Robert Bonner
RESEARCH BY KEVIN SHIELDS
Robert Bonner (1824 - 1899) was a newspaper magnate and trotting horse breeder. He owned and published the New York Ledger and was founder and long time President of the Scotch-Irish Society of America. His is the classic ‘rags to riches’ story of the Irish immigrant who arrived with nothing and became one of the richest and most influential men in America.
Born in Ramelton on April 28th 1824, Robert Bonner emigrated to America aged 15 at the suggestion of his mother’s brother who was a prosperous farmer living near Hartford, Connecticut. At that time young Bonner was penniless and his uncle saw to it that none of his time was wasted. Within a few weeks of his arrival he was working as an apprentice in the office of The Hartford Courant newspaper where he took his first lessons in the art of setting type. He had the determination to learn it thoroughly, and when he had mastered his trade soon acquired the reputation of being the best workman at Hartford. As a compositor, he was not only neat and thorough, but was remarkably quick as well.
On one occasion, when the paper was endeavouring to publish the “President’s Message” in advance of all its competitors, Bonner is said to have worked at the rate of seventeen hundred ems an hour—a feat absolutely unparalleled. The Hartford Courant (started in 1764) is America’s oldest newspaper in continuous publication.
Robert Bonner (1824 - 1899) was a newspaper magnate and trotting horse breeder. He owned and published the New York Ledger and was founder and long time President of the Scotch-Irish Society of America. His is the classic ‘rags to riches’ story of the Irish immigrant who arrived with nothing and became one of the richest and most influential men in America.
Born in Ramelton on April 28th 1824, Robert Bonner emigrated to America aged 15 at the suggestion of his mother’s brother who was a prosperous farmer living near Hartford, Connecticut. At that time young Bonner was penniless and his uncle saw to it that none of his time was wasted. Within a few weeks of his arrival he was working as an apprentice in the office of The Hartford Courant newspaper where he took his first lessons in the art of setting type. He had the determination to learn it thoroughly, and when he had mastered his trade soon acquired the reputation of being the best workman at Hartford. As a compositor, he was not only neat and thorough, but was remarkably quick as well.
On one occasion, when the paper was endeavouring to publish the “President’s Message” in advance of all its competitors, Bonner is said to have worked at the rate of seventeen hundred ems an hour—a feat absolutely unparalleled. The Hartford Courant (started in 1764) is America’s oldest newspaper in continuous publication.
At the end of his apprenticeship in 1844 Robert left Hartford and went to New York where he took a job in the office of a new journal, called the American Republican, established as the organ of the 'American Party' in New York. His wages were small, and it was only by practicing the most rigid economy that he could live on it. He formed the habit, from which he never departed, of buying nothing that he could not pay for. When the “Republican” suspended publication, Bonner became assistant foreman in the office of The New York Mirror, published by Morris, Willis & Fuller, at the same time acting as correspondent for the Hartford Courant and for newspapers in Boston, Albany and Washington. Here he made himself so useful, that the business of setting up or displaying advertisements attractively was soon left entirely to him. His ideas in display advertising were amongst the most innovative and visionary of his era and the advertisements in the “Mirror” soon became noted for their neat and handsome appearance.
During this period of his life he met Jane McConlis. Like Robert, Jane was a native of Donegal in Ireland and had come to America with her parents in 1839, at ten years of age. They married quietly on May 21st, 1850. There were six children from their marriage before Jane died from tuberculosis aged 49.
After several years service at The Mirror, Robert accumulated enough money to buy the struggling ‘Merchants Ledger and Statistical Record’, a weekly financial journal for $500 in 1851. Almost immediately, Robert introduced new features and gradually changed its character to appeal not only to the business community but also to readers in the home; with popular interest stories and with a high moral tone - modifying its print format to that of the successful London Journal. With columns devoted to love, marriage, and baby care, the paper initially catered to a predominantly female readership. Its serialized stories focussed heavily on romance (domestic and historical) and its illustrations included many images of women. It was generally doubted at that time that a literary paper could flourish in New York— Boston and Philadelphia having apparently monopolized such enterprises. Bonner however, had a clearer view of the matter and was convinced from the outset that the great centre of American industry was the very best place for such an undertaking.
