George Dennison Prentice (December 18, 1802 – January 22, 1870) was an American newspaper editor, writer and poet who built the ''Louisville Journal'' into a major newspaper in
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...
, and the
Ohio River Valley, in part by the virulence and satire in its editorials, which some blamed for a
bloody election day riot in 1855. A slaveholder, Prentice initially supported
Unionist candidate
John Bell in the 1860 U.S. Presidential election, and after the American Civil War, he urged Kentucky to remain neutral. Both of his sons joined the
Confederate States Army
The Confederate States Army, also called the Confederate Army or the Southern Army, was the military land force of the Confederate States of America (commonly referred to as the Confederacy) during the American Civil War (1861–1865), fighting ...
, one dying in 1862, and Prentice's editorials lampooned Kentucky's military governor, Union General
Stephen G. Burbridge
Stephen Gano Burbridge (August 19, 1831 – December 2, 1894), also known as "Butcher" Burbridge or the "Butcher of Kentucky", was a controversial Union general during the American Civil War. In June 1864 he was given command over the Commonwealth ...
. Prentice later opposed
Congressional Reconstruction. He wrote a biography of
Henry Clay
Henry Clay Sr. (April 12, 1777June 29, 1852) was an American attorney and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He was the seventh House speaker as well as the ninth secretary of state, al ...
published in 1831, an 1836 poem published in the
McGuffey Readers, and a collection of his humorous essays was published in 1859 and revised after his death.
Early and family life
Prentice was born in
New London County, Connecticut, in 1802 to farmer Rufus Prentice and his wife, the former Sarah Stanton. George was a child prodigy, learning to read before he was four, and mastering Latin and Greek by the time he was fourteen.
[Kentucky bio] He was the principal of a public school at age 15.
He left that job and moved to
Rhode Island
Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States ...
to attend
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
, graduating at the head of his class in 1823. He returned to his home state to read law in
Canterbury
Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour.
...
,
Windham County, Connecticut
Windham County is a county located in the northeastern corner of the U.S. state of Connecticut. As of the 2020 census, the population was 116,418, making it the least populous county in Connecticut. It forms the core of the region known as the ...
. Although he joined the Connecticut
bar
Bar or BAR may refer to:
Food and drink
* Bar (establishment), selling alcoholic beverages
* Candy bar
* Chocolate bar
Science and technology
* Bar (river morphology), a deposit of sediment
* Bar (tropical cyclone), a layer of cloud
* Bar (u ...
in 1827, his legal practice did not thrive.
On August 18, 1835, Prentice married Harriet Benham (1820–1868), daughter of
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...
, attorney Joseph Benham and a graduate of
Nazareth College in
Bardstown, Kentucky. She was an accomplished musician and for 20 years choir director for
Christ Church in Louisville. Although their children Mary Louise and George Benham died young, William Courtland Prentice (1837-1862) and Clarence Joseph Prentice (1839–1873) reached adulthood. In the 1840 census, their 12-person household included seven slaves (some infants). Prentice owned 5 slaves, all adults, in 1850, and four slaves (including an eight-year-old boy) in 1860.
Career
Prentice moved to
Hartford and became acting editor of the ''Connecticut Mirror'' in 1827. He became editor of the ''Hartford New England Review'' in 1828.
Invited to come to Kentucky to write a campaign biography of
Henry Clay
Henry Clay Sr. (April 12, 1777June 29, 1852) was an American attorney and statesman who represented Kentucky in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. He was the seventh House speaker as well as the ninth secretary of state, al ...
, Prentice ended up staying in Louisville. Although the biography sold 20,000 copies (and Clay remained one of Kentucky's U.S. Senators), Prentice received no money for the book because the Hartford publisher went bankrupt. Henry Clay also never became President of the United States as he had dreamed, losing in 1832 as he had in 1824 and would again in 1844. Meanwhile, Prentice accepted an offer to co-found the ''
Louisville Journal
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border.
...
