Cornelius Redding HANLEITER  14 June 1815 to 19 April 1897.

Contributed by: Mike Brubaker
e-mail: mikebrubaker63@hotmail.com

C. R. Hanleiter was born 14 June 1815, in Savannah, Georgia, the fourth 
and youngest child of John Jacob Hanleiter, Jr. and Elizabeth McFarland. 
His father, John Jacob Hanleiter, Jr., died shortly after his birth.   
His mother, Elizabeth McFarland of Cowpens, S. C., left him a true orphan 
at the age of eight.  He was taken in by a maternal aunt, Mrs. Jane Winkler.

After three years living with the Winkler family, he was apprenticed to 
William Robertson, editor and publisher of the Savannah Georgian to learn 
the trade of printer.  After his apprenticeship ended in 1834, Hanleiter 
moved to Augusta where he continued his craft in the publishing house of 
the Constitutionalist.  Still later, he moved to Macon where he worked 
with Simri Rose and Isaac G. Seymour to publish the Georgia Messenger, 
later he published The News Carrier; still later the Southern Post and 
The Southern Ladies Book.

In 1840, Cornelius Hanleiter had moved to Forsyth, where he published the 
Southern Botanico-Medical Journal.  About two years later, he moved to 
Madison, Georgia and established the Southern Miscellany .  By 1847, he 
moved his operation to Atlanta where, in 1852, he sold his print shop and 
equipment to a group of investors that later began publishing the Atlanta 
Intelligencer.  With the sale of his newspaper, Hanleiter was able to 
invest in newer printing equipment; he founded Franklin Publishing Company 
in Atlanta.

As a businessman, Cornelius Hanleiter recognized that the health of his 
community directly effected the health of his business.  He was very active 
in community affairs in Macon, Savannah, and Atlanta.  He helped organize 
the Gate City Guard, a militia group in 1850s Atlanta.  He also served on 
the Atlanta City Council during the 1856-1857 term.  He played a major role 
in organizing the county poor farm.  He is also given credit for publishing 
the full code of city ordinances.  For a short time he also served as judge 
of the Inferior Court of Fulton County.

Although he opposed secession, with the coming of the Civil War, he served 
as lieutenant in several Georgia units.  His primary duties involved 
constructing defensive installations around the city of Savannah, Ga.   At 
the end of the war he had risen to the rank of Colonel.

As a result of the war, Hanleiter was financially ruined; he had lost his 
publishing firm.  Although he attempted to reestablish himself, he never 
attained the success he had experienced before the war.  His most 
significant contributions included publication of the Atlanta City 
Directories from 1870, 1871, and 1872.  For a brief time, he worked in 
Washington, D. C. in the Government Printing Office as a proof reader.

Haneleiter was married twice.  His first wife Mary Ann Ford of New Haven, 
Conn., he married on 22 February 1837.  They had six children, four of them 
survived to maturity: William Robertson Hanleiter; Jospehine; Mary Ida; and 
Catherine Ann.  Mary Ann died in 1848.  In September 1850, he married Ann 
Elizabeth Shaw.  Together they had eight children, six of them surviving: 
Bertha; George Shaw Hanleiter; Victorene (possibly Victoria); Cora; James 
McPherson Hanleiter; and Elizabeth.  Ann Elizabeth Shaw died in 1876.

Cornelius Redding Hanleiter died in the home of his daughter, Catherine Ann, 
in April of 1897.  Both he and his second wife are buried at Oakland Cemetery 
in Atlanta, Ga.


Bibliography:

Atlanta Constitution, 20 April 1897.

Cornelius Redding Hanleiter manscript collection, James G. Kenan Research 
Center,Atlanta History Center, mss 109.

Cornelius Redding Hanleiter personality file, James G. Kenan Research Center, 
Atlanta History Center, Atlanta, Georgia.

Memoirs of Georgia Containing Historical Accounts of the States Civil, 
Military, Industrial and Professional Interests and Personal Sketches of 
Many of Its People, 2 vol., Atlanta, Ga.: The Southern Historical Association, 
1895, vol. 1, pp 802-804.