Omaha daily bee., 1896-06-19

Mr.. Rosewater secured employment as a
telegraph operator, first at Vincennes, Ind.
and then at Oberlin, o During his stay in
Oberlin occurred the famous Wellington
rescue cases, followed by the arrest of the
Oberlin professors who had been caught
aiding a fugitive slave. Mr..
carried letters from their families to Profs.
Langston, Peck and Bushnell at the Cleve-
land jail; Finally, in June, 1859,
f freosb oToeD'9 Tenn. p POSITION denounced ae M snti.
slavery man in the heart of the southern
country, when told that it would be better
for him to go back home, his only reply
was going further south to Stevenson, Ala.
Here he was when Alabama adopted its
ordinance Of secession.
In March, 1861, he accepted a position in
the commercial Office OF the Southern Tele-
graph company at Nashville and remained
until the city was taken by the union
forces after the capture of Fort Donelson.
Returning for a brief visit to his parents
at Cleveland, he Immediately offered his
services as a volunteer in the military
telegraph corps, and was assigned to ac-
company General John C. Fremont in his
West Virginia campaign, mastering in at
Wheeling in April, 1862. On July 1, 1862,
he was ordered to report to Washington,
where he was stationed at the navy yard
under m of Commodore Dahlgren.
When General Pope was about to make his
famous ION to Richmond" campaign, Oper-
ator Rosewater asked to be allowed to ac-
company him. and was attached to his staff
for military telegraph service. After the
campaign, which terminated in the second
Bull Run and during which Mr.. Rose
water transmitted all Of General Pope's
dispatches from the battlefield, he
returned to Washington and was assigned
TO the War department, where he remained
Tor ten months. In this Office he came in
daily contact with President Lincoln, Sec
retary stanton and other leading war spirits,
ana on January ], 1868, personally trans
mitted the original emancipation proclama-
tion from President Lincoln to the army.
In the spring Of 1868, at the solicitation
OF Edward Creighton, then superintendent
OF the Pacific telegraph, he resigned and
removed TO Omaha, where he soon became
manager OF the Omaha Office. In this DO
sition he continued until 1870, when he was
made manager of the Atlantic a. Pacific and
Great Western telegraph lines.
While still thus employed he founded The
Omaha Evening Bee, June 10, 1871, and a
few weeks later determined to devote his
entire time and energies to his newspaper
venture.
In 1870 Edward Rosewater had been
elected to the lower house OF the state
legislature and had served through its
stormy sessions with faithfulness and Eff
cheney. The Bee at once became an i'm
portant factor in local and state politics.
Its early ups and downs turned almost ex-
clusively upon the political fortunes OF the
anti-monopoly faction of the republican
party, OF which it was the acknowledged
representative. The fights engendered by
political strife were bitter in the extreme.
In 1872 the office OF The Bee was burned
by an incendiary, doubtless instigated by
political enemies. In 1876 Mr., Rosewater
was murderously assaulted and almost
killed by a negro, who took his Inspiration
from a conspiracy of political adversaries.
Yet The Bee prospered in the end. The
little sheet started as The Evening Bee
was enlarged and improved and the news
paper family was increased by the addition
OF The Weekly Bee. The Morning Bee,
The Sunday Bee. The dingy quarters of
the original paper went through an evolu-
tion, which eliminated in 1889 with the
completion and occupancy OF the palatial
Bee building.
Edward Rosewater was married in 1864
10 Miss Leah Colman OF Cleveland, daugh-
ter OF the dry goods merchant for whom
had formerly worked. He brought his
wife to Omaha Immediately after the mar
and set up his household establish
Qent in . little frame cottage which he