Henry Jarvis Raymond: The Newsman Who Rests in Green-Wood

Henry Jarvis Photo Credit: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

A note from our founder

Our eighteenth tribute goes to a man who never wrote a novel, but who shaped American letters all the same by inventing a new standard for how the news itself should be written. Henry Jarvis Raymond founded The New York Times, stood at Abraham Lincoln's side through the Civil War, and today rests permanently in Brooklyn.

A Farm Boy Turned Newsman

Henry Jarvis Raymond was born on a farm in Lima, New York, on January 24, 1820. A brilliant student, he graduated from the University of Vermont in 1840 and headed straight for New York City to break into the fiercely competitive world of print journalism, cutting his teeth as a reporter and editor under Horace Greeley at the New York Tribune.

Founding The New York Times

Raymond grew increasingly frustrated with the sensationalism and open political bias that defined most newspapers of the era. In 1851, alongside bankers George Jones and Edward Wesley, he co-founded The New York Daily Times, later shortened to The New York Times. As its first editor-in-chief, Raymond set a new standard of calm, analytical, fact-driven reporting, famously declaring in his first editorial: "We do not mean to write as if we were in a passion, unless that shall really be the case; and we shall take care that it shall not be the case very often."

A Political Powerhouse

Raymond's influence extended well beyond the newsroom. He co-founded the modern Republican Party in 1856 and authored several of its foundational platforms, went on to serve as Lieutenant Governor of New York, and was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1864. Throughout the Civil War, he served as one of Abraham Lincoln's most trusted political allies and sounding boards.

Resting in Green-Wood

Raymond worked until the very end, dying suddenly of a stroke at his Manhattan home in 1869. He is buried in Brooklyn's historic Green-Wood Cemetery, a permanent resident of the borough even though his career unfolded almost entirely across the river.

Major Achievements & Contributions

Rather than a standard bibliography, Raymond's legacy lives in historical newspapers and defining political texts.

• The New York Times (Founding & First Issue) (1851) — Raymond structured the debut issue to emphasize hard news, international dispatches, and reasoned editorial writing over the cheap sensationalism common in 1850s New York.

• The Republican Party Declaration (1856) — As the chief author of the first Republican National Convention's address to the people, Raymond laid out the party's foundational stance against the expansion of slavery into Western territories.

• The Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln (1865) — His massive biography and political analysis of Lincoln, published shortly after the President's assassination, providing an intimate, first-hand look at the wartime administration.

READ JARVIS

Seek out The Life and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln for Raymond's own firsthand account of the war years, or simply pull up an early New York Times front page to see the standard of reporting he insisted on from day one. Either way, a visit to Green-Wood Cemetery will put you close to the man himself. Get the book.

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