He proceeded very cautiously at first however, changing the character of his paper very gradually, from a commercial to a literary journal. His shrewdest move came in 1855 when he decided to rename the publication The New York Ledger, thus paving his way to spectacular success – and his personal fortune. By 1880 his paper had a readership of over one million and was worth $2,000,000. Bonners recipe for success was to print
no advertising in his own paper, make the price low enough for everyone to afford it, focus on family reading, and print only original contributions, for which he offered handsome fees on a scale altogether without precedent.
The first celebrity author he engaged was Fanny Fern, the most popular author of the day, to write a story for his paper at $100 per column.
This was unheard of recompense in the newspaper world and attracted a great deal of attention to The Ledger. The first chapter of Fanny Fern’s novel appeared on June 9th 1856, and on that date The Ledger had sales of 50,000 copies. The success which rewarded Bonner’s ingenuity and energy spurred him on to push the circulation of his paper to 100,000. This determination was carried out at the expense of large sums paid for articles, novels, poems and thousands of dollars spent on advertising. Bonner didn't mind paying for quality. Literary giants of the day were paid vast sums in exchange for their work - $30,000 to Henry Ward Beecher for his novel ‘Norwood’, $3,000 to Charles Dickens for ‘Hunted Down’ (the only work Dickens ever wrote for an American publication). Longfellow’s poem, "The Hanging of the Crane" was commissioned by Bonner for the unheard of sum of $3,000 plus $1,000 to Samuel Ward for brokering the deal. It was the highest price any single poem had brought up to that date. Bonner also featured contributions from senators, clergymen, college presidents and scholars. Even with such exclusive content, the Ledger was comparatively cheap, with an annual subscription costing only $2.00 (or 4 cents per copy).
By 1860 the Ledger had achieved a weekly circulation of 400,000, a figure unmatched by any other American literary magazine of the time (no other publication in America had yet reached 100,000). As a result, Robert Bonner became one of the richest and most famous men in the United States.
Bonner was renowned for having the largest advertising budget and the most sensational advertising schemes of any newspaper man. He kept his own publication free of advertising but spent heavily with other publications. On the 6th May 1858 he outrageously bought SEVEN full pages of the New York Herald, at a cost of $27,000, to promote The Ledger, placing one short sentence from his latest contributor on each page. The Herald, only an 8-page publication, had to add 8 more pages for its own content. He did the same in the New York Times on 13th May 1858. This mode of advertising was new and brought astonishment and ridicule from fellow newspaper men. Bonner's ruin was predicted over and over again.
Bonner marketed his paper for family reading and upon retirement, he said: "When I first bought the Ledger…. I pictured to myself an old lady in Westchester with three daughters, aged about twenty, sixteen and twelve, respectively. Of an evening they come home from a prayer meeting and not being sleepy, the mother takes up the Ledger and reads aloud to the girls. From the first day I got the Ledger to the present time there has never appeared one word which the old lady in Westchester County would not like to read to her daughters."
During this period of his life he met Jane McConlis. Like Robert, Jane was a native of Donegal in Ireland and had come to America with her parents in 1839, at ten years of age. They married quietly on May 21st, 1850. There were six children from their marriage before Jane died from tuberculosis aged 49.
After several years service at The Mirror, Robert accumulated enough money to buy the struggling ‘Merchants Ledger and Statistical Record’, a weekly financial journal for $500 in 1851. Almost immediately, Robert introduced new features and gradually changed its character to appeal not only to the business community but also to readers in the home; with popular interest stories and with a high moral tone - modifying its print format to that of the successful London Journal. With columns devoted to love, marriage, and baby care, the paper initially catered to a predominantly female readership. Its serialized stories focussed heavily on romance (domestic and historical) and its illustrations included many images of women. It was generally doubted at that time that a literary paper could flourish in New York— Boston and Philadelphia having apparently monopolized such enterprises. Bonner however, had a clearer view of the matter and was convinced from the outset that the great centre of American industry was the very best place for such an undertaking.
