Horace Greeley
The Sage of
Chappaqua
Horace Greeley Ink Well
He proved the pen mightier than the sword
Horace Greeley was born in New Hampshire,
where he worked as a printer. In 1840 he went to New York City and started the
campaign newspaper “The Log Cabin.” This paper with a circulation of over
80,000 was instrumental in 
getting William Henry Harrison elected
president. After the election Horace was successful in converting the campaign
paper into the New York Tribune, which he would run up till shortly before his
death. His pen was used in support of the rights of the Southern States to
secede from the Union and then the newsprint was changed to support
abolitionist ideas and strong support of the North in the Civil War. He supported
leniency for the South after the war and even posted bond for Jefferson Davis.
He used the pages of his paper to advocate western expansion and one of his
most famous lines was “Go West, young man.”
Horace was very interested in politics but
his personal political career had almost no success. He served as Congressman for three months in the late 1840’s.
Between 1850 and 1870, Horace ran 5 times, alternately for the different houses
of Congress, without success. In 1872 he was a candidate for President of the
United States, running on both the Democratic and Liberal Republican tickets.
He received 2.8 million votes but lost to U. S. Grant by 700,000 votes. Within a very short period of time after the
election, Greeley’s wife died, and he lost control of the Tribune. While
campaigning for the presidency, Whitelaw Reid, owner of the competing New York
Herald and one time friend and writer for Greeley’s newspapers, gained control
of the Tribune. Horace suffered a nervous breakdown with the lost of his wife,
loss of his paper, and the loss of the election. He had gone “mad.” It has been
reported that in his last moments he spotted Reid and yelled, “You son of a
bitch, you stole my newspaper”, and then he died. Reid’s New York Herald
reported Greeley’s last 
words as "I know my redeemer
liveth."
Having died prior to the Electoral College
meeting, Horace Greeley goes down in history as having received 2.7 million
votes and not one Electoral vote. Horace Greeley is buried in New York's
Green-Wood Cemetery.
A
political footnote, Reid would, 20 years later, run for vice-president on the
ticket with the Grandson of Greeley’s first political champion, Benjamin
Harrison. They lost to Grover Cleveland.
The Log Cabin, Vol.1 No.1,
Tokens, and Inkwell are in the Holcomb collection