David Atwood was an American politician, publisher, editor and printer.
Background
David Atwood was born on December 15, 1815 in Bedford, New Hampshire, United States to David and Mary (Bell) Atwood. His father was a Presbyterian and of English stock; his mother was Scotch-Irish. In the family Atwood was sixth from nine children. His early training was that of the average boy on a New England farm.
Education
Atwood attended public schools as a child. At seventeen he apprenticed himself to a printing house at Hamilton, New York.
Career
While in Hamilton, where he spent five years, Atwood became publisher of the Hamilton Palladium. Then he moved to Freeport, Illinois in 1845 and engaged in agricultural pursuits. At that time his health had been already injured. One the other hand, two years of farming ruined him financially but restored him physically.
He decided to establish himself in Wisconsin Territory, which had been authorized to form a state constitution. Coming to Madison in 1847, he immediately secured a position on the Madison Express, the only Whig paper at the capital. His most important duty was reporting the proceedings of the constitutional convention.
In October 1848, he became a partner in a firm that bought the Express and changed the title to the Wisconsin Express. This journal supported the Free-Soil wing of the Whig party, while a rival Whig paper, the Statesman, founded in the spring of 1850, favored the Fillmore administration and the Compromise of 1850.
A consolidation of these papers into the Palladium was effected in 1851, but it soon collapsed and Atwood alone in September 1852 established the Wisconsin State Journal, which for a quarter century played an important part in Wisconsin political life. Though partisan, its news was accurate; a correspondent of a Chicago paper says that its record was considered by out-of-town reporters as reliable as the legislative journals.
Atwood was an active supporter of Coles Bashford in the latter's contest for the governorship in 1855-56. In 1861 he represented Madison district in the lower house of the state legislature, and in 1862 was appointed United States internal revenue assessor for the second congressional district. In 1866 he was removed from office after his paper had strongly opposed President Johnson.
Mayor of Madison, 1868-69, he was elected to Congress in 1870 to fill the unexpired term of Benjamin F. Hopkins, deceased. He was for many years president of the Madison Mutual Insurance Company, also president of the Madison Gas Light & Coke Company, and director in several railroad enterprises.
Afterwards, Atwood resumed activities in the newspaper business, was a commissioner at the Centennial Exposition representing the State of Wisconsin from 1872 to 1876 and was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1872 and 1876.
Achievements
Politics
In 1840 and 1844 he supported the Whigs, later he supported the Republican party.
Membership
Member of the Wisconsin State Assembly (1861).
Personality
Atwood was vain, always formal and immaculate in dress, and extremely distant in public. In more intimate relations, however, he was kind and courteous.
Physical characteristics: Atwood had a well-proportioned medium stature, good features, and, in later years, a full flowing white beard which gave him an impressive appearance.
Connections
Atwood was married to Mary A. Sweeney Atwood, they had four children.