He proceeded very cautiously at first however, changing the character of his paper very gradually, from a commercial to a literary journal. His shrewdest move came in 1855 when he decided to rename the publication The New York Ledger, thus paving his way to spectacular success – and his personal fortune. By 1880 his paper had a readership of over one million and was worth $2,000,000. Bonners recipe for success was to print
no advertising in his own paper, make the price low enough for everyone to afford it, focus on family reading, and print only original contributions, for which he offered handsome fees on a scale altogether without precedent.
The first celebrity author he engaged was Fanny Fern, the most popular author of the day, to write a story for his paper at $100 per column.
This was unheard of recompense in the newspaper world and attracted a great deal of attention to The Ledger. The first chapter of Fanny Fern’s novel appeared on June 9th 1856, and on that date The Ledger had sales of 50,000 copies. The success which rewarded Bonner’s ingenuity and energy spurred him on to push the circulation of his paper to 100,000. This determination was carried out at the expense of large sums paid for articles, novels, poems and thousands of dollars spent on advertising. Bonner didn't mind paying for quality. Literary giants of the day were paid vast sums in exchange for their work - $30,000 to Henry Ward Beecher for his novel ‘Norwood’, $3,000 to Charles Dickens for ‘Hunted Down’ (the only work Dickens ever wrote for an American publication). Longfellow’s poem, "The Hanging of the Crane" was commissioned by Bonner for the unheard of sum of $3,000 plus $1,000 to Samuel Ward for brokering the deal. It was the highest price any single poem had brought up to that date. Bonner also featured contributions from senators, clergymen, college presidents and scholars. Even with such exclusive content, the Ledger was comparatively cheap, with an annual subscription costing only $2.00 (or 4 cents per copy).
By 1860 the Ledger had achieved a weekly circulation of 400,000, a figure unmatched by any other American literary magazine of the time (no other publication in America had yet reached 100,000). As a result, Robert Bonner became one of the richest and most famous men in the United States.
Bonner was renowned for having the largest advertising budget and the most sensational advertising schemes of any newspaper man. He kept his own publication free of advertising but spent heavily with other publications. On the 6th May 1858 he outrageously bought SEVEN full pages of the New York Herald, at a cost of $27,000, to promote The Ledger, placing one short sentence from his latest contributor on each page. The Herald, only an 8-page publication, had to add 8 more pages for its own content. He did the same in the New York Times on 13th May 1858. This mode of advertising was new and brought astonishment and ridicule from fellow newspaper men. Bonner's ruin was predicted over and over again.
Bonner marketed his paper for family reading and upon retirement, he said: "When I first bought the Ledger…. I pictured to myself an old lady in Westchester with three daughters, aged about twenty, sixteen and twelve, respectively. Of an evening they come home from a prayer meeting and not being sleepy, the mother takes up the Ledger and reads aloud to the girls. From the first day I got the Ledger to the present time there has never appeared one word which the old lady in Westchester County would not like to read to her daughters."
Harness Racing / Trotting
Next to his fame as the publisher of a marvellously successful family paper, Robert Bonner was best known as a lover of horseflesh and an owner of fast trotting horses – but it was not until he had reached middle age that be became a horse-owner. Among the noteworthy thoroughbred horses which he owned at one time or another were Pocahontas, Dexter, Startle, Edward Everett, John Taylor, Rarus, Pickard, Maud S., and Sunol. The two latter among the fastest horses the world had ever seen, were also the world’s most expensive costing, respectively, $40,000 and $41,000. At the time of his death Bonner owned fifty or more horses, some of them kept in his stables on West 56th Street and some at his stud farm at Tarrytown in the exclusive residential area of the Hamptons.
