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Lawrence County in the 1870s and 1880s

A little more than a decade after the Civil War, Lawrence County, Illinois, was a flourishing agricultural county. Oil had not yet been discovered. The population was 12,533 in 1870, and ten years later it had increased by only about 1,000 people. Churchgoers outnumbered sinners. Trains ran north and south and east and west, meeting in Lawrenceville. Every rural neighborhood had a church, a school, and a country store. The streets were not paved, and there were no public utilities. Still, Bridgeport, Lawrenceville, Sumner, Pinkstaff, Birds, Chauncey, and St. Francisville served as beacons of civilization.

Previous blogs have taken deep dives into what life was like in Lawrence County during the late 19th century. Now we want to share the lives of some of the residents who called the county home during that time.

 The Buntins: A Pioneer Publishing Family of Lawrence County

In the middle of the nineteenth century, when towns along the Wabash were still finding their voice, John Francis Buntin brought a printing press to Lawrence County, Illinois, and helped give the community its first newspaper. What began as one man’s restless experiment in publishing became, for a brief but memorable span, a family calling—one carried forward by his children through hardship, illness, and loss.

John was born in 1813, in Vincennes, the son of Robert and Maria Shannon Buntin. Both parents were Irish-born, and Robert had been a Revolutionary War soldier. John was christened at St. Francis Xavier in Vincennes in 1817, and from that old Indiana river town he would eventually carry both his trade and his ambitions across the state line.

A Printer Looking for a Town

In 1846, Buntin moved to Lawrenceville, and the next winter established the Star-Spangled Banner, the first newspaper published in Lawrence County. He brought his press and materials from Vincennes, setting up shop in a county where printed news was still a novelty. The paper was described as independent in politics and arranged in six columns. Within a few years its name shifted, with “Star-Spangled” giving way to “American,” and the paper became known as the American Banner. Later it would be named the Rural Republican.

The newspaper itself proved as mobile as its founder. It was moved for a time to Olney, then returned by 1855 to Lawrence County, first at Russellville and by March 1856 once again in Lawrenceville. Through these moves, John F. Buntin earned his place as Lawrence County’s pioneer printer—a man who understood that a press could be more than machinery; it could be the heartbeat of a growing community.

The Family Behind the Press

In August 1848, John married Eliza Jane Kinkade in Lawrence County. Their children—Mary, George Kinkade, and Emma E.—grew up in a household where ink, type, deadlines, and public opinion were part of daily life. George followed his father into the printing office and worked as the printer. Mary, gifted with judgment and determination, would become editor of her father’s paper. Emma, the youngest, remained closely tied to the family paper through the man she married, Sam B. Day, foreman of the Rural Republican.

Losses That Changed the Household

John F. Buntin died on March 6, 1878. His death record listed bronchitis complicated by tuberculosis. He was buried in Lawrenceville City Cemetery, leaving behind not only a widow and children, but also a pressroom and a public voice that still needed tending.

After John’s death, the burden of family and newspaper work fell heavily on Mary. In December 1875 she had taken the editor’s chair at the Rural Republican, and after her father’s passing, she carried the paper forward with a reputation that reached neighboring editors. The Mount Carmel Register praised her work as “neat, spicy, pure and able.”

Mary Buntin, Editor

Mary Buntin, born about 1850 in Lawrence County, became the most public figure of the Buntin children. At a time when newspaper editing was demanding work and often a male profession, she earned the respect of the local “craft” through tact, clear judgment, and moral purpose. Her eulogy remembered that she used the columns of the Rural Republican for “the promotion of morality, intelligence and the betterment of mankind,” and that the paper became accepted by friends and opponents alike as a power for good within its circulation.

Mary’s strength was tested by repeated sorrow. Her brother George died in Lawrenceville on March 3, 1879, of phthisis pulmonalis—consumption, now known as tuberculosis. He was unmarried and only twenty-five or twenty-six years old, depending on the source. His tombstone in Lawrenceville City Cemetery bears the words, “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”

The blow devastated his mother. Already in fragile health, Eliza Jane declined further after George’s death and she herself died on November 6, 1880, of consumption. Her funeral was held at the family residence the following day, attended by many Lawrenceville citizens. The obituary suggested plainly that the death of her only son had shortened her life.

Mary herself was seriously ill by then. Still, the story of the family paper continued around her. On November 19, 1880, her younger sister Emma married Sam B. Day, the foreman of the Rural Republican. Just two days later, on Sunday morning, November 21, Mary died at her residence after a long illness. Sam Day then took over the editorial work.

Mary’s funeral was conducted by Rev. C. W. Sabine and Rev. W. S. Hennessy. Her pallbearers included Judge Hoffman, H. L. Cunningham, H. H. Corrie, B. H. Propes, D. L. Gold, and K. P. Snyder—prominent Lawrenceville men whose presence showed the esteem in which she was held.

Emma Buntin Day and the Final Chapter

Emma E. Buntin, born about 1857 in Lawrence County, was the youngest of John and Eliza’s known children. Her life, like Mary’s, was marked by both the ordinary details of a small-town household and the hard realities of disease. After her marriage to Sam B. Day, Emma became part of the last chapter of the Buntin publishing story. The couple had a son, Ralph F. Day, born August 22, 1881, who died early in childhood. Emma died on May 17, 1882, less than a year after his birth, of consumption, the same disease that had taken her father, mother, brother, and sister.

A Legacy in Ink

The Buntin family’s story is brief, but it is woven deeply into the beginnings of Lawrence County journalism. In a frontier community, a newspaper was more than a business. It announced marriages and deaths, argued politics, praised virtue, exposed misfortune, and preserved the passing life of a town. For the Buntins, the press was also family work—first a father’s enterprise, then a daughter’s responsibility, then a brother-in-law’s inheritance. Their lives were shadowed by tuberculosis and shortened by grief, yet the archive of newspapers they left behind still speaks to historians today.