Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Medill, Joseph

MEDILL, Joseph, journalist, b. in New Brunswick, Canada, 6 March, 1823; d. in San Antonio, Texas, 16 March, 1899. His father removed to Ohio, where the son worked on a farm, subsequently practising law at Massilon. He founded a Free-soil paper at Coshocton in 1849, established “The Leader,” a Whig journal, at Cleveland in 1852, and in 1854 was one of the organizers of the Republican party in Ohio. Soon afterward he went to Chicago, and with two partners bought, in May, 1855, the “Tribune,” with which he was afterward identified. He was a member of the Illinois constitutional convention of 1870, and author of a minority representation clause; in 1871 he was a member of the U.S. civil service commission, and was elected mayor of Chicago. He spent a year in Europe in 1873-'74, and on his return purchased a controlling interest in the “Tribune” of which he became and continued editor-in-chief.