History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/John Teesdale
JOHN TEESDALE, one of the early and notable journalists of Iowa, was born in York, England, November 25, 1816. His father emigrated to America when the son was but two years old, locating at Philadelphia. When John was twelve years of age he entered a printing office and learned the trade. When a young man he went to Wheeling, Virginia, and became editor of the Wheeling Gazette. He was afterwards editor of the Times. For seven years he had editorial charge of the Ohio Standard. In 1843 he removed to Columbus and became editor of the Ohio State Journal which he conducted for five years. He served as private secretary to Governor Bartley and in 1848 purchased the Akron Beacon which he published eight years. In 1856 he removed to Iowa City, purchased the Iowa City Republican and was elected State Printer. When the Capital was removed to Des Moines in 1857, Mr. Teesdale made that city his home and purchased the Citizen. Soon after he changed the name to the Iowa State Register and converted it into a daily. He was an able editor and a radical antislavery man. His paper became the leading Republican paper of the new party in that State. Mr. Teesdale was a friend of John Brown and one of his trusted agents on the Underground Railroad in Iowa, along which fugitive slaves were conveyed to liberty in Canada. In 1861 Mr. Teesdale was appointed postmaster of Des Moines and sold the State Register to Frank W. Palmer. In 1872 he had editorial charge of the Washington, D. C., Chronicle, during the second campaign for the election of President Grant. In 1868 Mr. Teesdale removed to Mount Pleasant, Iowa, which became his permanent home.