PLAIN DEALER | Encyclopedia of Cleveland History | Case Western Reserve University

The PLAIN DEALER was founded as a weekly newspaper on 7 Jan. 1842 by JOSEPH WM. GRAY (1813-62) and became an evening daily on 7 Apr. 1845. Its name was probably inspired by a former Jacksonian paper published in New York. Among its early staff members was CHAS. FARRAR BROWNE, who created the character "Artemus Ward." In the years leading up to the CIVIL WAR, the Plain Dealer was the local Democratic organ in a Republican city and region. From the firing on Ft. Sumter until his death on 26 May 1862, Gray held the Plain Dealer to the Democratic policies outlined by his political mentor, Stephen A. Douglas. The paper was then taken over by the administrator of his estate, John S. Stephenson, who turned it into a virulent Copperhead organ that condemned Lincoln and supported the Ohio gubernatorial campaign of the arch-Copperhead Clement L. Vallandigham in 1863. Because of the unpopularity of these stands, Stephenson was removed as Gray's administrator, and the Plain Dealer suspended public...