'' newspaper in 1830, with the twin goals of further promoting Henry Clay, and rivaling the then-dominant ''Louisville Public Advertiser''. Prentice soon found himself in an editorial feud with ''Advertiser'' publisher Shadrack Penn, which continued until Penn left the city in 1841.
Prentice's biting editorials and the savage wit of his replies to detractors helped make the ''Journal'' the most widely circulated newspaper in western America in the next four decades. Prentice was also a poet, whose best-known poem, "The Closing Year" (written on New Year's Eve 1836) would be included in one of
McGuffey's Readers
The Eclectic Readers (commonly, but informally known as the McGuffey Readers) were a series of graded primers for grade levels 1–6. They were widely used as textbooks in American schools from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century, and ...
.
He also befriended and was a mentor to poet
Mary Louisa Chitwood
Mary Louisa Chitwood (October 29, 1832 – December 19, 1855) was an American writer of poetry and prose. She wrote for the '' Louisville Journal'', ''The Ladies' Repository'', ''The Genius of the West'', ''Arthur's Home Gazette'', the ''Odd-Fell ...
(1832–1855).
Prentice became known for militant editorials before elections, which varied little over the next 25 years despite his changing party affiliation. He initially promoted the
Whig Party. He became a party leader, attended various national conventions and also visited Washington D.C. In mid-1855, as the party disintegrated, Prentice editorialized in support of the
Know-Nothing party and the pro-slavery,
anti-Catholic and anti-foreigner movement that reached a hysterical level in the 1850s in many parts of the nation. In Louisville, this culminated in the
Bloody Monday riot of August 6, 1855, in which 22 people were killed as mobs tried to prevent Irish and German citizens from voting on election day. Days before, Prentice had editorialized against the "most pestilent influence of the foreign swarms" loyal to a
pope
The pope ( la, papa, from el, πάππας, translit=pappas, 'father'), also known as supreme pontiff ( or ), Roman pontiff () or sovereign pontiff, is the bishop of Rome (or historically the patriarch of Rome), head of the worldwide Cathol ...
he called "an inflated Italian despot who keeps people kissing his toes all day." According to Archbishop
John Lancaster Spalding, Prentice later publicly expressed regret over his role in the riots.
On July 21, 1857, Prentice engaged in a
pistol duel
Pistol dueling was a competitive sport developed around 1900 which involved opponents shooting at each other using dueling pistols adapted to fire wax bullets. The sport was briefly popular among some members of the metropolitan upper classes in th ...
with
Reuben T. Durrett
Reuben Thomas Durrett (January 22, 1824 – September 16, 1913) was a lawyer, jurist, linguist, poet, editor, journalist, history writer, and Kentucky bibliographer. In 1871, Durrett founded the failed The Public Library of Kentucky. In 1884, D ...
over statements made between their two rival newspapers.
Prentice also contributed columns to the ''
New York Ledger
''The New York Ledger'' was a weekly story paper published in Manhattan, New York. It was established in 1855 by Robert E. Bonner, by transforming the weekly financial journal called ''The Merchant's Ledger'' that he had purchased in 1851. Bo ...
'' for several years, and in 1859, a New York firm published ''Prenticeana: or wit and humor'', which would be republished shortly after his death.
Civil War and aftermath
Prentice supported the Union in the 1850s and the
Constitutional Union Party in 1860, but disagreed with many of President Lincoln's policies during the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
, especially the decision to emancipate slaves. In 1861 Prentice joined a group that urged Kentucky not to secede from the Union but instead establish itself as a neutral party in the war. Nonetheless, Louisville was occupied by Union troops for almost the entire war, and resentment seethed. Both Prentice's sons joined the Confederate army, and the elder, William, died September 21, 1862 (shortly after the
Battle of Antietam
The Battle of Antietam (), or Battle of Sharpsburg particularly in the Southern United States, was a battle of the American Civil War fought on September 17, 1862, between Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and Union G ...
and as Union troops massed in Louisville to attack General Braxton Bragg's forces). His son Clarence rose to the rank of Major in Dortch's 2nd battalion, Kentucky Cavalry. In 1864 Prentice created the famous "
Sue Mundy" guerrilla character to mock Union General
Stephen G. Burbridge
Stephen Gano Burbridge (August 19, 1831 – December 2, 1894), also known as "Butcher" Burbridge or the "Butcher of Kentucky", was a controversial Union general during the American Civil War. In June 1864 he was given command over the Commonwealth ...
