William H Gallup

GALLUP

Posted By: County Coordinator (email)
Date: 4/12/2010 at 12:42:09

William H Gallup was for nearly fifty years connected with newspapers in the Boone and other counties of the state as owner, editor and pubisher, and in every instance the papers while under his control increased in their volume of business, in their influence and in their general tone of reliabiltiy. Keeping in touch with progressvie methods, he has never catered to the senstaionalism or in any way adopted the ideas of the "yellow" sheets. His influence has always been on the side of advancement and improvement and he gained for his papers the same high regard which is entertained for him as a man.
A native of New York, Mr Gallup was born at Summit, Schoharie county, May 17, 1840, a son of Nathan and Pamela (Baird) Gallup, who were natives of Connecticut and of New Jersey respectively. The father, who made farming his life work, died in Summit, and the mother has also passed away. In their family were eight children, Nathan, Silas, Abigail, Samuel, Margaret, Bedent B, John B and William H, all having passed away but William the subject of this sketch.
William H Gallup was fourteen years of age when his father sold the old home farm in Schoharie county, in his youthful days he attended the district schools and afterward pursued a course in a seminary. He also taught school during the winter months and at nineteen years of age he took up the study of law, being graduated from the New York State and National Law School, located at Poughkeepsie, New York, on August 1, 1860. He was admitted to the bar at Newburgh, New York, in the following September and spent the succeeding winter in the law office of Honor S L Mayham at North Blenheim. On April 1, 1861, he came to the middle west, settling first at Marshalltown, Iowa on May 11, 1861, six days before he was twenty-one, where he practiced his profession for a short time. He then purchased a newspaper, the Marshall county, times, and has since been identified the greater part of his life with journalistic interests. He continued as editor and proprietor of that paper from October 1861, until April 1862. In May of the succeeding years he again became editor and sole proprietor of the Marshall County Times and so remained until September 1864. A few weeks in 1862, after the capture of Fort Donelson by General Grant, which was one of the first substantial Union vicortories in our great Civil war, he published the Daily Marsahl Times, a four column folio, in order to give the news of Grant's maneuvers, which cullminated in the battle of Shiloh. While in Marshalltown he took an active part in the affairs of the county and city, and was one of the two or three who kept at work securing subcribers to make the place an incorporated town, thus laying the foundations for a beautiful city that it is today. At the first republican causes for the nomination of officers for the newly incorporated town, he found himself to his total surprise the nominee for mayor when the ballots were counted out. Removing to Boonesboro in Deceebmer, 1864, he established the Boonesboro Index, the first number appearing on February 1, 1865, and which for six months was the only paper published in Boone county, In the latter part of 1865, Mr Gallup removed the Index office from Boonesboro to the new town of Boone and continued its publication until September 1867, when he sold the plan to L M Holt, who changed the name to The Montana Standard. Boone had previously adopted the name of Montana for the purpose of getting a postoffice, there already being one postoffice in the state by the name of Boone and this making a different name necessary.
Mr Gallups's last official appearance as a lawyer was his election to the office of city attorney of Montana in March 1868, but which office he deemed it advisable to resign in a few weeks, because it became to his financial interest to resume the publication of the Standard, which he continued until September 1869. In May 1870, he purchased the Nevada Aegis, renamed it Nevada Representative and continued as its sole editor and proprietor until September 1882 or for over twelve years. In 1875 he was elected state senator from the thirty-first senatorial district, composed of the counties of Boone and Story, and served in the sixteenth and seventeenth general assemblies, his term covering the years of 1876, 1877, 1878, and 1879. While in the senate, he took an active part in the daily routine of business, was alsways present at the opening of the daily sessions, avoided set speeches made for political effect and never dodged a roll call on any question. He had the rare distinction of introducing one bill which was read twice and then upon his motion the rules were suspended, the bill and a third time and put upon its final passage and passed, without a dissenting vote upon any of the roll calls, his word being accepted by all parties as to its truthfulness and accuracy. At the first inauguration of Governor Gear he was chairman of the joint legislative committee which arranged the naugural ceremonies. He was also author of sentae file 67, in the sixteenth general assembly, which became a law and allowed counties, townships and municipalities to vote a tax of five percent, payable half in one years and half in teh succeeding year, to aid int eh building of railroads, which the state so much needed for its development in those days. After disposing of the Nevada Representative by redistricting in 1882, he was engaged for about two years in the book, news and stationery business in Nevada, and also for about two years owned and conducted a banking business at Cambridge, Story county. But in 1887 the newpaper fever again got control of him, and he purchased the Perry Chief in December of that year, which he published as editor and proprietor until May 1892, when he became part owner of the Boone Republican, remaining so until November 1896, and as sole owner until October 1897. He was also editor and part proprietor of the Daily Boone Republican from April 1896 unil November 1896. He was editor and prorietor of the Monthly Boone Review and Advertiser from February 1899 unitl March 1900, and in January 1902, he became editor and sole owner of the Weekly Boone Standard for the third time, which paper he continued to publish until June 1908. Few men of the state can boast of so long and contined a newspaper care. He has had much to do with shaping he journalistic policy of the state. He made his papers both in the mirror and molder of public opinion and his editorials were always fair and liberal to all.
Mr Gallup was united in marriage on August 26, 1862, in Summit, New York, to Miss Albina Dyer, a native of Schoharie county, who lost her father in her early girlhood, while her mother now lives in California at the advance age of eighty-eight years. The wedding of Mr and Mrs Gallup was celebrated at six o'clock in the morning, on which occasion there wer present three invited couples beside the immediate families. After the morning breakfast, the four couples drove to Howe's cave, about ten miles distant, where, in chaged of an experienced guide, they made a four mile trip on foot into the interior of the cave. After a few weeks spent in New York, Mr and Mrs Gallup came to their home in the west. As the years went by six children were added to the household: Chester, who died in childhood, Frankie the wife of James Hamilton, of Sioux City, Iowa, William who passed wasy in boyhood, Lucy who died in infancy, Fred H who is captain of Company F, of the Third Field Artillery, now loctaed at Fort Myer, Virginia, and James owner of a prosperous job printing establishment of Boone.
Mr Gallup is a republican and has held a number of local offices. His fraternal relations connect him with the Masons and his religious faith with the Methodist church His life has been honorable, his actions manly and sincere, and there is no citizen in Boone county more worthy of high regard.

1914 Boone County History Book