Medary, Samuel

Related Category: Journalism and Publishing: Biographies

(mĕd´ərē), 1801–64, American journalist, b. Montgomery co., Pa. In Ohio after 1825, he edited the Ohio Sun at Bethel and later the Ohio Statesman at Columbus and was superintendent of public printing (1837–47). Medary, a leading Western Democrat, championed the annexation of Texas and Oregon. He was territorial governor of Minnesota (1857–58) and of Kansas (1858–60). He founded the Crisis (1860) in Columbus, Ohio. In the Civil War, as a Peace Democrat who opposed Lincoln's policies because they were destructive to the Union, he was bitterly hated by Union patriots, who wrecked his press in 1863.