Lucas County newspapering's bumpy start

George M. Binckley

I came across the other day the text of an 1893 letter written by John Edwards, founder of The Chariton Patriot, explaining how this pioneer newspaper got its name. Founded in 1857, The Patriot continues to publish but under the name Herald-Patriot --- the result of a 1909 consolidation --- and is Lucas County's oldest business enterprise. I'll share that letter another day.

Chariton's first newspaper, with the unlikely name "Little Giant," had been founded a year earlier by George M. Binckley, 27, an itinerant printer from Ohio who arrived in town during 1856 with a Washington hand press and a few cases of type. He seems to have been an admirer of Stephen A. Douglas, also known as the "little giant," the Illinois politician who went on to become Abraham Lincoln's Democratic party rival for the presidency in 1860.

Chariton, however, was a Republican town --- and that may explain why after a couple of issues Binckley changed the newspaper's name to "The Chariton Mail." That's Mr. Binckley, at left. We know what he looked like (the photo is dated 1858) but not that much about him.

Binckley soon took on a business partner, Anderson Chenault Cameron, then 24 --- also a printer and the son of an Ohio newspaperman. Unlike Binckley, Cameron was married --- to Emily --- and had a rapidly expanding family.

Binckley was a restless sort, it appears, and his interest in Lucas County expired before the year 1856 did. He found a willing buyer for his share of The Mail in Waitman Trippet Wade, then serving as perhaps the most incompetent county treasurer Lucas County ever has had. Wade was 43 at the time.

George moved on after that, first to Leon --- where he founded another newspaper --- and then to Colorado (he was living in Central City and still working as a printer in 1870). There, he developed dual interests in mining and printing and died during 1885, age 56.

It generally was acknowledged in Lucas County that W.T. Wade was scrupulously honest, but glitteringly incompetent. His supervision of construction of the 1858 courthouse turned into a debacle and when he finally was driven from office in 1859 he left the county several thousand dollars in arrears.

This may explain why Wade and Cameron folded The Mail in early 1857, selling the press, type and other items to John Edwards, a young lawyer with journalistic aspirations. It was Edwards who launched The Patriot a few months later.

Wade eventually ended up in Appanoose County, where he reportedly died on Nov. 18, 1873, age 60.

Cameron went to work for Edwards once The Patriot was launched, then was named Chariton postmaster in 1859. During 1861, he enlisted at Chariton for service in the Union army and served honorably --- advancing in rank to quartermaster sergeant --- until his discharge for disability a year later.

Eventually he received an appointment as clerk in the federal Post Office Department and moved to Washington, D.C., where he also edited The Post Office Gazette. Unfortunately, he came down with smallpox during late June, 1872, and died on July 1 at the age of 40. He is buried in Congressional Cemetery along with such luminaries as J. Edgar Hoover.