Hezekiah Niles

Symptoms of a locked jaw. Plain sewing done here cartoon by David Claypoole Johnston in Niles Weekly Register on January 5 and 12, 1828, regarding the "Corrupt Bargain" accusations made by presidential candidate Andrew Jackson against Secretary of State Henry Clay in 1824.

Hezekiah Niles (October 10, 1777 – April 2, 1839), was an American editor and publisher of the Baltimore-based national weekly news magazine, Niles' Weekly Register (aka Niles' Register) and the Weekly Register.

Niles was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, to a Quaker family, although his father quit the church to fight in the American Revolutionary War. In 1777, the family fled from Wilmington, Delaware, ahead of the British army to the home of James Jefferis on the east side of the Brandywine Creek near Jefferis' Ford. Niles later asserted in the Weekly Register that a Hessian mercenary threatened to bayonet his mother while pregnant with him.

The family returned to Wilmington and after the war his father rejoined the Quakers. At 17, Niles apprenticed with a Philadelphia printer for three years. He then worked in Wilmington for several years, attempting to establish a printing business that went bankrupt in 1801. In 1805 he published a short-lived literary magazine called the Apollo. Later in 1805, he moved to Baltimore, where until 1811 he edited a daily broadsheet, the Baltimore Evening Post, associated with the Democratic-Republican Party. In 1811, he issued the prospectus for the Weekly Register and had 1,500 subscribers before the first issue had been published.

Niles edited and published the Weekly Register until 1836, making it into one of the most widely circulated magazines in the United States and himself into one of the most influential journalists of his day. Devoted primarily to politics, Niles' Weekly Register is considered an important source for the history of the period.

Later in life, Niles was afflicted by a paralytic condition and retired to Wilmington, Delaware, where he died in 1839.

Legacy

Niles, Michigan and Niles, Ohio are named for him.

Bibliography

• W.H. Earle. "Niles' Register, 1811-1849: Window on the World," Journal of the War of 1812 and the Era 1800 to 1840, Fall, 1996 (volume I, no. 5). online version
• Kovarik, William, "To Avoid the Coming Storm: Hezekiah Niles Weekly Register as a Voice of North-South Moderation, 1811 - 1836," American Journalism, Summer, 1992. online version
• Kovarik, William, "Niles Register," Encyclopedia of American Journalism History" (Routledge, 2006). online version
• Luxon, Norval. Niles Weekly Register: News Magazine of the Nineteenth Century (Louisiana State University Press, 1947)
• Stone, Richard G. Hezekiah Niles as an Economist, (Johns Hopkins Press, 1933)

External links

• Frederick N. Rasmussen Hezekiah Niles: A Patriotic News Magazine Editor in the 19th Century, Baltimore Sun, Sept. 4, 2011.
• Biographical Sketch of Hezekiah Niles from The History of Chester County by Futhey and Cope (1881)
• Niles Weekly Register fulltext