| Henry J. Raymond AKA Henry Jarvis Raymond Born: 24-Jan-1820
Birthplace: Lima, NY
Died: 19-Jun-1869
Location of death: New York City
Cause of death: Stroke
Remains: Buried, Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY
Gender: Male
Religion: Methodist
Race or Ethnicity: White
Sexual orientation: Straight
Occupation: Journalist, Business
Party Affiliation: Republican Nationality: United States
Executive summary: Co-Founder of The New York Times Henry J. Raymond was reading by the age of three, and was a vociferous reader and writer all his life. After college his first job, albeit without pay, was as an all-purpose assistant at Horace Greeley's The New Yorker (no relation to the present-day magazine of that title). After Greeley established the New York Tribune, Raymond followed him there and became a trusted and paid writer and editor, though he and Greeley disagreed vehemently on matters of politics. As early as 1843, Raymond and his eventual business partner George Jones began planning to publish a newspaper of their own, and by 1851 they had raised $70,000 in capital for that purpose and formed Raymond, Jones & Co. to publish The New York Daily Times.
They published the first edition the paper on 18 September 1851, and the masthead was shortened to The New York Times in 1857. Raymond promised in the newborn paper's first editorial that the Times would report the news accurately, in contrast to the journalistic standard of the time, where there was no attempt to hide reporters' opinions when covering events. While primarily serving as the Times' editor and publisher for the paper's first eighteen years, Raymond also gave himself some plum reporting assignments, and was the paper's correspondent at the Franco-Austrian War of 1859 and the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861.
While running the Times, Raymond was also an active political leader. He served in the state Assembly, and he and Greeley both sought to become New York's Lieutenant Governor in 1854, with Raymond winning the Whigs' nomination and the job in 1854. Two years later, Raymond was a founding member of the upstart Republican Party, formed primarily to oppose slavery, and after the Civil War he was elected to the US House of Representatives. He wrote the Republican Party's original statement of principles, and wrote virtually all of its national platform in 1864 as President Abraham Lincoln ran for re-election. In Congress he favored lenient policies of reconciliation with the South, an unpopular stand which led to his leaving office after only one term.
Raymond died two years after leaving Congress, a mere 49 years old at his passing, and unsurprisingly for a man with his résumé, he was described by colleagues as seeming perpetually exhausted during the last few years of his life. Of Raymond, Greeley wrote, "Abler and stronger men I may have met; a cleverer, readier, more generally efficient journalist I never saw". After his death the Times was published by Jones, and still owned by Raymond, Jones & Co., until the parent company was reorganized as The New York Times Company in 1896.
Father: Jarvis Raymond (farmer, b. 1797)
Mother: Lavinia Brockway Raymond (m. 1819)
Sister: Eliza Raymond (b. 1822)
Brother: Samuel Brockway Raymond (banker, b. 1823)
Brother: James Fitch Raymond (photographer, b. 1826)
Wife: Juliette Weaver Raymond (b. 12-Apr-1822, m. 24-Oct-1843, d. 13-Oct-1914, four children)
Son: Henry Warren Raymond (attorney, b. 1847, d. 1925)
Daughter: Mary Elizabeth Raymond Mason (b. 10-Sep-1849, d. 13-Jun-1897)
Daughter: Aimee Juliette Arteniese Raymond Schroeder (b. 1857, d. 1903)
High School: Genesee Wesleyan Seminary (1836)
Teacher: Wheatland School, Genesee, NY (1836-37)
University: BA, University of Vermont (1840)
The New York Times Company Founder & President (1851-69; Raymond, Jones & Co.)
The New York Times Founder & Publisher (1851-69)
Harper's (1850-56)
The New York Tribune 1841-48
US Congressman, New York 1865-67 (6th District)
Lieutenant Governor of New York 1855-56
New York State Assembly 1850-51 (7th District; as Speaker in 1851)
New York State Assembly 1862 (7th District)
Republican National Committee 1856-69 (Chairman, 1864-66)
Stroke 19-Jun-1869 (fatal)
French Ancestry
Author of books:
Association Discussed: or, The Socialism of the Tribune Examined (1847, politics)
History of the Administration of President Lincoln (1864, history)
The Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln (1865, biography)
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