Southern Illinoisan

City: Shawneetown

County: Gallatin

State: Illinois

Publishers W. Edwards & Son commenced publication of the Southern Illinoisan in Shawneetown in 1852. The firm seems to have been composed of William Edwards and his son John W. Edwards. The newspaper was initially Democratic in its leanings, but opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act and in the election of 1856 supported Democrat James Buchanan for president but Republican William H. Bissell for governor of Illinois. Around the time of that election, William Edwards retired from the publication and thereafter the paper was firmly Republican. Following a suspension of publication due to financial issues, in 1858 John W. and James Edwards revived the Southern Illinoisan as the partnership of Edwards & Brother. Edwards & Brother advertised the newspaper for sale at the end of that year and announced that if they were unable to find a buyer by the beginning of 1859, they would continue publication of the Southern Illinoisan, but that it would become a non-partisan newspaper. By 1860, the newspaper seems to have returned to the Republican fold, but publication of the Southern Illinoisan ceased around that year, reportedly due to lack of demand for a Republican newspaper in southern Illinois.

Franklin William Scott, Newspapers and Periodicals of Illinois, 1814-1879, vol. 6 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1910), 315; History of Gallatin, Saline, Hamilton, Franklin and Williamson Counties, Illinois (Chicago: Goodspeed, 1887), 113-14, 539-40; Andrew McCallen to Abraham Lincoln; The Daily Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), 10 June 1858, 2:2; Alton Daily Courier (IL), 2 July 1858, 2:1, 3; Olney Times (IL), 27 August 1858, 2:8; Daily Illinois State Journal (Springfield), 2 December 1858, 3:1; Illinois Daily State Journal (Springfield), 20 July 1860, 2:3; The Weekly Pantagraph (Bloomington, IL), 8 December 1858, 2:3.