Thurlow Weed
Fifty Years a Journalist
Contributed by Juanita Bennard
Oshkosh Northwestern Friday, October 13, 1882 Oshkosh, Wisconsin
The
American public read with interest the accounts of Mr. Weed’s condition of
health which appear in the newspapers. While he cannot live many more years,
there seems to be no reason at present why his death should be expected; and as
he veteran has an opinion on all current political subjects and generally gives
public voice to it, he still is, as for half a century past, a man of the hour.
Thurlow Weed is a native of New York state. He was born at Cairo, Greene County, on the 15th of November, 1797. Almost a baby when he began to work for a living, at ten he was cabin boy on a Hudson River boat, and at twelve worked for a printer in Catskill. This engagement was an apprenticeship of his own seeking. When the war of 1812 began, young Weed volunteered into the American army. At his majority he owned a newspaper. In 1826 and 1827 he was engaged in editing the Anti-Masonic Enquirer. Twice elected to the Assembly of the Empire State, he never afterwards accepted a political position, however important,
Honorable
or remunerative. Mr. Weed was a clever party manager and is given a large share
of the credit due to the men who secured the election of DeWitt Clinton as
Governor of New York. He assumed editorial charge of the Albany Evening Journal
in the year 1830. His endeavors in behalf of William Henry Harrison, Zachary
Taylor, Winfield Scott. Fremont and Lincoln, nominated for the Presidency is
historic. When Mr. Weed visited Europe in 1861, he was received with the marked
distinction due to a prominent journalist, politician, and diplomatist. He
retried from the Albany Evening Journal in 1862, but so lately as 1880
contributed to its columns in the shape of an article recording his half a
century’s connection with public life. Mr. Weed is the author of a volume of
letters addressed from Europe and West Indies, and of an interesting and
valuable book on his personal reminiscences. Upon his having attained the
eighty-third anniversary of his birth, the New York Press Club, of which he is
the oldest member, tendered him a reception, which proved to be one of the most
delightful occasions in the history of that association.