Interesting article about 150 years ago in Dubuque

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With the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War upon us, the TH has been doing a series of articles about what it was like around Dubuque at the time. Here was an article in the Tuesday edition which in part was about Dennis Mahoney, who was the editor of the Dubuque Herald (where the Herald in Telegraph-Herald comes from).

If the true measure of the written word lies in poetry, then editor Jesse Clement of the Dubuque Daily Times was no match for the pontifications of the Dubuque Herald's editor, Dennis A. Mahony.

Born in Cork, Ireland, in 1821, Mahony was extremely popular in Dubuque. He arrived in Dubuque in 1843 to continue his law studies and he taught at St. Raphael's Seminary (later Loras College) for a few years before being named postmaster of Jackson County, south of Dubuque.

In 1847, Mahony was admitted to the Iowa bar, meaning he could legally practice law, and in 1848 was elected to the Iowa Legislature. Clearly a bright man, Mahony purchased the Dubuque Herald in 1860 and immediately let it be known he was a Democrat who sympathized greatly with the secessionists, the states that had broken away from the Union.

I went to the comments section, half expecting to have to educate some local GOP doofus about how many Democrats of that era would be teabaggers today. But the article didn't have any comments at all. One less thing to do tonight.