenger Lockwood, of Wells & Co.'s Express Company, arrived at Chicago, and in fifteen minutes a copy of the document was safely stored in the pocket of each of the rival newspaper men. Then began the race for home. Mr. Brown led at the opening, but eight miles from the city Mr. Fillmore showed him the color of his horses' tails. When the first station was reached, Mr. Brown took possession of a team provided expressly for him by Nelson McNeal, of Southport, and speedily closed the gap. He soon overhauled his competitor, and so exciting did the race then be- come that McNeal jumped upon the seat and drove over the last thirty miles of the road himself. The reputation of his roadsters was at stake and he did not wish to be beaten. A little before two on the morning of Thursday, Mr. Brown drove up to the United States Hotel in this place, having covered the distance from the Tremont House, Chicago, in nine hours and forty minutes, which was the fastest journey then on record. The office was waiting to receive the 'copy,' and at a little before ten o'clock Thursday morning, an extra issue of the Courier was being sold upon the streets. The Sentinel came out about noon, but Mr. Brown won the distinction of making the quickest time, and really did accomplish a most enterprising work."
In 1846 the Courier was again ahead of the Sentinel in the publi- cation of the message. The story of how this "scoop" was accom- plished is thus told by E. A. Calkins, at that time a compositor on the Courier : "All hands at the Courier office had sat up two or three nights in the middle of December, 1846, waiting for the message. After two all-night waits of the kind, I was standing by the exchange table and picked up a copy of the Toledo Blade in a wrapper, that had been lying there forty-eight hours. I pulled it open and found that it contained the message. The printers of that paper had got hold of a New York paper that came west partly by rail and partly by stage, and had issued the message in time to get it to the Western stage for Chicago. The copy had got into the Milwaukee mail and had so come through ahead of time. We printed the Courier with the message long ahead of the other papers, and they wondered where we had procured the copy; but it might have been put on the street a couple of days earlier if the wrappers had been torn from all the exchanges on Brown's table."
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Street sales of newspapers, by means of newsboys, were intro- duced in Milwaukee by John S. Fillmore of the Sentinel about the time that paper started its daily edition. The town was thoroughly can- vassed for juvenile salesmen, but the native boys, brought up as they had been in the quiet atmosphere of a western town, lacked that courage and perseverance which constitute the essential qualifications of the successful vender of newspapers. Mr. Fillmore, therefore, sent to New York for two experienced newsboys, who in due time made their appearance in Milwaukee to boom the circulation of the Sentinel. From these typical gamins the Milwaukee boys soon learned the "tricks of the trade," many of them becoming superior to their per- ceptors in the art of selling papers on the streets.
Among the early publications of Milwaukee was the Wisconsin Temperance Journal, the first number of which was issued in April, 1840. It was intended to be the organ of the State Temperance Society, which held its first annual meeting at Troy in February pre- ceding the appearance of the Journal. At that meeting it was decided to have the proceedings published in such form as the committee on printing-Rev. Stephen D. Peet, A. Finch, Jr., and Harrison Reed- might deem best. The result was the effort to start a temperance journal, but after three numbers were issued the paper gave up the ghost. Another short-lived paper was The Workingman's Advocate, which utilized the outfit and materials of the Milwaukee Journal when that paper suspended publication in 1842, but, like the Temperance Journal, the Advocate soon perished for want of support.
On Aug. 11, 1843, the first number of the Milwaukee Democrat was issued, with J. M. Kimball as proprietor and C. C. Sholes, editor. Its appearance marked the advent of independent Democratic journal- isnı, the first isuse declaring an unequivocal opposition to certain poli- cies and practices of the Democratic party. Some three months later Mr. Kimball was succeeded by C. L. MacArthur, who withdrew in January, 1844, leaving Mr. Sholes in full control. Some six months later he became dissatisfied with some of the doctrines advocated by the Democratic party and changed the name of the paper to that of The American Freeman, which at once began to advocate the abolition of slavery. About the close of 1844 the Freeman was removed to Wau- kesha, where it became the foundation of the Waukesha Freeman. After about a year the paper became the property of a stock company which continued to conduct it at Waukesha until 1848, when C. C. Olin bought the plant and good will, removed the office back to Mil- waukee, and began the publication of a weekly paper called the Free Democrat.
