A.B. Farquhar: Old Iron Pioneer

During a walk from the White House to the War Department, Farquhar told Lincoln his story. Lincoln reportedly thanked him for his efforts, and told him to go home and tell his detractors that he had Lincoln’s “thanks and the thanks of the government.”

The Confederate occupation would not be the last time Farquhar made news. In 1891, he bought the York Gazette, a staunchly Democratic daily newspaper. A Gazette editorial of the day told of a state Republican official’s statement, “All Democrats are not horse thieves, but all horse thieves are Democrats,” to which Farquhar countered editorially that horse thieves obey no party lines.

On Sept. 16, 1894, Farquhar and the Gazette drew another firestorm of public opinion with the debut of the first Sunday edition. The next day, the Gazette ran this story: “The Sunday Gazette Denounced in Many Pulpits.”

The Rev. Charles A. Oliver of Westminster Presbyterian Church, for one, devoted an entire sermon to Sabbath observance and the Sunday Gazette. “All Sunday desecration is planned by Satan,” Oliver proclaimed. “He planned the Sunday newspaper and inspired it. His ways are cunning and many men who think they are doing good are being duped by his Satanic majesty.”

Farquhar’s skin must have grown thicker after the Confederates’ visit because the pulpit protests did not move him to stop his Sunday edition.
Today, he is regarded as one of the more colorful 19th-century individuals who pioneered the U.S. farm equipment industry. FC