Webb, James Watson

Life Span
to
    Full name
    James Watson Webb
    Place of Birth
    Birth Date Certainty
    Exact
    Death Date Certainty
    Exact
    Gender
    Male
    Race
    White
    Sectional choice
    North
    Origins
    Free State
    No. of Siblings
    8
    No. of Spouses
    2
    No. of Children
    13
    Family
    Samuel Blatchley Webb (father), Catherine Hogeboom Webb (mother), Helen Lispenard Stewart (first wife - died 1848), Laura Virginia Cram (second wife), Alexander Stewart Webb (son)
    Occupation
    Politician
    Military
    Diplomat
    Journalist
    Relation to Slavery
    White non-slaveholder
    Political Parties
    Whig
    Republican
    Government
    Lincoln Administration (1861-65)
    Johnson Administration (1865-69)
    Diplomat
    Military
    US military (Pre-Civil War)

    James Watson Webb (American National Bibliography)

    Scholarship
    Webb was most important as a journalist. In 1829 he merged the Courier with Mordecai M. Noah's New York Enquirer. He bought out Noah in 1832, by which time the Courier and Enquirer had the largest daily circulation in the nation, about 4,000. Webb's success was due, in part, to his innovative news-gathering techniques. He maintained a schooner to meet incoming ships before they reached New York, in order to get the foreign newspapers and mail at the earliest moment. He established a special horse express in 1830 and 1831 to bring Jackson's annual messages to New York in advance of the mails, each time beating his rivals by half a day. Webb was one of six founding members of the New York Associated Press in 1848. James Gordon Bennett (1795-1872) of the Herald, Henry J. Raymond of the Times, and James G. Brooks of the Express all learned the newspaper business from Webb, working as associate editors on the Courier and Enquirer.
    James L. Crouthamel, "Geary, John White," American National Biography Online, February 2000, http://www.anb.org/articles/16/16-01730.html.
    How to Cite This Page: "Webb, James Watson," House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/31606.