"A Catholic Family Newspaper" Views the Lincoln Administration: John Mullaly's Copperhead Weekly

"A CATHOLIC FAMILY NEWSPAPER" VIEWS THE LINCOLN ADMINISTRATION: John Mullaly's Copperhead Weekly Joseph George, Jr. When he died in 1915, John Mullaly was an almost forgotten man. Few were still alive to remember that he had played a prominent role in the intellectual life of New York's Irish during the era of the Civil War. New Yorkers had forgotten that he had become a Copperhead editor in the 1860's, denouncing the Lincoln Administration and even on occasion advocating in his newspaper, the Metropolitan Record, that the South should be granted its independence. But he was much better known to earlier generations. John Mullaly was born in Belfast in 1835 or 1836. He migrated to the United States in the early 1850's, and, before he became editor of the Metropolitan Record in January, 1859, when he was about 24 years old, he had already enjoyed an interesting career. He had served as a reporter for Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, William Cullen Bryant's New York Evening Post, and for six years on James Gordon Bennett's New York Herald. He acted as special correspondent for the Herald on the expeditions which laid the first cable across the Gulf of St. Lawrence. He was also special correspondent on the first three Atlantic cable expeditions of 1857 and 1858, at which time he also served as secretary to the inventor, Samuel F. B. Morse, and to Cyrus W. Field, manager of the company laying the cable.1 On January 29, 1859, Mullaly published the first issue of the Metropolitan Record, commonly referred to as the Record, and continued publication until 1873. He then became Commissioner of Health for the city of New York for one term and later a member of the Board of Assessors for two terms. He also played an important 1 The Catholic News (New York), Jan. 9, 1915; Thomas F. Meehan, "Early Catholic Weeklies," Historical Records And Studies Of The United States Catholic Historical Society, XXVIII (1937), 244-45. Mullaly's name was misspelled in the obituary appearing in the New York Times, Jan. 5, 1915. Mullaly's account of the laying of the Atlantic cable appeared in letters to the Herald in 1857 and 1858, and also in John Mullaly to Archbishop John J. Hughes, Mar. 30, 1858, John J. Hughes Papers, St. Joseph's Seminary, Yonkers, New York. 112 role in having the city acquire 4000 acres of land in the Bronx for the purposes of parks and parkways.2 Always interested in science, Mullaly invented, while editor of the Record, a process he called Aluminography, used in the printing of aluminum plates. Later he became president of the United States Aluminum Printing Plate Co. As an author Mullaly had works published on the Atlantic cable, New York City's impure milk, and the public parks program in the Bronx. Toward the end of his life, from 1892 to 1896, Mullaly served as editor of Seminary, a monthly printed for the new seminary building of the New York Catholic Archdiocese at Dunwoodie, in Yonkers. He died in his eightieth year on January 2, 1915, a forgotten "leader of Catholic thought and action during the nineteenth century," a man who "had outlived his generation."3 But there was nothing obscure about John Mullaly during the Civil War. After six years service on the New York Herald, Mullaly was described by the managing editor of that newspaper as an accomplished reporter. This reputation and the young newspaperman 's acquaintance with Archbishop John J. Hughes of New York made possible the launching of Mullaly's newspaper venture, the Metropolitan Record.* As early as 1858 Mullaly had determined to publish his own newspaper for New York's Irish Catholics. Archbishop Hughes endorsed his efforts and agreed to advance some money for the enterprise. Mullaly envisioned his Record as a weekly journal confining itself 2 The Catholic News, Jan. 9, 1915; Meehan, "Early Catholic Weeklies," 245. As early as 1861 Mullaly had obtained the lucrative right to print public documents. He also served as municipal court attendant while still editor of the Metropolitan Record, a political plum obtained by his connections in the Tweed Ring. Like...