Page:History of the newspapers of Beaver County, Pennsylvania.djvu/69

THE WESTERN ARGCTS. 51 sold it in January of that year to one of the most prominent men in the county, Hon. Thomas Henry, who had just closed his term as Sheriff of the county. Mr. Henry was bom in Ireland May 16, 1781. His father Wm. Henry, came to this country in 1783 and settled in Maryland, thence removing to Beaver county in 1796, and began a settlement on the east side of the Beaver river. The land on which the settlement was made, was found afterwards to be warranted to Benjamin Chew, and one hundred acres was purchased from him. William Henry the father, lived on the farm until his death, but William and Thomas, who were carpenters, went to Beaver in 1798, but annually visited the farm. Dec. 24, 1808 he was appointed Justice of the Peace by Gov. Simon Snyder; was elected County Commissioner 1810; was captain of a company in 1814 to protect the shores of Lake Erie against the British; in 1815 was elected to the Legislature; 1816 appointed Prothonotary and Clerk of Courts of the county which he held until 1821, when he was elected Sheriff; in 1828 and 1829 he was Treasurer of the county; in 1831 was appointed As- sociate Judge by Gov. George Wolf and was elected to Congress in 1836 and served three terms. As editor and public official he performed his duty with fidelity, correct- ness and honesty of purpose. In 1816 he became a mem- ber of the Presbyterian church,, and was chosen elder in 1825, in which position he was as true and influential as in the others. In the years that the "Argus" was owned by Thomrs Henry, the controversies between political opponents were bitter and frequent, and the language used left no doubt of the position of the gentlemen engaged. The first opposition paper, the "Republican," was started in 1826, and from that on there was journalistic war when- ever politics was warmed up. A series of controversial articles between Samuel Power and Abner Lacock in