Uriah Hunt Painter

Uriah Hunt Painter (March 5, 1837 – October 20, 1900) was an American journalist, lobbyist, entrepreneur, and investor. He broke the news of the Union defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run in 1861 and of the Confederate invasion of the North in 1862, became one of the earliest investors in Thomas Edison's phonograph company, and became implicated in the Crédit Mobilier scandal during the 1870s.

Early life Uriah Hunt was born on March 5, 1837, to Samuel Marshall and Ann (Vickers) Painter in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in the United States. His family was Quaker. Both his father and grandfather had worked as newspaper editors in West Chester. Painter attended Oberlin College before returning home in 1857 to run his father's faltering lumber concern. Negotiating an infusion of capital from Philadelphia-based investors, Painter ensured that the lumber company flourished, affording him a steady income for the rest of his life.

Career Painter came to Washington, D.C., in 1860 as a war correspondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He was the first to report the Union's defeat in the First Battle of Bull Run, "scooping the competition by a full 24 hours." Embedded with the Army of the Potomac, he interviewed freedom seekers and malingerers and deserters from both sides, becoming the first journalist to report on the Confederacy's plans to invade the North in September 1862. A furious Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton ordered his arrest in the response to the report, which Stanton deemed false. Painter was quickly released when his report proved true. He built the Lafayette Square Opera House in 1895. Under the auspices of industrialist Thomas A. Scott, he planned and organized the construction of the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad. They had two daughters, Ellen (Ella) Avery and Alice Elise. He died from stomach cancer on October 20, 1900, in Long Branch, New Jersey, at the age of 63. The society transferred another ten thousand papers, comprising material of interest beyond the region, to the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1951.