J. HARRISON SMITH.
EDWIN W. SMILEY.
J. HOWARD SMILEY.
Charles Pitt Ramsdell, a school-teacher from Rockland Township, started the American Citizen at Franklin in 1855. Sent to the Legislature in 1858, he sold the healthy chick to William Burgwin and Floyd C. Ramsdell, removed to Delaware and settled in Virginia a few years before his lamented death from wounds inflicted by an enraged bull. J. H. Smith acquired Ramsdell’s interest in 1861. The new partners made a strong team in journalistic harness for three years, selling in 1864 to Nelson B. Smiley. He changed the title to Venango Citizen. Mr. Burgwin reposes in the Franklin cemetery. Mr. Smith carries on the book-trade, his congenial pursuit for three decades, and is a regular contributor to the religious press. Alexander McDowell entered into partnership with Smiley, buying the entire “lock, stock and barrel” in 1867. His former associate studied law, practiced with great credit and died at Bradford. Major McDowell, now a banker at Sharon—the number of Venango editors who blossomed into financiers ought to stimulate ambitious quill-drivers—was a daisy in the newspaper-lay. His liberality and geniality won hosts of warm friends. He tried his hand at politics and was chosen Congressman-at-Large in 1892, with Galusha A. Grow as running-mate, and Clerk of the House in 1895. A prime joker, he bears the blame—if it be blameable to have done so—of introducing Pittsburg stogies to guileless members of Congress for the fun of seeing the victims cut pigeon-wings doing a sea-sick act. Col. J. W. H. Reisinger purchased the outfit in 1869, guiding the helm skilfully fifteen months. April first—the day had no special significance in this case—1870, E. W. Smiley, the present owner and cousin of Nelson B., succeeded Reisinger. The Colonel located at Meadville, where he has labored ably in the journalistic field for a quarter-century. Mr. Smiley steered his craft adroitly, usually “bobbing up serenely” on the winning side. He is a shrewd Republican worker and for twenty years has filled a Senate-clerkship efficiently. What he doesn’t know about the inside movements of state and local politics could be jumped through the eye of a needle. His right-bower in running the Citizen-Press—the hyphenated name was flung to the breeze in 1884—is his son, J. Howard Smiley, a rising young journalist. The paper toes the mark handsomely, has loads of advertising and does yeoman service for its party. The Daily Citizen, the first daily in Oildom, expired on the last day of 1862, after a brief existence of ten issues. A fit epitaph might be Wordsworth’s couplet:
“Since it was so quickly done for,
Wonder what it was begun for.”
Later newspaper ventures at Franklin were refreshingly plentiful. In January, 1876, Hon. S. P. McCalmont launched The Independent Press upon the stormy sea of journalism. It was a trenchant, outspoken, call-a-spade-a-spade advocate of the Prohibition cause, striking resolutely at whoever and whatever opposed its temperance platform. Mr. McCalmont wrote the editorials, which bristled with sharp, merciless, unsparing excoriations of the rum-traffic and its aiders and abettors. The paper was worthy of its name and its spirited owner. Neither truckled for favors, cringed for patronage or ever learned to “crook the pregnant hinges of the knee where thrift may follow fawning.” Beginning life a poor boy, S. P. McCalmont toiled on a farm, taught school, devoured books, read law and served in the Legislature. For nearly fifty years he has enjoyed a fine practice which brought him well-earned reputation and fortune. Ranking with the foremost lawyers of the state in legal attainments and professional success, he does his own thinking, declines to accept his opinions at second-hand and is a first-rate sample of the industrious, energetic, self-reliant American. By way of recreation he works a half-dozen farms, a hundred oil-wells, a big refinery and a coal-mine or two. James R. Patterson, Miss Sue Beatty and Will. S. Whitaker held positions on the Press. Mr. Patterson is farming near Franklin and Mr. Whitaker managed the Spectator. Miss Beatty, a young lady of rare culture, was admitted to the bar recently.
