Bartlett, Sylvester M.

Died: 1851-09-06 Quincy, Illinois

A native of New England, Bartlett moved West to work as a practical printer for the St. Louis Republican. Hired by Charles E. Loring to print and edit the Northwestern Gazette and Galena Advertiser, a Whig newspaper, in Galena, Illinois, Bartlett moved to Jo Davies County, IL in 1834. In July 1837, Bartlett won a special election to fill the remainder of Elijah Charles' term as state representative for Boone, Jo Daviess, Mercer, Ogle, Stephenson, Winnebago, and Rock Island counties. Bartlett retained his position with the Gazette until January 1838, when he sold his interest in the paper to co-owner Horace Houghton and moved to New Orleans. Upon returning to Illinois, he joined the staff of the Quincy Whig in August 1838 as an editor and co-owner. Already a strongly partisan newspaper, Bartlett further developed the Quincy Whig into a powerful mouthpiece for the Whig cause. Initially sympathetic to the predicament of the Mormon refugees settling near Nauvoo, Bartlett altered his views after attending an anti-Mormon rally and used the Quincy Whig's editorial pages to condemn the Mormons and attack Quincy Mayor John Wood's call for Quincy to shelter Mormons displaced from Nauvoo. Bartlett remained co-owner and editor of the Quincy Whig until his death during the cholera epidemic of 1851.

Henry Asbury, Reminiscences of Quincy, Illinois (Quincy: D. Wilcox & Sons, 1882), 75; History of Jo Daviess County Illinois (Chicago: H. F. Kett, 1878), 433; Andrew Hedges and Alex D. Smith,"The Lady and the Governor," Mormon Historical Studies Fall (2008), 139; William H. Collins and Cicero F. Perry, Past and Present of the City of Quincy & Adams County, Illinois (Chicago: S. J. Clarke, 1905), 74, 137-38, 288, 652; Brigham H. Roberts, "The History of the Mormon Church," Americana, American Historical Magazine 6 (July 1911), 1186-187; Theodore C. Pease, ed., Illinois Election Returns, 1818-1848, vol. 18 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1923), 306; Quincy Whig (Quincy, IL), 16 September 1846, 2:1-3.