WEED, THERLOW ( 1797-1882). An American journalist and political leader. born at Cairo, Greene County. N. Y.. November 15, 1797. At the age of fourteen years he was an apprentice in a printing office at Onondaga Hollow, N. Y.; and in the War of 1812 he served for a time as a volunteer on the northern frontier. in 1815 he went to New York City. and after a brief career in printing establishments there he engaged in several journalistic ventures in western New York. founding successively Agriculturist at Norwich, and the Onondaga Comity Republi can at Manlius. N. Y. He became editor of the Rochester daily Telegraph in 1S22, of which three years later he also became the proprietor. In 1826 he retired from the management of this paper and the A liti-Masouir Enquirer, and became prominently identified with the Anti Masonic Party. He was for several years a member of the State Legislature, where he was noted for his remarkable adroitness as a political manager. In 1830 Weed removed to Albany and established the Albany Ercning Journal, an anti Jackson organ, which he edited with singular ability for thirty-three years, almost immediate ly attracting attention by his vigorous attacks upon the 'Albany Regency.' He had a wide ac quaintance with public men and for many years his influence in political affairs, first as a Whig and later as a Republican, was in some respects unsurpassed by that of any man in the country.
Declining to accept any offices for himself, ex cept the profitable one of State printer, he dic tated the nomination and appointment of others. It was owing to his management more than to that of any other 111:111 that Harrison and Taylor were nominated for the Presidency in 1840 and 1848 re spectively, while be took a leading part in bring ing about the nomination of Clay in 1844, of Scott in 1852, and of Fremont in 1856. Through out his long career he was an intimate friend of Seward, and for a long time was an influential member of the powerful 'political firm of Seward, Weed and Greeley. which controlled the politics of New York State. During the Civil War he spent some months in Europe as a member of a commission charged with securing the neutrality of foreign governments. For a brief period after the war he served on the editorial staff of the New York Times, and from 1867-78 was editor• of the Commercial .1drertiser. In 1866 he pub lished Letters front Europe and the Mrs( /Mfrs. lie died in New York City, November 22, 1883. Ilia .lutobiography. a useful contribution to the historieal and political literature of the ()wintry, was published in 1884 (Boston), and a Memoir by his grandson, Tbnrlow• 'Weed Barnes, appeared same year (Boston).