Born & Educated In Maysville, KY

WALTER N. HALDEMAN, president of the Courier-Journal Company, was born in Maysville, Ky., April 27, 1821, and was educated at Maysville Academy along with U. S. Grant, W. H. Wadsworth, T. H. Nelson, R. H. Collins, and others who afterward attained to prominence.He removed to Louisville, when but sixteen years of age, and entered upon a career remarkable for activity and success. In December, 1843, he purchased from an association of printers a newspaper called the Daily Dime, which he afterward converted
into the Morning Courier. The establishment of this paper was
problematical. Louisville had been the graveyard of newspapers--the
Journal, conducted by the brilliant Prentice, only surviving the general mortality. At that day politics almost exclusively engrossed the attention of the people and the talent of the press. Mr. Haldeman determined to strike out on a new line. He made news the chief feature of his paper, and its success and permanent establishment followed, as the fruits of his enterprise and sagacity. The Courier thenceforth became a power in the State. Before the civil war was precipitated upon the country, the Courier
denounced the coercive policy of the Federal government, and as a State's rights journal espoused the cause of the South. When the Federal troops entered Louisville, in September 1861, the Courier was suppressed by orders from Washington. Mr. Haldeman learned of his intended arrest in time to flee for safety. He reached Nashville, and promptly re-established the Courier, which was printed until that city was captured by Federals.He removed with the army and published it at several points, or "published it
on wheels" as his friends were wont to say. Mr. Haldeman remained in the South during the war, and on the cessation of hostilities again repaired to his Louisville home. Although broken in fortune, and half awed by the enormous advance in paper and printing material growing out of the war and a depreciated currency, he could not resist the earnest popular demand for the
re-establishment of the Courier. The day it re-appeared, December 5,1865, it was an evident success. The prestige of the old Courier was in its favor, and irresistible. To make assurance double sure "Mr. Haldeman determined the new paper should deserve success. Regardless of the outlay, he arranged as rapidly as possible for special telegraphic and other correspondence from all parts of the country. It was a new era in journalism in Louisville. Within six months, the lively and enterprising
Courier so far outstripped its local contemporaries, that the latter in spite of editorial strength came to be regarded as second rate-journals.These years later Mr. Haldeman conceived the bold project of consolidating the Journal and Democrat, the only other dailies in Louisville, with his Courier. His purpose was accomplished, and the leading political and newspaper of the West and South-west, the Louisville Courier-Journal, of which he is the controlling spirit, is the offspring of that union. Perseverance, energy and enterprise is the secret of Mr. Haldeman's success in life. But besides this, his whole career has been marked by a
strong common sense and a comprehensiveness of mind, which mad him
far-reaching and far-seeing in his aims. When to these qualities are added his genial manners, his diligence, and fidelity to laborious duty, it is by no means strange that he has gathered in the rich fruits of success. There is scarcely one of the profession in the country better known than Mr. Haldeman. What Bennett with the Herald, and Greely with the Tribune, were to the North and East, Haldeman with his Courier-Journal is to the South and South-west. He is the oldest member of the daily newspaper press in Kentucky, and one of the oldest in the country. He is
an able financier, and as much to this as to its brilliant editorial
management may be attributed the phenomenal success of the Courier-Journal.