Crawford County IL Archives Biographies.....Harper, George W. 
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Author: William Henry Perrin (1883)

  GEORGE W. HARPER, editor and proprietor of the Argus, Robinson, whose portrait
appears in this volume, was born near Richmond, Wayne County, Ind. His father
was a farmer, and young Harper was brought up on the farm until thirteen years
of age, attending the district school during the winter months. He had early
formed the desire to learn the art of printing, and declaring his intention to
become a newspaper man before he was ten years old, won for him the appellation
of "editor" among his schoolfellows. When he was thirteen years of age, his
father retired from farming, and removed to Centerville, then the county seat of
Wayne County, to accept the position of Deputy Sheriff. George then desired to
go into a printing office, but as his father strenuously opposed it, he went to
work in a cabinet shop for the purpose of learning that trade. He was never
pleased with the business, and in the spring of 1853, he quit the shop and went
back to the farm, where he remained some months. In October, determining to put
his cherished plans into execution, of becoming a printer, he went to Richmond
unknown to his father, and apprenticed himself to Messrs. Holloway & Davis, in
the Palladium office. He then went home and laid his plans before his father,
and obtained his consent to learn the art he had so great a passion for. In
1854, while yet an apprentice, he commenced the publication of a little paper,
which afterward was continued under the name of the "Broad Ax of Freedom and
Grubbing Hoe of Truth." In 1856, he came to Illinois, and became connected with
the Ruralist, at Palestine, as one of its editors. In 1857, he started the first
paper ever published in Robinson, under the title of the Robinson Gazette. In
1859, he published the Crawford Banner, at Palestine, and in 1860 was connected
with a paper at Pana, Ill., as editor and publisher. In 1862, he went back to
Eastern Indiana, and there took charge of a paper at Centerville, his old home,
but in 1863 returned to Robinson, and established the Robinson Argus on a very
small foundation, gradually increasing the material and business of the
establishment and paper, until he has made it second to none in Southern
Illinois, or in the State. [For a Republican, Brother Harper is a splendid,
jolly, good fellow-he has no other fault-Ed.] He has three times been appointed
Postmaster at Robinson-the first time declining the appointment; the second time
holding it a few years, and then resigning, and by virtue of the third
appointment he is now Postmaster General of the town. He has also served six
years as Justice of the Peace. Although his position as editor of a political
paper has brought him more or less among politicians and connected him with
politics, he declares his love to be for the newspaper business, and that his
ambition is to do better in it than he thinks any one else could have done
similarly situated. For a sketch of his paper-the Argus-see history of the press
in a preceding chapter. Mr. Harper was married, December 24, 1857, to Hannah
Amanda, eldest daughter of Dr. Nelson Goodwin, of Lamotte Township, who died in
1870, leaving four children, who still survive. He was again married, in 1871,
to Miss Lucy H. Gatton, of Martin Township.

Additional Comments:
Extracted From:

HISTORY OF CRAWFORD AND CLARK COUNTIES, ILLINOIS.
EDITED BY WILLIAM HENRY PERRIN.

ILLUSTRATED

CHICAGO: O. L. BASKIN & CO., HISTORICAL PUBLISHERS,
LAKESIDE BUILDING.
1883.


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