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C. C. Sholes, the editor of the paper from the time it was started until it became the property of Mr. Olin, came to Wisconsin in 1836. His first newspaper experience in the new territory was with the Wis- consin Democrat, which he began publishing at Green Bay in August, 1836. In the spring of 1840 he removed his paper to Southport (now Kenosha), and the following year he became part owner of the Wis- consin Enquirer at Madison. It was the outfit of this paper, upon which Mr. Sholes held a lien, that was used in starting the Milwau- kee Democrat. After selling the Freeman to Mr. Olin, Mr. Sholes held various political offices, was elected to the state senate from Kenosha, and was a man of considerable influence in local affairs. He was a prominent member of the Masonic fraternity, and died in October, 1867.
Upon acquiring possession of the Freeman and changing its name to The Free Democrat, Mr. Olin secured the services of Sherman M. Booth as editor. The paper had never been a financial success. Its chief support came from an organization of Abolitionists known as the Territorial Liberty Association, which virtually owned the Freeman and dictated its policy. It was through the influence of this association that Mr. Booth was called to the editorial chair. Prior to his assum- ing the editorial management of the Free Democrat he had been en- gaged in conducting the editorial columns of the Christian Freeman, an Abolition organ published at New Haven, Conn. He was a graduate of Yale, his fame as a writer was wide-spread, and it was due to this fact that the Liberty Association urged him for editor of the Democrat. Buck, in his History of Milwaukee, says: "Possessed of a good legal mind and a strong physical constitution, he was a perfect Her- cules in a fight, and never so happy as when he had a battle in pros- pect. Quick to see, prompt to act, he was hard to circumvent, and woe be to the 'tenderfoot' (as the soft-natured young men are called out west) who ventured to attack him in print. He would get such a scoring as would teach him better than to try that again. He was a power for many years in the editorial corps of Milwaukee."
In the issue of the American Freeman of Nov. 29, 1848, Mr. Booth said: "This number closes the fourth volume of this paper. Its history, could we write it from the beginning, would be interesting. Of its birth and early progress, we know little; with its condition during the last six months we are quite well acquainted. We under- stand that it was originally called the Milwaukee Democrat, that the name was changed while under the charge of C. C. Sholes to the American Freeman. The first part of the name was again changed from American to Wisconsin, and now for reasons satisfactory to our-
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selves, and to our friends as far as we know, we shall permit it quietly to go out of existence, and supply its place with a new paper, whose name shall indicate the character, object and spirit of the party of which we shall endeavor to make it a true and faithful advocate. In this obituary of the Freeman we shall not attempt to eulogize its life. That it has committed errors, we have no doubt; that it has accom- plished good, we know. It was born in agitation, rocked in excitement, fed on the field of battel, dies triumphant. It began its course in adversity, and has outgrown all opposition, and closes its existence in prosperity. Indeed its prosperity is one cause of its end. We, there- fore, ask no friend to put on mourning for its death. In truth it can hardly be said to be dead, it is simply transformed or translated to a better field of usefulness. Without any regret, therefore, the Wiscon- sin Freeman bids you good-bye, asking you to welcome the Free Dem- ocrat, which we promise shall be as good as we can make it."
In his salutatory Mr. Booth outlined his editorial policy as fol- lows: "We shall endeavor to promote the peaceful and constitutional abolition of American slavery by presenting facts and arguments adapted to impress the public mind with a sense of the impolicy, unprof- itableness and wickedness of slave-holding, and the safety, expediency and duty of immediate emancipation, and by urging those who exer- cise the right of suffrage to employ the moral suasion of the ballot-box to break every yoke and let the oppressed go free. We shall not swerve from the principle: No voting for slaveholders, or those who vote for slaveholders, for any state or national office."
