Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/190

 THOMAS H. SHREYE. Pulmonary disease, which for a period of about three years had afflicted Thomas H. Shreve, terminated in his death ou the morning of December twenty-third, 1853. To Mr. Shreve's numerous personal friends, who had long been aware of the severe and dangerous nature of his disease, this intelligence did not come unex- pectedly, but to every one of them it was accompanied by a pang such as they do not often experience. Beyond the circle of attached friends, there were in different parts of the Union, but more especially in the north-eastern sections of the Mississippi Valley, thousands who had never seen the deceased, who yet sincerely lamented his loss, for through a period of twenty years they had known him as a journalist of bi'illiant talent, and rare powers of pleasing and instructing. Thomas H. Shreve was born in the city of Alexandria, District of Columbia, in the year 1808. In the schools of that place he laid the foundations of a good academical education, upon which he built through many years of close observation and thoughtful study. There, and at Trenton, New Jersey, he was bred to the busi- ness of merchandise, which at a later period of his life he pursued for a few years in Louisville, Kentucky. About the year 1830, he removed to Cincinnati, whither his father and sisters had preceded him. In the year 1834, by purchase, he connected himself with the publishing and editorial departments of the Cincinnati Mirror — a weekly literary paper, at that time of established character and wide circulation, but which immediately and greatly improved, in all respects, under his joint man- agement. In the year 1838, the Mirror having sometime before passed from the hands of Mr. Shreve and his associates, he removed to Louisville, where he became a member of the extensive dry-goods jobbing house of Joshua L. Bowles & Co., with which he remained connected till the retirement of Mr. Bowles and the close of the concern. Subsequent to this, he was for a couple of years one of the partners in an agricultural warehouse in Louisville. While connected with the Cincinnati Mirror, and while a member of the firm of Bowles & Co., Mr. Shreve produced many papers of rare excellence, in different de- partments of literature. They were published in the Cincinnati Mirror, the Knick- erbocker of New York, the Hesjierian, the Western Monthly Magazine, and the Louis- ville Journal, and copied into the daily and weekly press throughout the country, establishing his reputation as one of the best of our younger writers. East or West. During the same time he made sundry public addresses, on themes of permanent interest and value, which showed an abundant capacity and intelligence to instruct, as well as to please. Discriminating "judgment had long recognized in him one who had lare powers for the work of journalism, and when he retired from merchandising, he was at once se- (174)