Below is a report from the New York Times December 11, 1891 - the day after Bonner’s Sunol beat his other horse Maud S. in a World Record time of 2:08 for one mile – at odds of 1/4.
Below is a report from the New York Times December 11, 1891 - the day after Bonner’s Sunol beat his other horse Maud S. in a World Record time of 2:08 for one mile – at odds of 1/4.
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"Sunol is enough to awaken enthusiasm in any man and Mr. Bonner can be well excused the display of a large amount of it, for there is hardly a more thorough horseman in his way than he. To own the two fastest mares in the world is of course a great pleasure. To be the absolute director of their fortunes is another, and that is what Mr. Bonner is from this time on. Sunol cost Mr. Bonner about $41,000, and she declared her first dividend for him yesterday about noon.".... “Mr. Bonner is a man to be envied. In his town stable he has ten 2:20 fliers, and at his farm in Tarrytown he has a score or more, which either have beaten 2:20 or give promise of doing so at an early day. His marvellous collection of trotters certainly makes him the foremost road-rider of this, or any other age.”
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Sunol
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"Queen of the Turf," Maud S. was foaled in 1874 in Kentucky and was immediately bought by William H. Vanderbilt for $21,000. She was used as Vanderbilt's road horse until 1884, when she was returned to the turf to lower the record to 2:10 and was sold to Robert Bonner for $40,000. It was well documented that Vanderbilt turned down $100,000 from a racing syndicate in order that his favourite and most famous horse spend the rest of her days in Bonner's benevolent care. While in his stable she trotted her record mile in 2:08 3/4 at Cleveland, OH, this being the seventh time she had lowered the world record in six years. In 1885 she was permanently retired as a road horse and died on March 17, 1901, her obituary appearing on the front page of the New York Times. She is buried in Tarrytown, NY, next to the immortal, Dexter.
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Maud S.
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'Taking the Reins', President Ulysses S. Grant and Robert Bonner, racing Dexter on Bloomingdale Road, New York -1869
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Dexter had been owned by Cornelius Vanderbilt and a number of individuals had tried for years to persuade him to sell the horse. Vanderbilt refused and eventually turned to his arch rival on the track, Bonner, offering the horse to Bonner only because he knew that Bonner would treat the horse with respect and not race him too hard. Bonner paid $35,000 for Dexter, a huge sum for the day, and Dexter was moved to Eastview Stock Farm at Tarrytown New York. Dexter would become Bonner's prized road horse and would often make the trip into the city. As the American Civil War ended and life returned to normal a grizzly general from Illinois was to be elected President of the United States. Embroiled in a scandal between the election and his oath of office, Ulysses S. Grant turned to Bonner as a leading newspaper man at the time for help. It was during this time that Grant drove Dexter in the famous print "Taking the reins". Grant was so enamored with Dexter that he asked Bonner to give the horse to him as a "gift for the new President". Bonner flatly refused saying that he loved that old horse so dearly he would never part with him. As his legend grew and his fame, Dexter was seen in many prints and pictures of the time, and his picture would also be used in advertising everything from cigars to insurance to snake oil. Dexter would remain on the farm at Tarrytown until his death at age 30 in 1888.
