About Lynchburg Virginian. [volume] (Lynchburg [Va.]) 1829-185?
Lynchburg [Va.] (1829-185?)

Lynchburg Virginian, The Virginian, Lynchburg Daily Virginian, and Lynchburg Tri-Weekly Virginian

Lynchburg had already established itself as fertile ground for newspapers by 1822, when the consolidation of The Lynchburg Press and the Gazette created the semi-weekly The Virginian. The paper operated under the direction of John Hampden Pleasants and Joseph Butler until the two moved to Richmond in 1824 to start the Constitutional Whig. Editor Richard Toler next took the reins, overseeing the paper's name change in 1829 to the Lynchburg Virginian and adding the tagline "The Rights of the States, and the Union of the States" to the nameplate in June 1835. Eventually he, too, moved to Richmond to edit the Whig. A short editorial stint by a son of one of the publishers ended in October 1850 when he traded the Lynchburg Virginian to Abner W. C. Terry in exchange for the Danville Register, for which Terry had been the first editor.

The Lynchburg Virginian and the Lynchburg Republican (which had the motto, "By faithfully advocating the People's Rights, we hope to prosper") had cultivated an antagonistic relationship since the latter's appearance in 1840.When Terry accused James D. Saunders of breaking a pledge to his district with his vote at Virginia's constitutional convention of 1851, Saunders submitted a rebuttal to the Republican attacking Terry. Terry's response in the June 5 Virginian described Saunders's piece as the "pedantic effusion of our antiquarian hero. It is not only pedantic, but excessively stupid; nor stupid only, but is written in wretched bad taste and in much worse English." Upon reading this, Saunders's son James tracked Terry down to the Lynchburg Market House and hit him on the head with a stick. Guns came out, and in the end, a policeman was seriously wounded, Saunders received a bullet in the stomach which killed him that evening, and Terry died three days later from wounds he received.

By August 1852, the paper had prospered enough that it began publishing daily under the name Lynchburg Daily Virginian. Under the leadership of Charles Button from 1857 to 1885, it retained its animosity toward the Republican, one of whose editors was George Hardwicke. A simmering dispute over circulation numbers and delivery boiled over in June 1860 with a series of pointed exchanges in the pages of the papers, followed by a gunfight in downtown Lynchburg. Charles and three of his brothers, all of whom worked at the Virginian, exchanged 18 to 20 shots with George and William Hardwicke, resulting in the death of Joseph Button and the wounding of Robert Button. When the Daily Virginian absorbed the Republican in November 1875, the streets of Lynchburg became a little safer.

For much of its history, the paper offered more than one edition. For instance, during the Civil War, subscribers could take the daily, triweekly, or weekly editions. Its name varied slightly over the years, sometimes appearing as the Daily Lynchburg Virginian and sometimes as the Lynchburg Virginian with the frequency beneath the title. After the start of the war, Button changed the slogan to "The Rights of the South and the Union of the South" until financial pressures later in the war forced a reduction to a half-sheet size. Afterwards, the paper dropped the weekly edition but continued as a daily and triweekly through 1885. Carter Glass, an ardent segregationist who would later serve in both houses of Congress, bought the paper in 1893 and merged it with his Lynchburg News.

Provided by: Library of Virginia; Richmond, VA