John D. DeFrees: the printer who started the city's press — and Colfax

1810 – 1882

John Dougherty DeFrees (1810–1882): the man who brought printing to northern Indiana and, with it, the region's political class. He was born at Sparta, Tennessee — on 8 November 1810 by the Indiana Magazine of History's obituary and the Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, on 10 November 1810 by the Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame; both dates stand in the record and this section carries the conflict rather than choosing. Apprenticed to a printer at about thirteen, he read law in Thomas Corwin's office at Lebanon, Ohio, and in 1831 came to South Bend with his brother Joseph H. DeFrees, bringing a printing press from Cincinnati. On it he founded the Northwestern Pioneer and St. Joseph Intelligencer — northern Indiana's first newspaper, later the St. Joseph Beacon. He represented St. Joseph County in the state legislature (the House in 1840, the Senate in 1842, by the obituary account), and it was DeFrees who owned the South Bend Free Press that the young Schuyler Colfax edited, and DeFrees who sold his South Bend paper to Colfax in 1844 and so gave the future vice president his start — the single most consequential personnel decision in this city's press history, made by its first printer.

The state and national career: in 1846 DeFrees bought the Indianapolis Journal — the Indiana State Journal — and edited it for about ten years, becoming the organizing mechanic of Indiana Republicanism: chairman of the Whig state central committee in 1852 and of the Republican state central committee in 1856, a founder-organizer of the party in Indiana. He was president of the Central Bank from 1855, lost the 1858 congressional primary to Albert G. Porter, and founded the Indianapolis Atlas. In 1861 Abraham Lincoln appointed him Printer of the United States — the U.S. Government Printer — and he left Indiana permanently, living thereafter in Washington and at Berkeley Springs. His tenure maps the era's patronage wars exactly: removed by President Johnson in 1866, reappointed within about thirty days when Congress made the post a Senate-confirmed office, removed again in 1869 under Grant, reappointed by President Hayes in 1877, and resigned on 1 April 1882 for ill health. He died that year, on 19 October 1882, at Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. His craft firsts stand in his obituary: he was the first printer in Indiana to drive a press by steam, with a steam press in 1847, among other printing firsts the obituary enumerates. His brother Joseph H. DeFrees took the family's second seat in public life as a U.S. congressman from the Goshen district. The DeFrees name thus brackets the region's first public generation: the first press, the first Republican organization, and the apprentice who became vice president.

Sources:

1. Encyclopedia of Indianapolis — the Sparta birth, the 1831 arrival with the press, the Intelligencer's founding, the Indianapolis Journal purchase of 1846, the Government Printer appointments and removals, the 1882 death at Berkeley Springs.
2. Indiana Magazine of History, obituary of John D. DeFrees by B. R. Sulgrove — the 8 November 1810 birth date, the legislative service, the 1844 sale to Colfax, the steam-press first of 1847.
3. Indiana Journalism Hall of Fame — the 10 November 1810 birth date, carried here in conflict with the date above.