Thomas Taylor: Early Fort Wayne Journalist

  Tom Taylor never served in the Civil War, but he decided in 1863 to support and promote Abraham Lincoln and his policies as a young newspaper founder, publisher and editor. He continued in this rough-and-tumble line of work, when newspapers even in small towns often had competition.

     Thomas Stanfield Taylor (1840-1908) was born in South Bend, the son of Edmund Pitts Taylor and Phoebe Stanfield. He had several powerful connections in his family tree. He was the nephew of Lathrop Minor Taylor, co-founder of South Bend, and at times his father’s business partner. His uncle Samuel Hanna was Fort Wayne’s most important leader, probably its wealthiest citizen and a state legislator. 

     Tom was also named for his uncle Thomas Stillwell Stanfield, who started out as a clerk at Lathrop Taylor’s general store, studied law, and became an Indiana congressman and judge of circuit court. During the Civil War he helped organize troops and served as an advisor to Governor Oliver P. Morton. These were nice connections for a young man to have.

     In 1863 with help from uncle Samuel, Tom founded a newspaper in Lagrange, Indiana which he published until 1867. It was a pro-Lincoln newspaper supportive of the administration’s war policies. The same year he married Lagrange native Livonia “Ona” Morse, the daughter of a master carpenter. 

     In 1868 or ‘69, he founded the Fort Wayne Journal. In 1869 the editor of the Lafayette newspaper said, “A new weekly newspaper, entitled the Journal, has just been established in Fort Wayne. It is a large, well-filled and well-edited paper. T.S. Taylor is the editor and proprietor. He is a Republican and will do good service in the cause [of] the approaching campaign.” The editor of the Lagrange Democrat was less taken with him as Tom solicited printing jobs at his old home. The Fort Wayne Daily Gazette reported that the Lagrange editor felt “wrathy,” writing, “Our town is frequently visited by an animal of the ‘rat’ breed, being, we suppose, in a starving condition at his chosen residence. All we can say is that we are fully prepared and can and will do better work than he can or does in his ‘rat’ establishment in Fort Wayne.”

     Newspaper editors then were not expected to be neutral, and Tom was active in Republican politics. In 1870 he was elected secretary of the Allen County Republican Party and a representative at the state party convention. 

     He had a sharp rival in the Democratic Sentinel. The Sentinel editor described him as “our spicy and go-ahead friend.” Spicy used to have a variety of meanings such as exciting but slightly shocking, like a spicy joke. Newspapers often advertised being “full of spicy news.” 

     Tom seemed to be a well-liked and well-thought of man. In January 1871 the Good Templars held a fundraiser in Fort Wayne in which people bought tickets to vote for the “best-looking editor” in the city. There were four newspapers. The winner was to receive a “mammoth” fruitcake. “Taylor, of the Journal, as a matter of course carried the votes of the ladies, and carried, also the cake off with him, whereas the Press, the Sentinel and the Gazette were much grieved,” the Daily Gazette wrote. Tom sent generous slices of cake to each of the editors, and the Gazette noted there was still enough to share with all the editors who would soon be attending a state newspaper editor’s convention in Indianapolis. 

     The same month, at a Catholic fundraising fair, a contest was held to present a $50 cane to the editor who received the most votes. Again he won this contest. His hometown newspaper, the Saint Joseph Valley Register of South Bend, said, “This evidence of Tom’s popularity in his new home, where he has built up one of the best offices in the state, is exceedingly gratifying to his numerous friends here. The Journal is one of our best state exchanges and we hear that it's proprietor's efforts to publish a live paper are appreciated by the citizens of Fort Wayne and vicinity.”  

     There was good-natured joking about the Good Templar cake among editors around the state. He was called a champion cake-eater by the Sentinel. The Warsaw newspaper called him “a sociable fellow, especially where he can get a square meal.”