A few months later Booth bought the paper and in September, 1850, began the publication of a tri-weekly and an afternoon daily edition. In March, 1854, a negro slave named Glover was arrested by a United States deputy marshal and imprisoned in the Milwaukee jail until he could be returned to his master in Missouri. Booth de- nounced in his paper the fugitive slave law, under which the arrest had been made, and called a public meeting to express sympathy for the unfortunate slave. The excitement ran so high that the jail was broken open, the negro spirited away to a place of safety, and he finally reached Canada. Booth was arrested, but was released by the Wis- consin supreme court, which declared the fugitive slave law uncon- stitutional. He was re-arrested, and for the next seven years was involved in a legal fight for liberty, being finally pardoned by Presi- dent Buchanan on March 2, 1861. On July 4, 1860, while incarcerated in the United States custom house at Milwaukee, he delivered an ora- tion on Freedom from the window of his prison to a crowd gathered in the street in front of the building. (Further mention of Booth's
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trial will be found in the chapter on Bench and Bar). The troubles of the proprietor in this case made it necessary for him to dispose of his paper, and in March, 1859, the Free Democrat passed into the possession of Sholes & Crounse. In May the firm became Crounse & Thomson, and in February, 1860, Mr. Thomson was succeeded by Mr. Fitch. On May, 26, 1860, Crounse & Fitch sold out to C. C. Olin and H. W. Tenney, who conducted the paper until the following Decem- ber, when it became the property of A. D. Smith, who associated with him George W. Chapman. But the paper never regained the reputation it had acquired under Mr. Booth's management, and in 1862 it was consolidated with the Sentinel.
The Commercial Advertiser was started in the fall of 1848 as a weekly newspaper by Lucas Seaver, with H. W. Gunnison as editor. Mr. Seaver was a Democrat of the old-school type, and the conser- vative tone of his paper found a liberal popular support. This, to- gether with the fact that he was successful in securing official patron- age, led him to change his paper to a daily in the spring of 1849. In 1850 he sold the paper to Carey & Rounds, who a few months later sold it to George Hyer. In 1852 a controlling interest was purchased by Daniel Shaw, who changed the name to the Morning News, and subsequently to The News. Mr. Shaw was from Troy, N. Y., a gradu- ate of Union College, who had been connected with the Albany Argus before coming west. He was a man of ability, a vigorous writer, interspersing his editorials with rich humor and a fine, subtle sarcasm that delighted his friends and disconcerted his opponents. In 1854 he sold the News to Clason & Huntsman, who published it for awhile under the name of the Daily Milwaukee Press and News. Mr. Huntsman sold his interest to C. S. Benton in 1855, and in April, 1856. J. R. Sharpstein became sole proprietor and editor, but the next year he took Joseph Lathrop in as a partner, this arrangement contin- uing until July, 1861, when C. H. Orton bought the paper and in- stalled Beriah Brown as editor.
Beriah Brown was born at Canandaigua, N. Y., Feb. 21, 1815, and was a brother of John A. Brown, editor of the Milwaukee Courier. He learned the printer's trade in the office of the Advocate at Batavia, N. Y., and afterward was one of the founders of the Erie Obesrver. In Erie he met Horace Greeley, with whom he afterward worked in New York city, the friendship between them lasting through life. In 1835 he came west, working on various newspapers in Michigan until 1841, when he located in Iowa county, Wis., of which he was elected clerk in 1844, but resigned the office the succeeding year to assume the editorial management of the Democrat at Madison. In 1860 he
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founded a paper called the Daily People's Press in Milwaukee, but dis- continued its publication when he became associated with Mr. Orton in the publication of the News. He severed his connection with the News in 1861 and the next year removed to the Pacific coast, where he passed the remainder of his life.