, military commander of Kentucky.
After the war Prentice opposed many of the policies of
Reconstruction
Reconstruction may refer to:
Politics, history, and sociology
*Reconstruction (law), the transfer of a company's (or several companies') business to a new company
*''Perestroika'' (Russian for "reconstruction"), a late 20th century Soviet Union ...
, as did the city's other major editor,
Walter N. Haldeman of the ''Louisville Courier'', which Union forces had seized and shut in September 1861 because of Haldeman's Confederate sympathies (he moved to
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of muni ...
, and then
Madison, Georgia
Madison is a city in Morgan County, Georgia, United States. It is part of the Atlanta-Athens-Clarke-Sandy Springs Combined Statistical Area. The population was 3,979 at the 2010 census. The city is the county seat of Morgan County and the si ...
, and returned to Louisville a hero after the war's end). Prentice's paper was one of the few that criticized federal rebuilding policies of the time. Prentice remained as editor of the paper during and after the 1868 merger of the ''Louisville Courier'', ''Louisville Journal'' and ''Louisville Democrat'' that created ''
The Courier-Journal
''The Courier-Journal'',
also known as the
''Louisville Courier Journal''
(and informally ''The C-J'' or ''The Courier''),
is the highest circulation newspaper in Kentucky. It is owned by Gannett and billed as "Part of the ''USA Today'' Ne ...
'', although he soon died and Haldeman's protege and dedicated Confederate veteran
Henry Watterson became editor and would write and speak widely about his Southern viewpoint (although born in Washington DC as the son of a Tennessee Congressman).
Death and legacy
He died of influenza on January 22, 1870, less than two years after his wife, and was buried in
Cave Hill Cemetery.
His successor editor at the ''Louisville Courier-Journal'' delivered and printed a eulogy, and a Philadelphia publisher republished the 1859 essay collection in 1870 with a new preface. Although the newspaper survives to this day, Prentice's legacy became generally unfavorable over time, with a 1993 feature article on the newspaper's history calling Prentice's writings "raw bigotry" and a 2005 article recalling the Bloody Monday riot.
A statue of Prentice by
Alex Bouly was completed in 1875. It was originally displayed at the Courier-Journal building in Louisville, Kentucky, but was moved in 1914 to the front of the
Louisville Free Public Library's main branch.
It has been a source of occasional controversy, due to Prentice's famous anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant rhetoric. A compromise reached at one point involved the city placing a new plaque for the statue, describing Prentice's "tarnished legacy."
The statue was removed and placed into storage in 2018.
A
Liberty ship, the ''
SS George D. Prentice'', was launched in 1943 and remained in service until 1969.
See also
*
Mary Louisa Chitwood
Mary Louisa Chitwood (October 29, 1832 – December 19, 1855) was an American writer of poetry and prose. She wrote for the '' Louisville Journal'', ''The Ladies' Repository'', ''The Genius of the West'', ''Arthur's Home Gazette'', the ''Odd-Fell ...
*
Louisville in the American Civil War
References
Further reading
*
*
*Congleton, Betty Carolyn. "George D. Prentice and Bloody Monday: A Reappraisal," ''Register of the Kentucky Historical Society'', 65 (1965) pp 220–39
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Prentice, George D.
1802 births
1870 deaths
People from Preston, Connecticut
Louisville, Kentucky, in the American Civil War
American newspaper editors
Writers from Louisville, Kentucky
People of Kentucky in the American Civil War
Burials at Cave Hill Cemetery
Kentucky Know Nothings
Kentucky Whigs
19th-century American politicians
Deaths from influenza
Infectious disease deaths in Kentucky
19th-century American journalists
American male journalists
19th-century American male writers
American male poets
The Courier-Journal people
American proslavery activists