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Alexander McClure Biography

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McCLURE,  Alexander Kelly (1828-1909). An American journalist. He was born at Sherman's Valley, Perry Co., Pa., and after receiving a good elementary education was apprenticed to a tanner at the age of 15, but soon afterward applied himself to newspaper work. In 1850 he bought an interest in the Chambersburg Repository, which under his management (1850-56 and 1862-64) became one of the most influential antislavery papers in the region. In 1853 he was the unsuccessful Whig candidate for Auditor General, in 1855 was State superintendent of printing, and in the same year was a member of the State convention that met at Pittsburgh to organize the new Republican party in Pennsylvania. In 1856 he was a delegate to the first National Republican Convention at Philadelphia, and in the same year left newspaper work and was admitted to the bar. In 1857-58 he was a Republican member of the State Legislature, and in 1859 was elected to the State Senate. In the Republican National Convention of 1860 he led the Pennsylvania delegates who deserted Simon Cameron for Lincoln, and afterward, as chairman of the State committee, carried Pennsylvania for the latter. In 1862, as a special assistant adjutant general, he had charge of the draft in Pennsylvania, and in 1864 he was reëlected to the State Legislature. In 1872 he led the Liberal Republican revolt in Pennsylvania, was chairman of that faction's campaign committee, and was elected as an independent to the State Senate. He was defeated as independent candidate for mayor of Philadelphia in 1873 by scarcely 900 votes. He established the Philadelphia Times in 1873 and was editor of it until 1901. He wrote: Three Thousand Miles through the Rocky Mountains; Our Presidents and how we Make them (1901); Recollections of Half a Century (1902); Old Time Notes of Pennsylvania (2 vols., 1906).