History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/4/Azro B. F. Hildreth
AZRO B. F. HILDRETH, one of the veteran journalists of Iowa, was born in Chelsea, Vermont, February 29, 1816. He began teaching at the age of sixteen and going to New York in 1837 learned the printer's trade. In 1839 he established a newspaper at Lowell, Massachusetts, and for several years conducted papers in that State and Vermont. In the spring of 1856 Mr. Hildreth removed to Charles City, Iowa, where he built a printing house and established the Charles City Intelligencer, which for fourteen years he made one of the largest and best printed of the weekly papers of the State. In 1858 Mr. Hildreth was elected a member of the State Board of Education and took a prominent part in framing laws which have given to Iowa an excellent school system. He was the leader of the movement to admit girls to the State University on equality with boys, a measure which encountered strong opposition. In 1863 Mr. Hildreth was elected to the House of the Tenth General Assembly, was chairman of the committee on schools and was untiring in efforts in behalf of liberal laws for the promotion of education. In politics he is a Republican.