     

Politics

     In 1871 word was received that President Ulysses S. Grant would be coming through town from Lafayette. A crowd assembled at the train station. Grant came in on the 10:00 p.m. train with Thomas Taylor accompanying him. Taylor, as editor of the Journal, introduced the president to the crowd, who cheered heartily. As the party waited for the train to be transferred to the Pittsburgh track, “quite a number” entered the train and were introduced to the president. 

     The editor of the Sentinel was sharp in his criticism of Tom’s politics. “We want no clearer indication of the intentions of the Radical party than a glance at the Fort Wayne Journal,” he wrote. “Tom has the confidence of his party…made powerful by an intimate, personal acquaintance with Grant, Colfax, Morton, etc.” The stand he took in regards to the Ku Klux Klan - which the Republican party opposed - proved a radical nature.The editor also castigated him for supporting the incumbent, General John Shank, for Congress over Fort Wayne attorney Lindley M. Ninde. The editor said that if Shank won reelection it could only be due to fraud, and called him a political parasite and an old leech. However, the editor attempted to be fair to Tom, the man. “...not that we have any love for Tom Taylor from a political standpoint, but it would be ingenerous of us to underrate the fact that his Journal is regarded by his party all over the state as a prominent, leading paper.” 

     Newspaper editors noted that Tom traveled extensively around the state, using his free rail passes as a member of the press. “While generally to be found at his office flourishing an agreeable smile, he is almost ubiquitous – here, there, everywhere. He is as familiar to Railroad conductors as to porters who peddle peanuts, and every hamlet, village, town and city is able to echo once a week, “There goes Tom Taylor!” the Sentinel editor wrote. In another column in which the city clerk, Sam Freeman, traveled to Chicago, the editor joked that he learned that there were seasons in which a man couldn’t travel to Chicago without running into Tom Taylor. 

     In June 1871 Tom had another occasion to travel. He was part of a large party of newspaper editors and publishers on an excursion train headed to Michigan. Communities would sponsor junkets to promote their town to business leaders, manufacturers and newspaper honchos. As the press excursion entered a rainy Fort Wayne citizens provided carriages to transport the newspapermen and their wives to the local Rink, used for ice skating and large meetings. Jones’ Band led the procession from the depot; Calhoun Street was thronged with the curious. The visitors were settled in hotels and private residences, then taken to the rink - a party of 400. The mayor intended to show off Fort Wayne’s manufacturing greatness, and a tour of a foundry that produced over $600,000 worth of railcar wheels per year was planned. Torrential rains and the train’s hour-late arrival upended those plans, however. The mayor spoke at the reception. 

The Post Office

     In the nineteenth century, the political fortunes of members of Congress depended in large measure on their ability to send patronage jobs back to their districts. Most of the jobs were located in the post office, though other departments such as customs were sources of work. Postal jobs held a cache they lack today, especially the postmaster. They were trusted figures who handled cash and were often called upon to weigh in on a man’s integrity, such as in cases seeking veterans’ benefits. Newspapers often congratulated the newly-appointed for getting this “plum.” As early as 1871 the Sentinel made mention of Tom seeking a postal job. Certainly he had the connections from his family, political activities and job. 

     In February 1872 the Waterloo News of Waterloo, Indiana said,“Nothing so certainly demoralizes a man as the shipwreck of his hopes for political preferment.  While he thought his chances for getting the Fort Wayne Post Office were good, Tom Taylor of the Journal was as hale a fellow as anyone would wish to meet.  But “hope long deferred maketh the heart sick…”

     Why would Tom want to leave the newspaper business behind, and the independence of being his own boss? In 1870, Fort Wayne had a population just under 18,000. Newspaper readership was very high, but subscriptions and advertising were split between three newspapers. It wasn’t uncommon for newspaper editors to run reminders to their subscribers to pay up. There are indications that the newspaper struggled financially. In August 1872 the St. Joseph County paper said Tom looked into starting a paper at Berrien Springs, Michigan but did not find enough interest there to proceed. So he returned to the Journal and proposed reducing the size of paper and charging $1 a year to subscribers. 

