Bennett James Gordon

Bennett, James Gordon, born near Dumfries in 1795 and educated for the Roman priesthood, abandoned that career and emigrated (1819) to America. After hard struggles as a teacher, printer, and journalist, he found himself in New York in 1835 no better off than at starting. He contrived to start a little one-cent sheet, which he edited and sold himself in a cellar. Thus was the New York Herald founded, and Bennett by his industry, shrewdness, enterprise, and knowledge of the American public, soon developed it into a magnificent property. He continued to edit and manage the paper till his death in 1872, and one of his last strokes of business was to send Stanley to Africa in search of Livingstone.