Stilson Hutchins

Stilson Hutchins (November 14, 1838 – April 23, 1912) was an American newspaper reporter and publisher, best known as founder of the broadsheet newspaper The Washington Post. Hutchins was also a Southern sympathizer and an outspoken racist against African Americans, Native Americans, and immigrants.[1]

Stilson Hutchins
Born(1838-11-14)November 14, 1838
Whitefield, Coos County, New Hampshire, U.S.
DiedApril 23, 1912(1912-04-23) (aged 73)
Known forFounder of The Washington Post

Life and career

Hutchins was born in Whitefield, Coos County, New Hampshire, on November 14, 1838, the son of Stilson Eastman Hutchins and Clara Eaton Hutchins. He moved to Saint Louis, establishing the Saint Louis Times newspaper in 1866, and became a Missouri state representative for the Democratic Party. However, before Saint Louis, Stilson lived in Iowa and was employed by the Dubuque Herald. In 1863 Hutchins became acting editor when Dennis Mahoney was absent. On April 5, 1863, Stilson Hutchins as acting editor decided to print the following in an editorial in his own words which would deepen the paper's anti-black stance even further: "Who wants to vote the (xxx)-emancipation ticket? Who wants Iowa covered with indolent blacks? Answer at the polls."[2]

He subsequently moved to Washington, D.C., where he founded The Washington Post to advance Democratic Party views. It was first published on December 6, 1877; within a year, circulation topped 6,000 copies per day. In 1880, Hungarian-born immigrant Joseph Pulitzer joined the staff. He was a lifelong Democrat and his racism and Confederate sympathy never changed before he eventually started to lose mental stability, and bought out the paper's only competitor, The Republican National. He sold The Post in 1889 and the new owners kept the same theme the paper had been delivering until around 1933 when new owners realized that if the paper was to survive it would need to be a serious paper. In 1919 however, The Washington Post probably hit the wall with its reporting of a black male who raped a white woman, taking the lead in causing what would be known as the 1919 Washington Race Riots, where African Americans were targeted themselves, their homes and businesses. African Americans would fight back and when it was all over there were several White and Black deaths.[3][4]

In 1889, Hutchins commissioned a statue of Benjamin Franklin to stand at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 10th street, overlooking what were then the offices of The Washington Post. In 1890, he commissioned a sculpture of Charles Dickens from Francis Edwin Elwell, but backed out of the deal.[5] In 1900, Hutchins also funded Gaetano Trentanove's Daniel Webster Memorial in Scott Circle, Washington, D.C.

Illustration in an 1889 guidebook issued by the Passenger Department of the Boston & Maine Railroad.

In August 1883, Hutchins had leased Governor's Island, on Lake Winnipesaukee in Gilford, New Hampshire, from Isaiah Morrill of Gilford, for $1,000 per year for 99 years, "with the privilege of purchasing the island within twenty years for the sum of $20,000". The arrangement took effect January 1, 1884. Hutchins built a mansion on the island in 1885.[6] In 1903, he leased the mansion to the Ambassador from Germany, Baron Speck von Sternburg, who established a summer embassy there with a retinue of at least 20 persons. The Baron later wrote that the view from the mansion was as magnificent as anything in Switzerland or Bavaria, and that the advertising which he gave the region caused the sale of other summer property. The mansion was sold by the Hutchins family in the late 1920s and burned down on August 1, 1935. While the mansion was once the only one on the island, now there are scores of large private homes.

In 1897, Hutchins bought Oatlands Plantation in Leesburg, Virginia, but never lived on the property, eventually selling it to William Corcoran Eustis in 1903.

Hutchins was later the publisher of the first Washington Times (founded 1894 by Rep. Charles G. Conn, and later sold to Frank A. Munsey, who sold it to William Randolph Hearst, who sold it to Eleanor Josephine Medill Patterson ("Cissy" Patterson), who merged it with "Washington Herald" to form the Washington Times-Herald. She was bought out by the Meyer family in 1954, who merged it with the Washington Post.)

Hutchins, died at his home aged 73 in Washington, D.C., on April 23, 1912, and interred at Rock Creek Cemetery.

References
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Stilson Hutchins.
  1. Shah, Hemant; Thornton, Michael (2004). Newspaper Coverage of Interethnic Conflict: Competing Visions of America. Thousand Oaks, California, United States: SAGE Publications, Inc. doi:10.4135/9781483327969. ISBN 978-0-8039-7232-2.
  2. "CIVIL WAR - Encyclopedia Dubuque". www.encyclopediadubuque.org. Retrieved July 17, 2022.
  3. "The Forgotten Washington Race War of 1919 | History News Network". historynewsnetwork.org. Retrieved July 17, 2022.
  4. Greenfield, Daniel (June 1, 2022). "Greenfield: The Washington Post Was Founded by Confederates. Now it Screams, 'Racism'. » Politichicks.com". Politichicks.com. Retrieved July 17, 2022.
  5. "Dickens and Little Nell (1890)". Fairmount Park Art Association. 2004. Archived from the original on September 24, 2010. Retrieved September 22, 2010. Elwell completed the sculpture, one of just two known full-size sculptural representation of Dickens, and it stands today in Philadelphia's Clark Park.
  6. "History |". gicnh.com. Retrieved November 15, 2017.
  • Edward J. Gallagher, Founder of the Washington Post: A Biography of Stilson Hutchins, 1838-1912, Laconia: Citizen Publishing Company, 1965.
  • Washington Post history
  • Dex Nilsson, The Names of Washington, D.C., Lafayette: Twinbrook Communications, 1999.
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