In November, 1861, Sharpstein & Lathrop resumed control of the News and continued to publish it until about the middle of September. 1862, when they sold it to J. M. Lyon and George H. Paul. A short time before the transfer was made Sharpstein & Lathrop adopted the innovation of discontinuing the Monday edition and publishing a paper on Sunday instead, a policy that was followed as long as the paper was published independently. Lyon & Paul introduced a number of important changes in the paper, greatly improving both its appear- ance and character. It was the first western paper to change from the old "blanket sheet" to a five-column quarto, a form that has since been generally adopted. Mr. Lyon died in November, 1868, when Mr. Paul assumed the business management in addition to his editorial work. Under his control the News reached the zenith of its prosperity and influence. Subsequently he formed a partnership with Sylvanus Cadwallader, who assumed the business management until in January, 1871, when the Milwaukee News Company was organized with George H. Paul as president, and Sylvanus Cadwallader as secretary. During the next three years C. Latham Sholes was editor a large part of the time. In May, 1874, Mr. Paul was succeeded by Col. Elias A. Cal- kins. He was succeeded in turn by A. L. Kane, A. M. Thomson, and E. W. Magann, the last named 'becoming the owner of the News in 1877. In 1878 Robertson James, John C. Keefe, M. A. Aldrich and H. A. Chittenden, Jr., acquired partnership interests in the paper, a new building was erected on Mason street, but the News was not the success the new company had hoped for, and it was finally sold to James S. White. In December, 1880, Mr. White sold out to a company headed by Horace Rublee, whose object was the establishment of a new Republican paper in Milwaukee, and on Jan. 3, 1881, the first number of the Republican and News came from the press. After a career of less than eighteen months the News was purchased by the Sentinel Company and merged with that paper.
Two men connected with the News during its existence were veterans in the field of pioneer journalism. George H. Paul, who gave to the paper most of its prestige, is more specifically mentioned in the chapter on Politics and Official Honors. Elias A. Calkins, who suc- ceeded Mr. Paul as editor, was a native of New York state, having been born at Royalton, Niagara county, in 1828. When he was about
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fifteen years of age his parents removed to Milwaukee, where he soon after began learning the trade of bookbinder, studying useful subjects as opportunity afforded. His first newspaper work was with Sherman M. Booth on the Free Democrat, of which he was local editor from the fall of 1850 to the following spring. He then became local editor of the Commercial Advertiser until in December, 1852, when he went to Madison to accept a position in the office of the superintendent of public instruction. In January, 1854, he became associated with Beriah Brown as assistant editor of the Madison Argus and Democrat. This paper was bought by Mr. Calkins and James K. Proudfit in 1855, and he remained in charge of the editorial columns until 1861, when he entered the army as major of the Third Wisconsin cavalry, having previously declined a commission as colonel. He was promoted to lieutenant-colonel of his regiment, and after the war resumed newspaper work. In 1866 he was appointed collector of internal revenue by President Johnson, but after he had held the office for several months the senate refused to confirm the nomination. He then went to St. Paul, Minn., where he occupied an editorial position on the Pioneer until 1870, when he returned to Milwaukee, and in 1874 succeeded to the editorial management of the News. Two years later he gave up this position and in December, 1878, was one of the founders of the Sunday Telegraph. He remained with this paper until 1884, when he sold his interest and went to Chicago to become an editorial writer on the Evening Journal of that city.
Early in the year 1860 George Godfrey began the publication of the Daily Commercial Letter and Price Current, the purpose of which was to keep its readers informed on the condition of the markets. Its chief support came from commission men and produce dealers. Not long after it was started, L. L. Crounse, secretary of the chamber of commerce, began to issue daily circulars covering the same field. He engaged as his reporter F. W. Friese, but it was not long until Mr. Friese went over to the Commercial Letter, and Crounse discontinued his publication. Mr. Godfrey died in 1887, when Mr. Friese became the sole proprietor. Several attempts were made in the meantime to establish rival papers in the same field, but Godfrey & Friese always managed to retain the confidence and support of the business circles of Milwaukee. About 1869 Mr. Godfrey began the publication of a small daily paper called The Daily Guide, devoted principally to short news items of local interest. It ran successfully for several years, when for some reason it was discontinued.
During the war Sherman M. Booth published a weekly paper which bore the inappropriate name of The Daily Life. It was a vig-
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orous exponent of the doctrines of the anti-slaveryites, and after slavery was abolished Booth announced to his readers, that his main object in life had been accomplished, having done all he could for the abolition of slavery, and that it was his intention to retire from the political arena. With the issue containing this declaration The Daily Life ceased to exist.
About 1870 Hamilton Wicks and J. W. Ryckman started a daily called the Commercial Times. In 1871 it was purchased by Chittenden & Bishop, who associated with them E. B. Northrop as an editorial writer. After a precarious existence of six years it was forced to suspend, having been a losing venture from the start. W. E. Cramer says: "It was a bright, readable paper, too much given to sensation- alism at times toward the end of its career ; but if it had been started ten years later it would no doubt have achieved success."
