Josiah Turner and the N&O

ryanteaguebeckwith — Wed, 19 Dec 2007 08:10:52 -0500

In true Southern fashion, Dome has found an embarassing relation.

As it turns out, the last person to be expelled from the state legislature—for calling the speaker a "gander head" as you may recall—was publisher of the forerunner of the N&O.

Here's the story, from William S. Powell's inestimable "Encyclopedia of North Carolina" (p. 944).

The Raleigh Sentinel was founded in 1865 to "fight against the domination of carpetbaggers and other forces" during Reconstruction, Powell writes. Josiah Turner Jr. bought the paper in 1868:

Turner's crusade is considered to have been largely responsible for the recapture of the state legislature by the Democrats (then called Conservatives) and for the overthrow of Governor William W. Holden in 1870 and his impeachment in 1871.

But, Powell writes, Turner was "no financial wizard" and the paper ended up in the hands of the publishers of the Raleigh Observer. Eventually, they folded the paper into the N&O.