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Dexter driven by Bonner at Prospect Park Brooklyn August 31st 1869
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When Bonner assisted the ladies of the Mount Vernon Association in purchasing the home and tomb of George Washington, the "Mount Vernon Papers," referred to him and his enterprise:
"It may be mentioned as the most extraordinary, the most creditable, and, as an example to others, the most salutary feature of Mr. Bonner's course, that in the entire progress of this great enterprise, and in its present management, he has never signed or endorsed a note of hand, nor borrowed a dollar; and that in every part of his immense establishment, Sunday is a day of rest. By his industry and sagacity Mr. Bonner has acquired a large fortune, a goodly proportion of which he devotes to the benefit of his fellow-men. Large sums have been given to aid in erecting a gymnasium for the students of Princeton College, to those sufferers by the Chicago fire who were connected with the newspaper business, and to numerous churches. In addition to all tills, thousands of dollars have been expended in charitable gifts, known to none but donor and recipients. Mr. Bonner indulges his own wishes in one respect. His ambition is to own the best trotting horses in the world, and in this aim he is successful. His stables contain the finest collection of thoroughbreds in the United States, if not in the world. They are never allowed to take part in public races, but are solely for the pleasure of the owner, who visits them each day and drives them himself. "Mr. Bonner is five feet seven and a half inches in height, and weighs one hundred and seventy-five pounds. He is broad shouldered, broad-chested, straight, firm, and well proportioned. He has a resolute, determined step, and walks with an air of decision. He has a remarkably large head, and a massive forehead. Brilliant hazel eyes, well set, sparkle with every word he utters. His hair is dark brown, and of fine quality. His full beard is sandy, darkly shaded. His skin is fair. The nose is keen and pointed. The mouth is small, with two rows of as fine white and evenly set teeth as were ever seen. His manner is cheerful, frank and open, and his address free and courteous."
When Bonner retired in 1887, he passed his New York Ledger over to his three sons, Andrew Allen, Robert Edwin and Frederick. Following the death in December 1898 from pneumonia of his eldest son Andrew Allen (46), shortly followed by the death of his friend and long-time pastor Dr. John Hall, Bonner’s health declined. He died on Friday July 7th, 1899, aged 75 and is buried at Brooklyn’s Greenwood cemetery. His death was reported widely around the world.
The New York Ledger struggled under the control of the remaining Bonner sons. The weekly soon became a monthly and just four years after Bonners death ceased trading as family members fought publicly over his six million dollar estate.
The New York Ledger struggled under the control of the remaining Bonner sons. The weekly soon became a monthly and just four years after Bonners death ceased trading as family members fought publicly over his six million dollar estate.
Legacy 5th Ave Presbyterian Church, New York
A deeply religious and benevolent man, Bonner donated $100,000 for the building of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church and made large donations to many institutions including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Princeton University and a donation of 50 pounds towards the building of the Town Hall in his home town of Ramelton in 1878. His name is inscribed on a marble plaque inside the hall. In his 1869 book 'Sunshine & Shadow in New York', Matthew Hale Smith described Bonner as "... a liberal contributor to the support of public worship and the various forms of benevolence and charity. He is a concientious businessman, with great resources, with fertility of genius unmatched, and with indomitable will, untiring industry, and more important than all, he possesses that crowning gift which Solomon possessed as an especial patrimony from God - "largeness of heart...."
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Scotch-Irish Society
Bonner was also the founder of the Scotch-Irish Society of America. The first Congress of the Society met in Columbus, Tennessee in 1889 where Robert Bonner was elected the first President. He was to be re-elected every year until his death ten years later. His spectacular rise from nothing to owning his own paper aged 26 and being rich and famous at 31 is often compared to the career of Benjamin Franklin, and he has been described variously as: “….the friend who never deserts a friend, the trusty man of simple truth, the typical Scotch-Irish man. A bold audacious fellow, ruthless with those in his way and tender with those he liked…..”
“…..practically friendless when he came to New York, by his mid-thirties he was on the best of terms with the leading social and business lights of the day……” ".... a square, manly, generous, high-minded man who has the confidence of all who do business with him; a true friend whose business ability involves little gestures of kindness, as well as liberality of pay...." ".... Mr. Bonner is one of the most remarkable men of the age - the architect of his own fortune, a prompt, straightforward, and honest business man, with energy to push that business to success. A perfect master of his calling, and successful in everything he has undertaken, he is a worthy model for the young men of America...." And finally…..from Illustrated Weekly Magazine, 1897 "It is said that with the exception of General Ulysses S. Grant and P. T. Barnum, Robert Bonner is known to more people than any man in America. |