     On December 29, 1872 the  South Bend Tribune announced that Tom would be spending the winter in Washington D.C. 

     In 1873 he officially moved to the city. He succeeded in securing a position with the postal service. But at least at first, he did not give up all interest in Indiana journalism. In 1876 the Plymouth, Indiana  newspaper described him as “the able Washington correspondent of the Lagrange Standard.” Was this a paid or unpaid side job? In 1879 the South Bend Tribune editor thanked him for sending newspapers from Washington D.C.

The Dead Letter Office

     Tom’s job was at the Dead Letter office of the postal service where he stayed for 35 years. There, “undeliverable” letters and packages were sent. The employees of the office were the only ones authorized to open and read customer mail, solely in an effort to find clues to determine where the letter should be sent. They were regarded as a sort of detective. The postal service preferred to hire retired clergy as they were thought to be most trustworthy and discrete in handling others’ mail, and women, who were seen as attuned to fine details. 

     Livonia was mentioned in Indiana newspapers as she made weeks-long visits to friends in Fort Wayne, Lagrange and to her mother-in-law’s home in South Bend. Health problems were first mentioned in 1878 when she was only 32. By 1886 a newspaper said she was a “confirmed invalid.” She died in 1895 and Tom brought her body to South Bend for burial.  

    Two years later he married Jenny M. Smith Pyne, a divorcee who was twenty years younger than he.

     When Tom died in 1908 his death was announced to the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette by his cousin, Eliza Hanna Hayden, daughter of Samuel Hanna. The newspaper described him as a pioneer journalist. “Old residents of Fort Wayne remember Mr. Taylor well as a man of excellent abilities, fine education, and a vigorous and versatile writer.” He was buried in Washington D.C. 

Note: 

1. Tom S. Taylor was a first cousin of my great-great-great grandmother, Jane Suttenfield. Tom’s father, “Pitts” Taylor, was the brother of Laura Taylor Suttenfield, Jane's mother. 

2. Patronage jobs: Kernell.

Sources:

     Bruns, James H. “Remembering the Dead,” Enroute, Vol. 1 Issue 3 (July-September 1992), https://postalmuseum.si.edu/remembering-the-dead

     Castaldi, Tom. “Journal Gazette Building,” https://archfw.org/heritage-trail/centraldowntown/journal-gazette-building/

     Kernell, Samuel. “Congress and America’s Political Development: The Transformation of the Post Office from Patronage to Service,” American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 43, No. 3 (July 1999), pp. 792-811.

     

Newspapers:

     Seeks Printing Business: Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, 17 July 1869, p. 4. 

     New Weekly Founded: Lafayette Weekly Courier, 28 Dec 1869, p. 1. 

     “The Allen County Republican Convention,” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, 10 Jan 1870, p. 2. 

     “President Grant,” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, 27 April 1871, p. 4.

     “The Excursionists. Fort Wayne Tenders Them the Hospitalities of the City,” Fort Wayne Daily Gazette, 7 June 1871, p. 4. 

     Our Spicy Friend: Fort Wayne Sentinel, 15 Jan 1872, p. 4. 

     “Painful,” The Waterloo Press (Waterloo, Indiana), 22 Feb 1872, p. 2.

     Starting Berrien Springs Paper: St. Joseph Valley Register, 15 Aug 1872, p. 3.

     “Our Member,” The Weekly Republican (Plymouth, Indiana), 6 July 1876, p. 2. 

     “Society,” [remarriage], Fort Wayne Weekly Journal-Gazette, 20 June 1897, p. 5.

     “He Founded the Journal. Thomas S. Taylor, Pioneer Journalist, Dead in Washington,” Fort Wayne Weekly Journal-Gazette, 16 April 1908, p. 7. 

     Grier, Peter. “Postmasters General, Kings of Political Patronage?” Christian Science Monitor, 11 March 2010, https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/Decoder/2010/0311/Postmasters-general-kings-of-political-patronage

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