Horace Greeley was the most widely known and generally revered American newspaper editor of the nineteenth century. His pulpit was the editorship of the New-York Tribune and the nationally circulated Weekly Tribune, which he founded in April and September 1841, respectively, and operated for thirty-one years until his death in 1872. Until the Tribune's appearance, no single newspaper had reached as many readers in the United States. The editor's name--and the more affectionate "Uncle Horace"--were recognized everywhere.

Greeley was born on 3 February 1811 at Amherst, New Hampshire, to Zaccheus Greeley, a farmer and day laborer, and Mary Woodburn Greeley. Because the couple's first two children had died, Horace became the eldest in a family of two boys and three girls. Though sickly as a child, he helped as he was able with the never-ending farm chores such as charcoal burning and picking stones. Of the latter, he observed many...