History of Randolph County Arkansas United States of America

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Biographical Sketch of William Jasper Blackburn

William Jasper Blackburn, editor, was born in Randolph county, Ark., July 24, 1820. He was self-educated, attended the district school a short time and Jackson college, Tenn., for one year. He learned the printer's trade, and after working in Louisiana and Arkansas, he settled in Homer, La., where he established Blackburn's Homer's Iliad and conducted it for many years. Though a southerner by birth, he was an ardent anti-slavery man, and his office was repeatedly mobbed during the civil war. His paper was the only Union journal published in the gulf states, and he was the only southern editor to denounce the action of Preston S. Brooks in attacking Charles Sumner. He was a delegate to the state constitutional convention in 1867, a representative in the 40th congress, and a state senator from 1872 to 1876. He returned to his native state in 1877, purchased the Little Rock Republican, assumed editorial control and in its columns bravely advocated Republican doctrines in a Democratic state. He died in Little Rock, Ark., in 1899.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

History of Randolph County Arkansas

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