The Caddo Oklahoma Star
January 25, 1876
Capt. Granville McPherson,
Of the Oklahoma Star came to our city on Monday night’s train and is yet and will be with us for several days.
The Captain is in pursuit of health and incidentally patronage, but for the latter he seems to have little concern. For years he has sat upon the tripod, earnestly, manfully and eloquently proclaiming progression to the Indians. He has been true to his faith, has never looked back from the handles of his plough. Indeed, he could not do otherwise without conversion and he does not believe in a conversion to degradation.
It was really necessary for the Captain to take a trip for recuperation. His friends urged it and he himself knew that even the prolongation of existence demanded it. It would not do for the Star to set and leave the Southern part of the Indian realm in total darkness.
Wherever the Captain may tarry he will find friends. He is a Mason of rare attainments and is Grand master of the Grand Lodge of the Indian Territory; and outside the craft, all who may make his acquaintance will find him a brother, and worthy and well qualified in every element of a gentleman. He is social, cheerful- a benefactor of mankind wherever he moves.
It would not do to say that Capt. McPherson, invalid as he is, brought with him from below a large bag of supplies such as cheese, hardtack, bologna, sausage, etc., enough to have lasted him through a Kane expedition. In Vinita he has had no cause for drawing upon his own stores; he seems to be the guest of everybody.
May his health forthwith be perfected and may his re-ascending Star rise over Caddo more brilliant than ever, and never set.
MCPHERSON, LYDIA STARR (1827-1903). Lydia Starr McPherson, journalist, was born in 1827 in Warnock, Ohio, the daughter of William F. and Sarah (Lucas) Starr. She moved with her family to Iowa at the age of twelve and began teaching school at Ashland, Iowa, when she was seventeen. On May 2, 1849, she married David Hunter and settled with him near Keosauqua, Iowa, where they had five children. After Hunter's death, Lydia moved with her three sons to Oskaloosa, Iowa, and then to Caddo, Indian Territory, in 1874, and married Granville McPherson, owner of the Oklahoma Star. Together they edited the Star, for which she wrote under the pen name Urania, until Granville moved the paper to McAlester in the Indian Territory in 1876. In 1878 he moved to Blanco, Texas, where he died. Lydia remained behind in Caddo and began publication of the Caddo International News, under her own editorial direction, with her sons as printers. The following year she moved her family to Whitesboro, Texas, and established the weekly Whitesboro Democrat, the first newspaper in Texas owned and operated by a woman. In 1879 she and her sons were invited to transfer operations to Sherman, and the new Sherman Democrat, which became a daily in 1881, developed into a profitable and influential paper. Lydia McPherson joined the Texas Press Associationqv in 1881, one of the first three women members, and served as corresponding secretary of the association. She was a delegate to the World's Press Association convention in Cincinnati in 1886. She was appointed honorary commissioner for the World Exposition in New Orleans in 1885, and from 1886 to 1890 she served as postmistress of Sherman. She contributed to Cosmopolitan magazine, the Toledo Blade, Youth's Companion and the Chicago Advance, among others, and wrote poems and novels; her only published volume was Reullura (1892), a collection of poetry. In 1890 she toured the western and Pacific states and sent travel letters to the Sherman Democrat. She died in 1903; her sons owned the Democrat until 1920.
Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/MM/fmcay.html (accessed June 3, 2007).
(NOTE: "s.v." stands for sub verbo, "under the word.")
Caddo Newspapers
(from Erma L. Taylor)
Newspapers were published in I.T. soon after the removal of the Choctaws to Oklahoma. Caddo’s first known paper began January 14, 1874 and was the first to use the word Oklahoma in its title. The editor was W.J Hemby, a practical printer. He employed Granville McPherson as editor. His policy stated in the April 3, 1874 issue read, “My aim and object will be to conduct the Oklahoma Star in what I conceive to be the interest of the I.T. as a whole, and the local interests of the Choctaws and Chickasaw especially, without subversing (sic) the ends of any particular party or faction. His motto, “Progress and a Higher Civilization”. McPherson bought the paper in 1876, but in 1877 consolidated it with the Star-Vindicator, Rev. J.S. Morrow, joint-owner. It was then moved to McAlester.
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