The Milwaukee Enterprise, a weekly publication, was commenced by Colby & Miller in 1873. A few months after it started it was bought by E. A. Vanderpoole, who changed the name to that of the South Side Courier, under which it appeared regularly until 1879, when it was discontinued.
Perhaps no paper ever published in Milwaukee achieved a wider reputation than Peck's Sun, which was established at La Crosse in May, 1874, by George W. Peck, a humorous writer and lecturer. In March, 1878, the office of publication was removed to Milwaukee and George Lord was installed as business manager. "Peck's Bad Boy," the hero of many a ludicrous situation, became well known from coast to coast, and the circulation of the Sun went forward by leaps and bounds until it approached the 100,000 mark. But the reading public desires variety, and in course of time the "Bad Boy" failed to satisfy the gen- eral demand for humorous literature, though he was as bright and pre- cocious as ever. The circulation began to decline, the Sun passed to other owners, and finally was consolidated with the Saturday Star, a paper started by Ernest W. and H. E. Dankoler in May, 1889. It was intended to promote the interests of the South Side, a field in which other journalistic ventures had failed, but the Star succeeded so well that it had to remove to larger quarters several times during its existence. Mr. Peck's career as a newspaper man and humorist brought him into public notice, with the result that he was elected mayor of Milwaukee and later governor of Wisconsin, in which latter office he served two terms.
Late in the fall of 1878, seeing an unoccupied field, C. C. Bowsfield and Elias A. Calkins formed a partnership for the publication of a weekly paper to be called The Sunday Telegraph, the first number of
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOK TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
DEUTSCHER CLUB
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which came from the press dated Dec. 1, 1878. In July, 1879, Col. J. A. Watrous bought an interest in the paper, and some three months later Mr. Bowsfield sold his interest to Calkins & Watrous, who con- tinued to publish it until 1884, when Col. Calkins sold his interest to S. C. Mower, who remained with the paper until the following year. Colonel Watrous then conducted the paper alone until 1891, when he took his son, R. B. Watrous, into partnership. Although the Telegraph was started as a Sunday paper the publication day was changed to Saturday. W. E. Cramer, writing of the Milwaukee press in 1895, said : "The Telegraph was Milwaukee's first successful 'society' paper. It has of late ceased to make a feature of social news, that field being covered by the daily papers more fully than of yore. As a receptacle of soldier news and war reminiscence, and as a chatty, breezy, weekly compendium of news and comment and gossip for the home circle, the Telegraph is a welcome visitor to thousands of families throughout Wisconsin and the Northwest." Watrous & Son continued the publication of the Telegraph until the beginning of the Spanish-American war, when the senior member of the firm entered the army, leaving the management of the paper to his son, who issued it regularly until in November, 1899, when the plant was disposed of, the publication of the paper being at that time brought to an end.
The Evening Signal was founded in July, 1879. The following June C. C. Bowsfield and Frank Flower became the proprietors and changed the name to The Chronicle. In January, 1881, they sold out to T. H. McElroy, formerly connected with the News, who continued the publication of the paper for some time. At the present time the only publication in the city by the name of The Chronicle is a religious monthly.
In the autumn of 1881 A. C. McCrorie began the publication of a weekly paper called the Bay View Worker. He sold out in a few months to D. H. Anderson, who changed the name to the Bay View Herald. A little later Anderson sold it to D. B. Starkey, who placed it on a paying basis and conducted it for about four years, when he sold it to Mrs. Brinton. She sold it to Rotier & Nolan in 1887, and after a short time they discontinued its publication.
In 1882 Peter V. Deuster was a candidate for Congress in the Fourth district, and in order to secure adequate newspaper support he associated with him Michael Kraus for the purpose of starting a new paper. On Oct. 6, 1882, the first number of the Daily Journal made its appearance and it was predicted by some that it would not live longer than the election. M. A. Aldrich was engaged as manag- ing editor, the paper adopting a straight Democratic policy. Contrary
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