Background
Morton McMichael was born on October 2, 1807, in Bordentown, New Jersey.
Morton McMichael was born on October 2, 1807, in Bordentown, New Jersey.
McMichael was educated in the local schools. His family had come to America from the north of Ireland; his father, John McMichael (1777 - 1846), was employed on the estate of Joseph Bonaparte; his mother was Hannah Maria Masters. Upon the removal of his parents to Philadelphia, McMichael continued his education there.
The statement sometimes made that he attended the University of Pennsylvania is apparently an error. He read law with David Paul Brown and was admitted to the bar in 1827. In 1877, he was awarded the degree of LL. D. by the University of Pennsylvania. Although the only public offices McMichael ever held were in Philadelphia, his influence was wide.
McMichael was already active in journalism, having become editor of the Saturday Evening Post the previous year. In 1831, he resigned this position to become editor-in-chief of the newly established Saturday Courier. About this time he began his political career as a police magistrate, displaying early his power of leadership by dispersing a mob in the slavery riot of 1837 and preventing the burning of a negro orphanage.
For a number of years, he was an alderman and in 1836 was active on the commission for school reform in the city. The division of his activities between politics and journalism continued throughout his life. He entered upon his career as a newspaper publisher in 1836, when with Louis A. Godey and Joseph C. Neal he started the Saturday News and Literary Gazette. Eight years later he associated himself with Neal in editing Neal's Saturday Gazette.
From 1842 to 1846, he was one of the editors of Godey's Lady's Book. In 1847, he became the joint owner, with George R. Graham, of the Philadelphia North American, which in July of the same year absorbed the United States Gazette. Robert Montgomery Bird joined the enterprise at this time. After the withdrawal of Graham in 1848 and the death of Bird in 1854, McMichael became sole owner.
He retained his interest in the paper until his death and by a vigorous and progressive editorial policy succeeded in making it the leading Whig journal of the country. During these early years, his activity in publishing brought him into intimate association with Leland, Boker, Poe, Richard Penn Smith, and other well-known literary men then in the city.
From 1843 to 1846, he was sheriff of Philadelphia, again displaying unusual vigor and courage in ending the anti-Catholic or "Native American" riots of 1844. Always active in the cause of civic betterment, he lent his support and that of his paper to the hotly contested movement for the consolidation of various independent districts of Philadelphia under one government and was in no small measure responsible for the ultimate passage of the Consolidation Act of 1854.
As early as 1858, he was mentioned as a possible candidate for mayor and eight years later was elected to that office, filling it from 1866 to 1869. During the Civil War, in which two of his sons served with distinction, he was one of the founders of the Union League, and later became its fourth president (1870 - 74). When the Fairmount Park Commission was formed in 1867, he was made the president and was re-elected repeatedly until his death.
He declined the appointment as minister to Great Britain tendered him by President Grant, on the ground that he could not afford to support the office with the proper dignity. In 1872, he was temporary chairman of the Republican National Convention which renominated Grant for president, and at this time was considered for the vice-presidency. He was a delegate at large to the fourth constitutional convention of Pennsylvania in 1873.
After a trip to Europe (1874), he was appointed, in 1875, to the board of managers of the Centennial Exposition. In 1876, he declined, on account of ill health, the chairmanship of the Republican National Convention at Cincinnati.
He died in Philadelphia and was buried in North Laurel Hill Cemetery.
McMichael was a brilliant speaker and hardly a function in Philadelphia passed without finding him its presiding officer or the orator of the occasion.
In 1831, McMichael married Mary, daughter of Daniel Estell of Philadelphia, by whom he had eight children.