Joseph Charless was an Irish-born American printer and publisher. At the beginning of his career in America, he worked in association with noted publisher Matthew Carey in Philadelphia and around 1808 opened his own printing office in St. Louis.
Background
Joseph Charless was born “Joseph Charles” on July 16, 1772, in Killucan, County Westmeath, Ireland. He was the only son of Edward and Ann Chapman Charles. He came from a family which originally lived in Wales but which emigrated in 1663 to Westmeath, Ireland.
Education
Joseph served as an apprentice to printer William Kidd in Mullingar, Ireland.
Career
Charless's willingness to risk his life for principles he regarded as fundamental early showed itself, for he was implicated with Lord Edward Fitzgerald and others in the Irish rebellion of 1795. Forced to flee Ireland, he first went to France, from which he embarked for the United States, landing in New York in 1796. Unable to find work in that city, he followed in the footsteps of Benjamin Franklin and went to Philadelphia where he secured work with Matthew Carey. Because his fellow printers did not pronounce his name with the Hibernian quota of syllables he added an extra “s” to the name which had been Charles in Ireland.
In Carey’s print-shop he met many of the political leaders of the Jeffersonian republicanism. Acting on the advice of Henry Clay, he went West and found employment on the Gasette at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1800. From Lexington he went to Louisville where he remained two years. He then went to St. Louis where he made his home henceforward. There on July 12, 1808, he brought out the first issue of the Missouri Gasette, a pioneer newspaper of the West which changed its name a year later to the Louisiana Gazette. When, however, Congress created the Missouri territory, Charless, in 1812, changed the name of his newspaper back to the Missouri Gazette.
Always Charless was a fighter for his political principles, even though at times he set them forth in an injudicious way. Hampered by lack of transportation facilities, he frequently found great difficulty in bringing out his newspaper. But through his resourcefulness he was able to meet such emergencies, even though he had to print his paper on foolscap.
In 1822 his son Edward changed the name of his father’s paper to the Missouri Republican, but the guiding principle of its editorial policy still remained that of his father, “To extinguish party animosities and foster a cordial union among the people on the basis of toleration and equal government. ”
Achievements
Politics
Joseph Charless was an ardent supporter of Henry Clay and his policies.
Connections
In 1798 Charless was married to Mrs. Sarah McCloud (nee Jordan) who came originally from Wilmington, Delaware.