Norvell, Caleb C.

Born: 1813-04-24 Kentucky

Died: 1891-02-03 Washington, D.C.

Caleb C. Norvell was a finance specialist, newspaper editor, and journalist. His family moved to Nashville when he was a child. As a young man, he moved to Philadelphia to work at a banking house, then became financial editor of the Philadelphia Ledger. On June 27, 1833, in Davidson County, Tennessee, he married Catherine Mary Carroll, the niece of William Carroll, governor of Tennessee. Norvell and Catherine had six children together. In January 1835, Norvell became editor of The Commercial Transcript. In August 1837, he became associate editor for the Republican Banner. In January 1838, he left the Banner to start the second iteration of the Nashville Whig. His wife, Catherine, died in 1842. In April of 1844, he married Jennette Gordon. They did not have any children together. In 1849, Norvell became a manager in the insurance business, editor of the New York Tribune, and a resident of Staten Island, New York. From 1851 to 1874, he served as a financial editor for the New York Times. In 1860, he was still living in Castleton on Staten Island and had a personal estate valued at $1,200. He died after contracting a severe cold while visiting a friend in Washington, DC.

W. W. Clayton, History of Davidson County, Tennessee (Philadelphia: J. W. Lewis, 1880), 231, 237-38; Tennessee State Marriages, 1780-2002, Davidson County, 27 June 1833, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, TN; Jeannette Tillotson Acklen, Tennessee Records (Nashville, TN: Cullom and Ghertner, 1933); Tennessee State Marriages, 1780-2002, Davidson County, 22 April 1844, Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville, TN; The Tennessean (Nashville, TN), 7 November 1891, 25:5-7; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Castleton, Richmond County, NY, 28; The New-York Times (New York, NY), 4 February 1891, 5:3; The American Stationer (New York, NY), 5 February 1891, 277:3; Detroit Free Press (Detroit, MI), 10 February 1891, 5:1; Gravestone, Moravian Cemetery, New Dorp, NY.