The Robesonian., 1917-01-29
i BIT OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY I

in Large Part to Experience on
Robescnian-A GOOD Word for the
Old PAPER and Those Who Have
Been Connected With 1t
Bv REV. n. r. PITTMAN
From 1876 to 1880 l wrote many
pages for The Robesonian, signing
lily name n. R. ?. Three or four
years before the beginning OF that
ge.1od, M1llam Wa1ace McDlarmld
became euitor OF Tie RoOesonlan
ard entered tie office as print
ers devil. My compensation con-
sisted OF 81 per week and board and
room with a good bed in the home
cI ttitor McDlarmid.
". S. Nishart OF Lumberton said
IN tie Wilmington Star & few weeks
ago that i ''played the devil in Rob-
e.: oman office Ior 81 week and
board.' l told him a few days ago
mat l would report on him if ne
didn't behave himself. He said that
ne entered the office at 75 cents a
week and paid MS board.
Some people in Robson county
remember that in those "reconstruc-
ton days after the Civil War" it
paper men throughout the Southern
States knew that the people needed
newspapers, but the failure Of the
people to support the papers sent edi-
tors and publishers to Gethsemane
and the cross, and the printers to
poverty. l say this advisedly.
The soldiers who came out Of the
war were poor and their children who
were deprived of education, were not
fervently in favor of reading.
Two years after I entered The
Robesonlan office l was made fore
man of the printing plant. | had
learned to set type, make the forms
Of the paper and print it, and had
begun to write paragraphs -. about
the people. Often l addressed to the
subscribers every paper that went
cut of the office. l had begun to
read all the papers that came into
the office as exchanges.
My horizon was widening. In the
third year after l entered the Of
flee as "devil" l went to Ansonville,
! n. c., as a student in Carolina Cen
tral academy. Those who went with
me were Robert Wishart, Will Car
lyle, and Dovie Carlyle, now the no
bic wife of R. D. Caldwell.
Before being a printers devil |
had gone to three boarding schools
to one south Of Ashpole, where Arch.
AIcMillan was master, to one in the
| Townsend community, Union acad-
envy, where S. W. Bennett was mas
ter. After studying q year under
the direction of Needham B. Cobb at
Ansonville. near Wadesboro, n. G.
l entered Wake Forest college, from
which l graduated III 1881. l stud
led theology awhile at Louisville
KY, was pastor awhile at Wades-
poro, N. c., and was called in 1873:
to a pastorate in St. Louis, to q pas
torate in Jefferson City, the capi
tai of Missouri, and to Macon City
Nc. l accepted one Of these paste
. rates and became a resident of thu
Middle West.
: In 1885 I became pastor in st
: Joseph, Mo-, city of $4,000 popula
l ton and remained pastor there o
one church ten years. In 1886 l be
] came associate editor of the Centra
= Baptist and began writing regularly
r | held this position in iconnectio1
, with my strenuous pastoral worl
t about eight years. The paper wa
, the Oldest Baptist periodical west o
), the Mississippi river. After quittin
: this paper l became editor of tn
= Baptist Advance, and soon was eQus
e editor with my brother, A. McA. Pitt
n man Of the South Carolina Baptis
: which lasted seven years. After
The Word and Way of Kansas Cit,
-aTl
K half years. While I was on Th
n Word and Way its list Of subscrif
:. crs grew to twenty-five thoosand-
: or weekly Baptist paper in Amer
II ca.
: Anyway, my editorial work Won
n place for no in 'Who's Who
II America, without the slightest suG
II geetion from me.
/, Why 10 I write all this autobiogrs
y ply of "printers' devil"? I'll te
J. you. l honestly think that my tw
: years and few months in The Rof
= esonian office as "devil', typesette
n proof reader, maker Of the forms {
e the paper, etc, helped me onWa1
is quite as effectually as any year
o spent in Wake Forest college.
IS / learned how to form sentence
II how to begin ard complete then
d how to spell correctly; how to thin
p in paragraphs; how to think in wore
l. and utter my thought in words
words which made the thought Gle;
and plain to those who read what
IN wrote or heard what I spoke.
s. Is it not reasonable that I cheris
a. The Robesonian in the grateful az
:, loving memory of nv heart? I no
-, in my memory Mahonev, Mike Re
a., a., mond, Charlie Jones. Crump, Wis
:; art-men who faithfully and sac,
IL IL ficially helped to produce the p
'ae ae per in its days of sore trial. My a
= Ie fectionate memory yet clings to Y
~ w. McDiarmid, who toiled and stru
r.. gled; who heartily laughed with t
IL IT. people who saw the humor which
nd od always close to a purse that is
he I,e most empty; who loved the peol
,,r nT of Robson county, whether they ST.
nc ,;a scribed for the paper or did not; W
lis M;