The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 21, July 1917 - April, 1918 Page: 381

                                
Hamilton Stuart: Pioneer Editor

HAMILTON STUART: PIONEER EDITOR1
BEN C. STUART
Hamilton Stuart, pioneer editor and newspaper publisher of
Galveston and the original State Press2 editor of The News, was
born on a farm in Jefferson county, Kentucky, nine miles north
of Louisville, ,September 4, 1813, but was reared, educated and
grew to manhood at Georgetown, Scott county, where he mastered
the printer's trade in all its branches, and in 1835, when 22 years
of age, published and edited the Sentinel at that place. On No-
vember 28, 1837, at Georgetown, he was married to Miss Beline
Stuart Chambers, daughter of Colonel B. S. Chambers, who had
served during the war of 1812-1815 as quartermaster of Colonel
Richard M. Johnson's regiment of Kentucky mounted infantry,
and whose grandfather, Fielding Bradford, in conjunction with
his brother John, established the Kentucky Gazette at Lexington,
the first newspaper to be printed west of the Alleghany Moun-
tains.  Shortly after his marriage, Mr. Stuart was informed by
his physician that his lungs were affected and that removal to a
less rigorous climate than that of Kentucky was absolutely neces-
sary. Taking the advice of his physician and bearing letters of
introduction to many of the prominent men in the republic of
Texas, he left Georgetown late in 1837 and, proceeding to New
Orleans, there took passage on a steamship, for Galveston, which
he reached in January, 1838. At that time the "city" of Galves-
ton consisted of a few small houses-three or four-and a num-
ber of tents and "sod" huts. The town had not been incorporated
and the island was embraced within the limits of "Harrisburgh"
county, as the present county of Harris was then designated.
'This biography was prepared by Mr. Ben C. Stuart at the request of
The Galveston News, and was published by that paper on June 3, 1917.
A few corrections have been made by the author in the present print.-
THE EDITORS.
2"Mr. Stuart is in charge of a department on The Galveton News which
is something unique. There is nothing like it on any other American
paper. 'The State Press' is his feature. Texas has a large number of
newspapers and many bright newspaper men. Mr. Stuart goes through
the entire list of Texas exchanges and culls from them a column a day
of the most startling facts and most striking opinions. These he accome
panies with a few lines of comment or with additional local informa-
tion from  a storehouse which a wonderful memory has filled to the
shingles."  Walter B. Stevens in The News, November 17, 1894.-THE
EDITORS.

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